Joyce Grover, who heads the Kansas Coalition, says the number of domestic violence incidents reported to law enforcement in 2012 represented a 20-year high.
“There is a domestic violence incident that has occurred in Kansas every 21 minutes,” Grover says. “Law enforcement made a domestic violence arrest every 39 minutes and one domestic murder every 15 days.”
In fact, says Grover, more than one in four homicides in Kansas is domestic violence-related.
Kim Gandy, who heads the National Network To End Domestic Violence, says aside from the actual blows, the stress of living in a violent household leads to a host of long-term health problems.
“High blood pressure, circulatory, cardiovascular, chronic pain, gastrointestinal, central nervous system – a long list from the CDC of long-term health impacts,” Gandy says.
Gandy says domestic violence prevention is underfunded and it’s costing us all a lot of money in the long run.
