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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Testimony: 

Before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate: 

For Release on Delivery: 
Expected at 10:00 a.m. EDT:
Wednesday, July 13, 2011: 

Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Dating Violence, and Stalking: 

National Data Collection Efforts Underway to Address Some Information 
Gaps: 

Statement of Eileen R. Larence, Director:
Homeland Security and Justice: 

GAO-11-833T: 

Chairman Leahy, Ranking Member Grassley, and Members of the Committee: 

I am pleased to be here today to discuss issues related to the 
reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). In hearings 
conducted from 1990 through 1994, Congress noted that violence against 
women was a problem of national scope and that the majority of crimes 
associated with domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking were 
perpetrated against women. These hearings culminated in the enactment 
of VAWA in 1994 to address these issues on a national level.[Footnote 
1] VAWA established grant programs within the Departments of Justice 
(DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS) for state, local, and Indian 
tribal governments and communities. These grants have various 
purposes, such as providing funding for direct services including 
emergency shelter, counseling, and legal services for victims of 
domestic violence, sexual assaults and stalking across all segments of 
the population. Recipients of funds from these grant programs include, 
among others, state agencies, tribes, shelters, rape crisis centers, 
organizations that provide legal services, and hotlines. In 2000, 
during the reauthorization of VAWA, language was added to the law to 
provide greater emphasis on dating violence.[Footnote 2] The 2006 
reauthorization of VAWA expanded existing grant programs and added new 
programs addressing, among other things, young victims.[Footnote 3] In 
fiscal year 2011, Congress appropriated approximately $418 million for 
violence against women programs administered by DOJ and made an 
additional $133 million available for programs administered by HHS. 

The 2006 reauthorization of VAWA required us to study and report on 
data indicating the prevalence of domestic violence, dating violence, 
sexual assault, and stalking among men, women, youth, and children, as 
well as services available to the victims.[Footnote 4] Such data could 
be used to inform decisions regarding investments in grant programs. 
In response, we issued two reports in November 2006 and July 2007 on 
these issues, respectively.[Footnote 5] My statement today is based on 
these reports and selected updates we conducted in July 2011 related 
to actions DOJ and HHS have taken since our prior reviews to improve 
the quality of recipient data.[Footnote 6] My statement, as requested, 
highlights findings from those reports and discusses the extent to 
which (1) national data collection efforts report on the prevalence of 
men, women, youth, and children who are victims of domestic violence, 
sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking, and (2) the federal 
government has collected data to track the types of services provided 
to these categories of victims and any challenges federal departments 
report that they and their grant recipients face in collecting and 
reporting demographic characteristics of victims receiving such 
services by type of service. 

For the reports, we conducted a literature search focusing on 
reporting systems and surveys from which results were issued or 
reported since 2001 to help identify national data collection efforts 
related to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and 
stalking.[Footnote 7] We also obtained information from and 
interviewed officials at DOJ and HHS. Information obtained included 
reports the agencies' grant recipients are required to complete on the 
use of their grant funds, among other things. In addition, we met with 
20 grant recipients that provided services, such as emergency shelter, 
legal advocacy, and rape crisis counseling, to victims within their 
communities as well as 3 grant recipients that provided services to 
victims throughout the United States. More detailed information on the 
scope and methodology from our previous work including our selection 
methodology for the 23 grant recipients, can be found within each 
specific report. For the updates, we met with DOJ and HHS officials 
and reviewed documents such as updated forms for grant recipients to 
report information on activities conducted. We conducted this work in 
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

In summary, as we reported in November 2006, the amount of national 
research that has been conducted on the prevalence of domestic 
violence and sexual assault among men, women, youth, and children was 
limited, and less research had been conducted on the prevalence of 
dating violence and stalking. However, efforts underway by HHS and DOJ 
help address some of these information gaps. Data collected for the 11 
grant programs we reviewed did not contain information on the extent 
to which men, women, youth, and children receive services by type of 
service for all services. Moreover, challenges exist for collecting 
such data, such as concerns about victims' confidentiality and safety, 
resource constraints, burdening recipients, and technological issues. 

National Data Collection Efforts on the Prevalence of Domestic 
Violence and Sexual Assault Provided Limited Data, but Efforts 
Underway Help Address Some Information Gaps: 

In November 2006, we reported that since 2001, the amount of national 
research that has been conducted on the prevalence of domestic 
violence and sexual assault had been limited, and less research had 
been conducted on dating violence and stalking.[Footnote 8] At that 
time, no single, comprehensive effort existed that provided nationwide 
statistics on the prevalence of these four categories of crime among 
men, women, youth, and children. Rather, various national efforts 
addressed certain subsets of these crime categories among some 
segments of the population and were not intended to provide 
comprehensive estimates. For example, HHS's Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Violent Death Reporting 
System, which collects incident-based data from multiple sources, such 
as coroner/medical examiner reports, gathered information on violent 
deaths resulting from domestic violence and sexual assaults, among 
other crimes.[Footnote 9] However, it did not gather information on 
deaths resulting from dating violence or stalking incidents. 

