Millions of Americans have reported being victims of domestic violence. Experts say we need to talk about it more.
Almost 5.4 million Americans have reported being victims of domestic violence over the last five years, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The majority, nearly 80%, were women. And according to the FBI, domestic homicides more than doubled between 2019 and 2024, increasing from 1,065 to 2,339. The latest data has experts worried.
"Domestic violence remains one of the most persistent public health and safety crises in our country," Nathaniel Fields, CEO of the nonprofit Urban Resource Institute, told CBS News.
The issue is personal for Lisa DeSort, whose 20-year-old daughter Azsia Johnson was shot and killed in New York City in 2022. CBS News returned with her to the site where the shooting took place in October, which is also domestic violence awareness month.
DeSort carried a bouquet of flowers that she placed at the tree that stands where Johnson's ex-boyfriend, Isaac Argro, allegedly shot her. Johnson had been hiding at local shelters in the months leading up to the shooting, according to DeSort, but she decided to allow him to meet their 3-month-old baby one night in June 2022.
"Intimate partner violence is one of the most common charges in the borough of Manhattan, in the city of New York and nationwide," said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who charged then-23-year-old Argro with Johnson's murder. He has pleaded not guilty, and the case could head to trial next year. Bragg told CBS News his office is currently looking at more than 500 cases of intimate partner violence.
What's known as "intimate partner violence" is a subset of the broader category of domestic violence, which refers to violence carried out by any member of the family. Local, state and federal agencies have differing definitions of what constitutes domestic violence.
Intimate partner violence poses unique challenges to law enforcement and agencies that support victims, and the crime often goes unreported, according to experts who track it and organizations that provide support for victims of domestic violence.
"We talk about it when it's in the news, when some celebrity, some high-profile person, has committed domestic violence, but not when it affects everyday people," Fields said.
As a society, he said, leaders need to identify what domestic violence is and increase awareness of warning signs, such as controlling behavior and escalating violence, because relationships can devolve into domestic violence quickly. URI runs programs for students as well as incarcerated people to do just that.
"What we learned in working with thousands of young people in high schools is that we started too late, so we had to work with people in junior high schools," Fields said.
Despite the programming and public service announcements, the rate of domestic violence across the country has remained high. A CBS News analysis of FBI data found that 24% of all reported violent crime was domestic in nature. That's roughly the same rate as 2019, before the pandemic spurred a spike in violent crime, including homicides.
Gladys Ricart was murdered by her ex-boyfriend 26 years ago as she was preparing to leave for the church to marry her new love. The shooting was captured on home video, and the image of her being shot in her wedding gown jarred her Dominican American community in New York City's Washington Heights neighborhood.
Her niece Lethy Liriano was one of her bridesmaids, and today is an activist who leads the annual Brides' March, where hundreds of women don wedding dresses and march in upper Manhattan to call out domestic violence.
"We can understand how serious and prevalent and damaging this is to our community," Liriano said to marchgoers through her megaphone at this year's Brides' March on Sept. 26.
Speaking to CBS News at the march, Liriano said: "By hearing each other's stories, we are understanding that none of us are at fault for not knowing a horrific violent event was going to come."
In more than a dozen interviews with survivors of domestic violence, activists and experts, people said that domestic violence can become an intergenerational cycle.
DeSort said she herself was a victim of domestic violence and recognized the warning signs in her daughter's boyfriend. She said he would look at her daughter's phone and arrive unannounced, demanding to know where she was. And when Johnson was six months pregnant, DeSort said, he beat her.
"Immediately I caught onto the signs and I told her you can't be with this type of person," she said.