Somewhere between a third and half of domestic violence in the United States is never reported to police, and how much domestic violence goes unreported shifts noticeably from year to year. The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2024 National Crime Victimization Survey put the unreported share at about 36% of domestic violence incidents. In 2023 it was closer to 52%.1Bureau of Justice Statistics. Key Findings from the 2024 NCVS: Domestic Violence The swing itself matters: even the best federal surveys are tracking a moving target, and the real number of people harmed is almost certainly larger than any single data set shows.
What the Numbers Actually Show
The National Crime Victimization Survey is the federal government’s main tool for measuring crime that police records miss. Instead of counting police reports, it asks a nationally representative sample of households directly whether they experienced crime, whether they reported it, and why or why not.
In 2024, 64% of domestic violence victimizations and 61% of intimate partner violence victimizations were reported to police.1Bureau of Justice Statistics. Key Findings from the 2024 NCVS: Domestic Violence That was a jump from 2023, when about half of domestic violence went unreported.2Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2023 NCVS: Domestic Violence Over a longer window, a BJS study covering 2006 through 2015 found police were notified in about 56% of nonfatal domestic violence victimizations, averaging 1.3 million incidents a year.3Bureau of Justice Statistics. Police Response to Domestic Violence, 2006-2015
Those figures cover only nonfatal incidents. The CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey estimates that about 6.7 million women and 2.8 million men experience contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner each year, with millions more experiencing psychological aggression.4Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NISVS Intimate Partner Violence Data Brief A widely cited medical reference puts the overall annual figure at roughly 10 million people affected by family and domestic violence.5National Center for Biotechnology Information Bookshelf. Domestic Violence Even in a year when only a third of incidents go unreported, that share still adds up to millions of people whose experiences never reach law enforcement.
Why the Surveys Still Undercount
Official records show only what enters the system. Researchers call the invisible remainder the “dark figure” of crime, and even purpose-built surveys catch only part of it. The NCVS reaches roughly 240,000 households a year, which lets it pick up incidents that never became a report.6Bureau of Justice Statistics. Criminal Victimization, 2024 The CDC’s NISVS uses telephone interviews focused specifically on sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence, and often produces higher estimates because it asks about a wider range of conduct.4Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NISVS Intimate Partner Violence Data Brief
Both methods run into the same walls. Some victims won’t disclose abuse even in an anonymous survey, for the same reasons they don’t call police. An abuser may be within earshot during a phone interview. And surveys draw the line around “domestic violence” in different places: some count only physical and sexual violence, while the federal definition under the Violence Against Women Act covers physical abuse, sexual abuse, and patterns of coercive behavior that include psychological, economic, and technological abuse by a current or former intimate partner.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 34 USC 12291 – Definitions and Grant Provisions When definitions differ, so do the counts.
Hotline and shelter data fills in more. The National Domestic Violence Hotline handles hundreds of thousands of contacts a year from people who may never file a report. Layered together, these sources point in the same direction: the problem is substantially larger than police records reflect.
Why Victims Don’t Call Police
No single reason accounts for the gap. Most people living with abuse hit several barriers at once.
Fear of Retaliation
This is the reason that dominates the research. Victims worry that a call to police, a court filing, or even a hint that they tried to report will make the violence worse. The question often isn’t whether to report. It’s whether the person will be safe that night if they do.
Financial Control
Economic abuse is one of the most effective ways an abuser keeps a partner trapped. When one person controls the bank accounts, income, and credit, the other may have no money for rent, food, or transportation, let alone the cost of starting over. Reporting can mean the abuser’s arrest and the loss of the only household income, which for a victim with children can feel more dangerous than staying.
Shame, Self-Blame, and Stigma
Many survivors internalize the idea that the abuse is somehow their fault. Others fear that friends, family, or coworkers will judge them or not believe them. Some don’t yet recognize what is happening as abuse, especially when the harm is psychological, financial, or based on coercive control rather than visible injuries. By the time the pattern is clear, a victim may have spent years minimizing it.
Distrust of the Justice System
A victim who has had a bad experience with police, or watched someone else’s report go nowhere, may conclude reporting isn’t worth the risk. Privacy concerns are real: once a report is filed, the victim loses some control over who knows. Fear that child protective services will get involved and remove children can be a stronger deterrent than the abuse itself. Prior reports that led to no arrest, or to a quick release, reinforce the belief that the system won’t protect them.
Immigration Status
Immigrant victims carry an extra layer of fear. Abusers in mixed-status relationships often threaten to have their partner deported for calling police. Advocates who work with immigrant survivors report that most of their clients express serious concerns about contacting law enforcement, and about half have dropped legal cases because of immigration-related fear. Language barriers and unfamiliarity with the American system compound the problem. Federal protections do exist for immigrant victims who cooperate with law enforcement, including the U visa, but many victims don’t know about them or don’t trust that using them is safe.8eCFR. 8 CFR 214.14 – Alien Victims of Certain Qualifying Criminal Activity
Digital Surveillance
Technology has added a modern barrier. Abusers increasingly use monitoring software (sometimes called “stalkerware”), shared phone accounts, and location tracking to watch a partner’s communications and movements. A victim who texts a friend, calls a hotline, or searches for a shelter may be doing so on a device the abuser can read in real time. Research shows that victims who suspect their phones are monitored often stop reaching out for help because the risk of being caught is immediate. Many police departments lack the training and technical tools to detect this software, so even victims who report may not get effective help on the surveillance side.
Barriers Facing LGBTQ+ Victims
Reporting can mean outing yourself to police, family, or coworkers. Some state domestic violence laws were historically written in ways that excluded same-sex couples, though this has improved. Shelters may not accept transgender individuals or may feel unsafe for sexual minority men. Research consistently finds that LGBTQ+ survivors report low confidence in law enforcement’s sensitivity and in whether local services will understand their needs.
Who Gets Undercounted Most
Reporting rates are not uniform. A Bureau of Justice Statistics analysis found that 49% of intimate partner violence against women was reported to police, compared with 72% against men.9Bureau of Justice Statistics. Female Victims of Violence That gap may seem counterintuitive. Researchers believe it partly reflects differences in the types of incidents involved and the likelihood that someone other than the victim, such as a neighbor or a responding officer on a separate call, initiates the report.
Male victims face their own barriers. Cultural expectations about masculinity can make men reluctant to identify as abuse victims, and many services remain oriented toward female survivors. LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and people in rural areas with limited access to services all report at lower rates than the general population. The consistent takeaway across every demographic: the official numbers undercount, and the groups with the fewest resources tend to be undercounted the most.
Getting Help Without Filing a Report
Reaching out to a hotline is not the same as making an official report. The National Domestic Violence Hotline operates around the clock: call 800-799-7233, text “START” to 88788, or use the live chat at thehotline.org. Advocates can help with safety planning, local shelter referrals, and legal navigation, and they understand the reporting barriers described above. If your phone may be monitored, consider using a device the abuser doesn’t have access to, such as a public library computer or a trusted friend’s phone.