ABSTRACT
The relatively few attempts to estimate the degree of injury and the monetary cost of family violence are based on limited or questionable data and undemonstrated assumptions. The data on intrafamily homicides, however, are much more complete and are probably the most accurate figures on family violence. The true accounting of the cost of family violence must also include the cost of providing mental health and social services to victims and the cost of treating aggressors. Examples of other costs are psychiatric and other psychological services; police services; social services, including the cost of child-abuse investigations and remedial actions; legal costs, including divorce; and the cost of the violence and other crimes committed by those abused in childhood. Severely assaulted women had much higher rates of psychological distress than other women, including double the incidence of headaches, four times the rate of feeling depressed, and five-and-a-half times more suicide attempts.
