Domestic violence homicides in Iowa up 52% in last three years

DES MOINES, Iowa — October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and advocates want people to know what’s happening behind closed doors.

The Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence says that there has been a 52% increase in domestic violence homicides in the last three years. In 2022, there were 23 reported, 2023 had 30 and now in this last fiscal year of 2024, there were 35 cases reported.

Of the 88 Iowa domestic violence homicides in the past three years, 38 were current partners. Sixteen were newborn to age five. The majority, 65%, of the 88 deaths involved a gun.

“It’s something that is easy to turn away from because it’s ugly, it’s uncomfortable. We don’t want to think of individuals being unsafe within their home. It is happening here,” Lindsay Pingel, with the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said.

The numbers they’ve collected are just those that are reported and researched. It’s suspected that there are a lot of cases not counted.

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According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, an average of 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in the U.S. That’s more than 12 million people a year.

But domestic abuse isn’t always just physical.

“We’re often looking for marks and bruises on someone’s body when there’s so many other ways that people are impacted by domestic violence. They might be struggling with economic abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse. The more we can talk about it, and the more that we can bring in systems and communities to recognize that it’s happening is the first step to actually preventing it,” she said.

This type of abuse can happen to anyone.

“When we look at the numbers over the last three years, women continue to be the most impacted group by domestic violence,” Pingel said. “However, domestic violence is a crime that thrives in secrecy and silence, and it affects everyone, regardless of gender, race, background, socioeconomic status. And a lot of times the reverberation impacts entire communities, whether we know it or not.”

Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence has 23 victim service provider agencies in all 99 counties in Iowa. They have different levels of free services, help and resources. They encourage anyone who may need it to reach out.

You can visit ICADV.org, call the Iowa Victim Service Call Center at 1-800-770-1650 or text “IOWAHELP” to 20121. They have 24/7 support available.