Senate Resolution No. 2349

BY: Senator WEBB

MEMORIALIZING Governor Kathy Hochul to proclaim
May 14, 2024, as Domestic Violence Awareness and
Prevention Day in the State of New York

WHEREAS, Domestic violence is a pattern of coercive behavior and
tactics used by someone against their intimate partner in an attempt to
gain or maintain power and control, and types of abuse can include
physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, technological and economic
abuse or threats of actions or other patterns of coercive behavior that
influence another person within an intimate partner relationship; and

WHEREAS, Domestic violence is not limited to specific groups based
on race, socioeconomic status, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation,
ethnicity, age, religious affiliation, or social location, but rather is
perpetrated by abusers from all social groups; and

WHEREAS, On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically
abused by an intimate partner in the United States -- more than 10
million people over the course of a year; and

WHEREAS, On average, one in three women and one in four men
experience some form of domestic violence or interpersonal violence in
their lifetime, and nearly one in five women have been raped by an
intimate partner; and

WHEREAS, Due to systemic racism, racist policies, and racist
societal structures, both Black women and Black men experience intimate
partner violence at a disproportionately high rate with 45.1 percent of
Black women and 40.1 percent of Black men experiencing intimate partner
physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate
partner stalking in their lifetimes; and

WHEREAS, Domestic violence affects the LGBTQ+ community at a rate
equal to or even greater than that experienced by the cisgender,
heterosexual community, with 43.8 percent of lesbian women and 26
percent of gay men experiencing rape, physical violence and/or stalking
by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime, and 54 percent
of the transgender and gender non-conforming community have reported
experiencing some form of intimate partner violence, with transgender
women of color experiencing heightened levels of violence; and

WHEREAS, According to a study from the National Institute of
Justice, more than half of Native American and Alaska Native women have
experienced physical violence at the hands of an intimate partner; and

WHEREAS, Nearly 20.9 percent of female high school students and 13.4
percent of male high school students report being physically or sexually
abused by a dating partner, and 43 percent of dating college women
report experiencing violent or abusive behaviors from their partner; and

WHEREAS, Researchers estimate that one in 15 children in the United
States are exposed to intimate partner violence and children who witness
intimate partner violence growing up are at increased risk for

delinquency, greater mental health problems and the potential for
intergenerational violence in dating and intimate partner relationships;
and

WHEREAS, Domestic violence survivors experience a host of physical
and mental health-related consequences at far greater rates than their
counterparts who have not been abused; and

WHEREAS, According to an annual survey conducted by the National
Network to End Domestic Violence, New York State consistently has the
greatest demand for domestic violence services in the country with
10,456 survivors requesting services on just one day in 2023, and 1,045
unfulfilled service requests on that same day because of insufficient
resources or staff; and

WHEREAS, In 2022, there were 212,320 orders of protection issued
that required entry in the New York State Registry, a 9 percent increase
from 2021, and a 28 percent increase from 2020; and

WHEREAS, The NYS Office of Children and Family Services reported
that more than 53,000 survivors of domestic violence and their children
received services from New York residential and non-residential domestic
violence service providers, and more than 288,000 hotline calls were
received across the State in 2022; and

WHEREAS, According to the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services,
there were 61 intimate partner homicides in New York State in 2022; and

WHEREAS, The cost of a single homicide is estimated at $17.25
million when considering medical care, lost future earnings, other
related public programming and services, and property damage and other
losses; and

WHEREAS, The economic burden of domestic violence in the United
States is staggering, with costs to the U.S. economy estimated to exceed
$8.3 billion annually, with 21-60 percent of victims of intimate partner
violence losing their jobs due to reasons stemming from the abuse; and

WHEREAS, Primary prevention strategies address the root causes and
conditions that make domestic violence possible, and public health
research has shown that implementing prevention activities at multiple
levels on the social ecology scale - individual, relationship,
community, and societal - will lead to lasting social change; and

WHEREAS, Primary prevention is focused on establishing gender
equality, cultivating, and promoting healthy relationship behaviors, and
changing conditions in communities and culture to stop domestic violence
before it starts; and

WHEREAS, Domestic violence advocates consistently provide
comprehensive and compassionate life-saving services, advocacy, and
support to survivors of domestic violence and their children, while
leading essential primary prevention efforts within their communities to
motivate the change needed to stop domestic violence from happening in
the first place; and

WHEREAS, As part of executing its mission, the New York State
Coalition Against Domestic Violence seeks to create and support the

social change necessary to prevent and confront all forms of domestic
violence, to ensure the availability and accessibility of innovative and
effective supports and services for all domestic violence survivors and
their families, and to dismantle oppression, end systemic racism and
uproot the inequities that foster violence; and

WHEREAS, New York State needs to continually and significantly
invest in services and supports for domestic violence survivors and
their families in order to meet the rising demand for assistance and to
continue progress toward ending domestic violence once and for all; now
therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to
memorialize Governor Kathy Hochul to proclaim May 14, 2024, as Domestic
Violence Awareness and Prevention Day in the State of New York; and be
it further

RESOLVED, That copies of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be
transmitted to The Honorable Kathy Hochul, Governor of the State of New
York; and the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.