Growing recognition of the life-threatening nature of strangulation and the difficulty in prosecuting these offenses as felonies has led jurisdictions across the country and the globe to enact strangulation-specific statutes or include strangulation-specific language in existing statutes. A 2010 Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study estimated that 1.1 million women were strangled or suffocated in the preceding twelve months, and more than 11.6 million women who participated in the survey had been strangled or suffocated in their lifetime. 7 And non-fatal strangulation events are not a rare occurrence. Research into domestic-violence-related homicides shows that a history of non-fatal strangulation is “one of the most accurate predictors for the subsequent homicide of victims of domestic violence.” 6 One such study found that women who have been subject to a non-fatal strangulation incident were approximately 700 percent more likely to be the victim of homicide than other domestic violence victims. 4 In the United States, women are killed by a current or former intimate partner “more often than by any other type of perpetrator.” 5 3 Although domestic and intimate partner violence is not gender-specific, women are the victims in a vast majority of cases. 2 In fact, between 20, fifteen percent of all violent victimizations were attributed to an intimate partner. have been a victim of severe physical violence at the hands of an intimate partner. One in four women and one in seven men in the U.S.
Like drowning, trapped in the water beneath the ice, the panic, the desperation to breathe, yet not being able to. How he was using his bare hands to kill me-it was so intimate, he was so close to me. And watching him-how personal the rage was. Feeling myself slipping away, so fully conscious and hyper aware. Then as I began to suffocate, I could feel myself dying. The fighting for freedom, the pain of his hands around my neck. There was that first part of the attack that so utterly terrified me as I anticipated my imminent death, panicking with what I could do. The department's policy on the handling of cases involving repeat offenders of family abuse or domestic violence.He had even pulled a gun on me once, slapped me black and blue, but nothing felt as scary as this. The department's policy on domestic violence incidents involving law-enforcement officers andħ. The legal and community resources available to allegedly abused persons in the department's jurisdiction Ħ. The department's policy on providing transportation to an allegedly abused person ĥ. The standards for completion of a required incident report to be filed with the department including the existence of any special circumstances which would dictate a course of action other than arrest Ĥ. The standards for determining who is the predominant physical aggressor pursuant to § 19.2-81.3 ģ. Any policies and procedures established under this section shall at a minimum provide guidance to law-enforcement officers on the following:Ģ. Any local police or sheriff's department is authorized to adopt an arrest policy that prescribes additional requirements under this section. The Virginia Department of State Police and the police and sheriff's departments of every political subdivision in the Commonwealth shall establish an arrest policy and procedures for domestic violence and family abuse cases. Domestic violence policies and procedures for law-enforcement agencies in the Commonwealth.