October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and in the third and final part of our series on “DV,” we look at the legal side of the issue, and the challenges of prosecuting such cases.
According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, more than 10 million people per year in the United States are physically abused by an intimate partner. That’s about 20 people per minute — one in three women and one in four men have experienced such abuse.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement reports that domestic violence arrests in 2020 totaled 3,663 in the four counties of the 1st Judicial Circuit of Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa and Walton counties.