According to the National Coalition against Domestic Violence (NCADV), domestic and dating violence includes intimidation, emotional abuse, threats, physical violence, and sexual violence. The abuse is part of a “systematic pattern” of behavior the abuser uses to have power over and control of an intimate partner.

It is also something students experience–and something that the Campus SaVE Act (the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act of 2014) compels colleges and universities to know more about.

What you should know:

 Physical and sexual assaults, actual and threatened, are often what will alert you and others on campus to student dating and domestic violence.

  • It is estimated that half of the women in abusive relationships in the United States are physically injured by their partners.
  • According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS), 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men in the United States experience physical violence in an intimate relationship during their lifetimes. One in 5 women and 1 in 7 men experience severe physical violence by an intimate partner within their lifetimes.

The physical abuse you become aware of could be part of a cycle, rather than an isolated incident.

  • In the six months following an episode of dating violence or domestic violence, a third of battered women are victimized again.
  • About half of men who physically assault their partners do so at least three times a year, according to the Partnership Against Domestic Violence.

Physical abuse can be deadly.

  • About 20 percent of intimate partner violence involves a weapon, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
  • According to the Violence Policy Center, 72 percent of murder-suicides involve an intimate partner, and 94 percent of the murder victims are women.

People who are close to or support the victims also can be in danger.

  • People who attempt to help a victim may be hurt or killed.
  • A 2014 study about homicides related to intimate partner violence published in the American Journal of Public Health found that 20 percent of the people killed were not the abused partners, but their family members, friends, and neighbors, as well as bystanders, law enforcement responders, and other people who intervened.

Reprinted from “What Campuses Should Know about Student Dating and Domestic Violence,” Campus Law Considered, July 21, 2015. © Magna Publications. All rights reserved.