Marriage, Divorce, And Charges Of Domestic Violence And Abuse by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D.
Marriage, Divorce, And Charges Of Domestic Violence And Abuse by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D.© 2003 , 2008 Equal Justice Foundation
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The population-normalized divorce rates for the twenty-two Colorado judicial districts are included in Table 37 for 1999, Table 39 for 2000, Table 41 for 2001, Table 43 for 2002, Table 45 for 2003, Table 47 for 2004, Table 49 for 2005, Table 51 for 2006, and Table 53 for 2007. Divorce data for each year are compiled for comparison in Table 68. Implicit in these tabulations is the assumption that the percentage of married couples is reasonably uniform in all judicial districts in Colorado.
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residents 2 |
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1. Total number of domestic relations filings are given by Colorado State Court for each year and are population-normalized based on county estimates by U.S Census Bureau. 2. Divorces includes all dissolutions, legal separations, and invalid marriage. |
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Of initial interest is the fact that the divorce rate in Colorado has consistently decreased from 63 per 10,000 residents in 1999 to 53 per 10,000 in 2005. However, in 2006 the divorce rate inexplicably jumped to 62 per 10,000 residents (Table 68), but dropped again in 2007 to 53 per 10,000.
Also of note is the much smaller standard deviation (S.D. 7-9) between judicial districts for divorces than for protection orders (S.D. 23-30). The small standard deviation indicates couples get divorced at a fairly uniform rate across the state and the court statistics are adequately sampling this variable. Filing for divorce or separation is an individual decision and thus serves, in a sense, as a check on court statistics.
As might be expected, some judicial districts with a large number of restraining orders, e.g. Third, Fourth, and Sixteenth (Table 58), have relatively high divorce rates, but the Twenty First Judicial District has a consistently high divorce rate (Table 68), yet near average numbers of restraining orders (Table 53). Other districts, e.g., the Tenth and Nineteenth (Table 47), have high rates of restraining orders but average divorce rates.
Available data thus suggest that the issuance of restraining orders is not a primary factor driving divorces, nor are divorces solely driving the issuance of restraining orders.
While protection orders and domestic violence complaints cannot be shown to be driving divorces, or vice versa, abundant anecdotal evidence shows that the use of such orders is a major and commonplace weapon to gain advantage in a divorce. It is reliably estimated that at least one-third of divorces in Colorado involve allegations of domestic violence or abuse primarily to gain advantage, particularly when child custody is at issue. An estimated 9,000 of the domestic abuse and violence filings in 2007 thus involved divorce disputes, commonly child custody issues. Note that estimate is closely aligned with the estimate of false allegations determined previously.
One reason for a lack of direct correlation between domestic violence, restraining (protection) orders, and divorce is that the majority of the men and women involved in these incidents simply aren't married. That fact is vividly illustrated in Table 69.
The current statewide domestic violence laws were passed in 1994 and in 1995 half of the domestic violence incidents reported involved either married couples or partners living together (Table 69). The thirteen years since then have seen a dramatic drop and by 2007 only 38% of the reported incidents involved married or common law couples. Worse, the drop in reported DV incidents occurs entirely among married couples. Initially 41-42% of reported incidents originated from married couples but by 2007 only 31% of the incidents involved married couples (Table 69). This finding is profound in that, in the main, we really are not talking about "wife battering" in Colorado. In fact, by 2007 less than one-third of reported DV incidents involved married couples.
John Maguire has pointed out that: "Although the words 'domestic' violence are commonly used, some commentators say that a better description would be 'shack-up' violence..." But that isn't borne out by the available data either. From 1995 to 2007 Table 69 shows essentially no variation in the percentage of incidents involving common-law marriages and the percentage of all incidents for such couples is consistently a low 7-10%. One might also infer that, since the percentage of DV incidents reported by common-law couples has remained relatively constant, the total number of common-law couples has also remained relatively constant. I don't have supporting data for that conclusion, howerver.
There are at least two possible explanations for why the percentage of DV incident reports for married couples has dropped 10-11% in the thirteen years since the statewide domestic violence laws have been in effect:
• Hypothesis One: Couples have learned, at their peril, that it is a very bad idea to call 911 in any domestic dispute. This hypothesis is supported by the police data presented in Table 56. However, if that were the entire reason, why haven't incident reports from common-law relationships dropped a similar amount? As noted above, domestic violence has long been reported as "shack up" violence, which certainly isn't supported by the data in Table 69.
• Hypothesis Two: The percentage of married couples in the Colorado population has declined by 10% since the domestic violence laws were passed and that is reflected in the percentage of DV incidents reported in Table 69. That inference is strongly supported by the available data illustrated in Table 70. This hypothesis clearly links passage of the domestic violence laws in 1994 to the dramatic decline in marriages since then.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has been tracking marriage rates since 1950. For most of the fifty-plus years between 1950 and 2004, the marriage rate has averaged around 100 per 10,000 citizens per year, with a low in 1956 of 81 and a high of 125 in 1981. But since 1994 the marriage rate has been declining fairly consistently (Table 70) and, by 2004, stood at a historic low of 77 per 10,000 citizens. Also it is quite evident from Table 70 that as the number of marriages declined so did the number of divorces. One expects marriage and divorce to be coupled variables.
It is unlikely to be simply a coincidence that statewide domestic violence laws were passed in 1994. However, as noted above (Table 68), it has been evident since archival data became available from the Colorado courts that there was no direct relationship between domestic violence cases and divorce rates.
In strong contrast with the decline in marriages and divorces is the increase in restraining orders evident in Table 70. An inverse relationship between marriages and restraining orders is plainly evident in Table 70 through 2004. Clearly, the implication is that as charges of domestic violence and abuse increase, the number of marriages declines. That finding agrees with common sense and the data in Table 69. Marriages are built on trust and a restraining order or domestic violence accusation destroys any and all trust in one's partner. Available data clearly link passage of the statewide DV laws in 1994 with a 10% overall decline in the number of married coupes in Colorado since then. It is expected the decline in marriages is much larger than 10% among the younger population.
With the rate of restraining orders virtually equal to the marriage rate, 73 versus 77 in 2004, does anyone think our society can long survive under these laws and practices?
An inverse relationship between restraining orders and divorce begs for explanation but data for several more years is required to establish any clear trend. At present it appears that divorce is most strongly coupled with the number of marriages. Naturally, the fewer marriages the fewer divorces, and that relationship is plain in Table 70.
There are, of course, many other factors contributing to the decline of marriage in today's society, e.g., the easy availability of sex without getting married. Women also blame men, as usual, for having a fear of commitment. But it is a rare man today who has not been caught up in the nightmare of a divorce, allegations of domestic violence, a restraining order, or faced charges of sexual harassment; or at least has a close friend, co-worker, parent, sibling, or other relative who has been through the horror of our present legal system.
If unsupported allegations of domestic violence and abuse can be freely made in divorce and custody disputes with the law strongly favoring the female, then a man has to be functionally insane to marry and a drooling idiot to sire a child.
By not marrying and using modern birth control methods, our best and brightest largely avoid the nightmares our family laws and courts have become. As a result, marriage laws have become a breeding experiment in stupidity.
| Home | Abstract | Contents | Site Map | Tables | Index | Bibliography |
| Comments? | Get Newsletter | Help the EJF |
| Chapter 10 — Demographics Of Domestic Violence In Colorado |
| Next — Demographic summary |
| Back — Uniform standards for domestic violence cases do not exist |
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