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| Chapter 8 Demographics Of Domestic Violence In Colorado |
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Fiscal year 2000 statistics for the Colorado courts for domestic violence charges, with associated mandatory restraining orders, are given in Table 32, with a total of 13,929, and civil restraining orders are tabulated in Table 30, totaling 11,951, for a combined total of 25,880 such orders. These tables are compiled by the State Court Administrator's Office and are available from the Colorado State Court web site and are combined and presented here in Table 41.
County populations: U.S. Census Bureau Restraining orders and divorces: Colorado State Court Tables 16, 30, & 32 |
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1. A restraining order is mandated by law C.R.S. § 18-1-1001. 2. The National Crime Victim Survey (NCVS) estimate is based on Dugan's (2003) finding that 0.5% of households suffer an incident of criminal domestic violence in a given year. For the 1,658,238 households in Colorado the NCVS data suggests there should be ~8,300 criminal DV incidents in the state. CBI data indicate 7,653 incidents reported to police (Table 72). 3. Average is from the sum of civil and criminal restraining orders (25,880)divided by the state population minus Denver City and County. Note that all civil restraining orders are included. 4. Divorces includes all dissolutions, legal separations, and invalid marriage. |
Not including Denver, the average number of restraining orders for 2000 is 69 per 10,000 Colorado residents, with a standard deviation of 30 (Table 41).
The 2000 Census found 1,658,238 households in Colorado. Using Gaquin's (1977-78) value of 0.22% as a low-end estimate of households that suffer an incident of criminal domestic violence in a given year would suggest only 3,650 incidents in 2000. Dugan's (2003, p. 299) more contemporary, and larger sample, value of 0.5% suggests 8,300 reported and unreported incidents of criminal domestic violence in Colorado in 2000. Estimates of reported and unreported criminal domestic violence based on Dugan's value are in good agreement with the 7,653 incidents of domestic violence reported by police agencies to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in fiscal year 2000.
For comparison, an estimate of DV incidents based on the NCVS data is broken out in Table 41 for each judicial district. As the police data correlate with the NCVS estimate, citizens have every right to expect that court data should correlate with both the police data and the NCVS estimates. They do not.
As the NCVS estimate includes both reported and unreported cases of criminal domestic violence based on statements from the victims, the NCVS data should be somewhat higher than the number of police incidents. Similarly, not every criminal case brought forward by the police can be successfully prosecuted. The number of court cases should then be smaller than both the NCVS estimate and the number of police incidents. Clearly that is not the case as documented in Table 41 and Table 80 through 2010.
In terms of the rate of restraining orders, the Third , Twelfth, and Sixteenth judicial districts lead the state with 127, 131, and 136 restraining orders per 10,000 citizens, respectively, for the year 2000.
Again for the year 2000, the Fourth Judicial District (El Paso and Teller counties) is far ahead of the rest with 3,529 domestic violence cases though the restraining order rate has dropped to 107 per 10,000 residents. For 2000 this amounts to 22.3% of all restraining orders issued in Colorado but only 14.3% of the sampled population lives in that judicial district (Table 41).
Table 42 is a continuing attempt to see where restraining orders and domestic violence correlate with other societal problems. Again, the implicit assumption underlying Table 42 is that domestic violence is associated with other social problems such as alcoholism, drug use, etc. For example, underage alcohol abuse and drug use would be associated with abusive or broken homes, and that Joe Six Pack likely gets into other kinds of trouble, e.g., bar brawls, for which he is arrested as well .
Kit Carson, Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington, and Yuma |
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County populations: U.S. Census Bureau Misdemeanors: Colorado State Court Table 32 |
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| Chapter 8 Demographics Of Domestic Violence In Colorado |
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This site is supported and maintained by the Equal Justice Foundation.