The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation this week released a study that analyzed the state’s domestic violence crime data as reported by law enforcement agencies through the Tennessee Incident Based Reporting System program in an effort to gain more insight into the problem of domestic violence in Tennessee. The report analyzes offense data flagged as domestic related from 2010 through 2012 and shows a 3.4 percent decrease in offenses reported during that time period, a .4 percent drop from 2010 to 2011, and a 2.9 percent decrease from 2011 to 2012.
A count of domestic violence victims reported from 2010 to 2012 in the state of Tennessee where the gender of the victim was known totaled 252,288. The majority of the victims were female at nearly 72 percent, outnumbering male victims almost three to one. A total of 25,156 juveniles were reported as victims and account for approximately 10 percent of all victims. Due to the nature of the close personal relationships between victim and offender, it is believed there is an underreporting of domestically related offenses.
The offenses analyzed for the study included murder, kidnapping, forcible rape, forcible sodomy, sexual assault with an object, forcible fondling, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, stalking, incest and statutory rape. Simple assault accounted for the greatest majority of all domestic offenses at 69.2 percent.