Domestic Violence/Intimate Partner Violence

California’s Domestic Violence Advisory Council defines domestic violence as a spectrum and often a pattern of behaviors that includes physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, and psychological abuse and/or economic control used by adults or adolescents against their current or former intimate partners in an attempt to exercise power and authority, which has a destructive, harmful effect on individuals, the family and the community.

Domestic violence, also known as intimate partner violence, is a major public health problem in California that affects all age and socio-economic groups. Data from the state’s Department of Justice shows that in 2003, local law enforcement received almost 200,000 domestic violence calls for assistance.