In our November 2006 report, we noted that designing a single, 
comprehensive data collection effort to address these four categories 
of crime among all segments of the population independent of existing 
efforts would be costly, given the resources required to collect such 
data. Furthermore, it would be inefficient to duplicate some existing 
efforts that already collect data for certain aspects of these 
categories of crime. Specifically, in our November 2006 report, we 
identified 11 national efforts that had reported data on certain 
aspects of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and 
stalking. However, limited national data were available to estimate 
prevalence from these 11 efforts because they (1) largely focused on 
incidence rather than prevalence, (2) used varying definitions for the 
types of crimes and categories of victims covered, and (3) had varying 
scopes in terms of incidents and categories they addressed. 

Focus on incidence. Four of the 11 national data collection efforts 
focused solely on incidence--the number of separate times a crime is 
committed against individuals during a specific time period--rather 
than prevalence--the unique number of individuals who were victimized 
during a specific time period. As a result, information gaps related 
to the prevalence of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating 
violence, and stalking, particularly in the areas of dating violence 
among victims age 12 and older and stalking among victims under age 18 
existed at the time of our November 2006 report. Obtaining both 
incidence and prevalence data is important for determining which 
services to provide to the four differing categories of crime victims. 
HHS also noted that both types of data are important for determining 
the impact of violence and strategies to prevent it from occurring. 

Although perfect data may never exist because of the sensitivity of 
these crimes and the likelihood that not all occurrences will be 
disclosed, agencies have taken initiatives since our report was issued 
to help address some of these gaps or have efforts underway. These 
initiatives are consistent with our recommendation that the Attorney 
General and Secretary of Health and Human Services determine the 
extent to which initiatives being planned or underway can be designed 
or modified to address existing information gaps. For example, DOJ's 
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), in 
collaboration with CDC, sponsored a nationwide survey of the incidence 
and prevalence of children's (ages 17 and younger) exposure to 
violence across several major crime categories, including witnessing 
domestic violence and peer victimization (which includes teen dating 
violence). OJJDP released incidence and prevalence measures related to 
children's exposure to violence, including teen dating violence, in 
2009. Thus, Congress, agency decision makers, practitioners, and 
researchers have more comprehensive information to assist them in 
making decisions on grants and other issues to help address teen 
dating violence. To address information gaps related to teen dating 
violence and stalking victims under the age of 18, in 2010, CDC began 
efforts on a teen dating violence prevention initiative known as 
"Dating Matters." One activity of this initiative is to identify 
community-level indicators that can be used to measure both teen 
dating violence and stalking in high-risk urban areas. CDC officials 
reported that they plan to begin implementing the first phase of 
"Dating Matters" in as many as four high-risk urban areas in September 
2011 and expect that the results from this phase will be completed by 
2016. Thus, it is too early to tell the extent to which this effort 
will fully address the information gap related to prevalence of 
stalking victims under the age of 18. 

Varying definitions. The national data collection efforts we reviewed 
could not provide a basis for combining the results to compute valid 
and reliable nationwide prevalence estimates because the efforts used 
varying definitions related to the four categories of crime. For 
example, CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System's definition of 
dating violence included the intentional physical harm inflicted upon 
a survey respondent by a boyfriend or girlfriend.[Footnote 10] In 
contrast, the Victimization of Children and Youth Survey's definition 
did not address whether the physical harm was intentional.[Footnote 
11] To address the issue of varying definitions, we recommended that 
the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, 
to the extent possible, require the use of common definitions when 
conducting or providing grants for federal research. This would 
provide for leveraging individual collection efforts so that the 
results of such efforts could be readily combined to achieve 
nationwide prevalence estimates. HHS agreed with this recommendation. 
In commenting on our November 2006 draft report, DOJ expressed concern 
regarding the potential costs associated with implementing this and 
other recommendations we made and suggested that a cost-benefit 
analysis be conducted. We agreed that performing a cost-benefit 
analysis is a critical step, as acknowledged by our recommendation 
that DOJ and HHS incorporate alternatives for addressing information 
gaps deemed cost-effective in future budget requests. HHS agreed with 
this recommendation and both HHS and DOJ have taken actions to address 
it by requesting or providing additional funding for initiatives to 
address information gaps, such as those on teen dating violence. 

In response to our recommendation on common definitions, in August 
2007, HHS reported that it continued to encourage, but not require, 
the use of uniform definitions of certain forms of domestic violence 
and sexual assault it established in 1999 and 2002, respectively. At 
the same time, DOJ reported that it consistently used uniform 
definitions of intimate partner violence in project solicitations, 
statements of work, and published reports. Since then, officials from 
CDC reported that in October 2010, the center convened a panel of 10 
experts to revise and update its definitions of certain forms of 
domestic violence and sexual assault given advancements in this field 
of study. CDC is currently reviewing the results from the panel and 
plans to hold a second panel in 2012, consisting of practitioners, to 
review the first panel's results and to obtain consensus on the 
revised definitions. Moreover, HHS reported that it is also 
encouraging the use of uniform definitions by implementing the 
National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. This initiative 
is using consistent definitions and methods to collect information on 
women and men's experiences with a range of intimate partner violence, 
sexual violence, and stalking victimization. Thus, by using consistent 
methods over time, HHS reported that it will have comparable data at 
the state and national level to inform intervention and prevention 
efforts and aid in the evaluation of these efforts. In addition, 
according to a program specialist from OJJDP, in 2007, OJJDP created 
common definitions for use in the National Survey of Children's 
Exposure to Violence to help collect data and measure incidence and 
prevalence rates for child victimization, including teen dating 
violence. While it is too early to tell the extent to which HHS's 
efforts will result in the wider use of common definitions to assist 
in the combination of data collection efforts, OJJDP efforts in 
developing common definitions have supported efforts to generate 
national incidence and prevalence rates for child victimization. A 
program specialist from OJJDP noted that OJJDP plans to focus on 
continuously improving the definitions. 

Varying scope. The national data collection efforts we reviewed as 
part of our November 2006 report also could not provide a basis for 
combining the results to compute valid and reliable nationwide 
prevalence estimates because the efforts had varying scopes in terms 
of the incidents and categories of victims that were included. For 
example, in November 2006, we reported that CDC's Youth Risk Behavior 
Surveillance System excludes youth who are not in grades 9 through 12 
and those who do not attend school; whereas the Victimization of 
Children and Youth Survey was addressed to youth ages 12 and older, or 
those who were at least in the sixth grade. National data collection 
efforts underway since our report was issued may help to overcome this 
challenge. For instance, in September 2010, HHS reported that CDC was 
working in collaboration with the National Institute of Justice to 
develop the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. 
Specifically, HHS reported that, through this system, it is collecting 
information on women's and men's experiences with a range of intimate 
partner violence, sexual violence, and stalking victimization. HHS 
reported that it is gathering experiences that occurred across a 
victim's lifespan (including experiences that occurred before the age 
of 18) and plans to generate incidence and prevalence estimates for 
intimate partner violence, sexual violence, dating violence, and 
stalking victimization at both the national and state levels[Footnote 
12]. The results are expected to be available in October 2011. 

These agency initiatives may not fill all information gaps on the 
extent to which women, men, youth, and children are victims of the 
four predominant crimes VAWA addresses. However, the efforts provide 
Congress with additional information it can consider on the prevalence 
of these crimes as it makes future investment decisions when 
reauthorizing and funding VAWA moving forward. 

Data Collected by Grant Programs Did Not Contain Information on the 
Extent to Which Victims Receive Services and Challenges Exist for 
Collecting Such Data: 

We reported in July 2007 that recipients of 11 grant programs we 
reviewed collected and reported data to the respective agencies on the 
types of services they provide, such as counseling; the total number 
of victims served; and in some cases, demographic information, such as 
the age of victims; however, data were not available on the extent to 
which men, women, youth, and children receive each type of service for 
all services.[Footnote 13] This situation occurred primarily because 
the statutes governing the 11 grant programs do not require the 
collection of demographic data by type of service, although they do 
require reports on program effectiveness, including number of persons 
served and number of persons seeking services who could not be served. 
[Footnote 14] Nevertheless, VAWA authorizes that a range of services 
can be provided to victims, and we determined that services were 
generally provided to men, women, youth, and children. The agencies 
administering these 11 grant programs--HHS and DOJ--collect some 
demographic data for certain services, such as emergency shelter under 
the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act and supervised 
visitation and exchange under VAWA. The quantity of information 
collected and reported varied greatly for the 11 programs and was 
extensive for some, such as those administered by DOJ's Office on 
Violence Against Women (OVW) under VAWA. The federal agencies use this 
information to help inform Congress about the known results and 
effectiveness of the grant programs. However, even if demographic data 
were available by type of service for all services, such data might 
not be uniform and reliable because, among other factors, (1) the 
authorizing statutes for these programs have different purposes and 
(2) recipients of grants administered by HHS and DOJ use varying data 
collection practices. 

Authorizing statutes have different purposes. The authorizing statutes 
for the 11 grant programs we reviewed have different purposes; 
therefore the reporting requirements for the 11 grant programs must 
vary to be consistent with these statutes. However, if a grant program 
addresses a specific service, the demographic data collected are more 
likely to address the extent to which men, women, youth, and children 
receive that specific service. For example, in commenting on our July 
2007 report, officials from OVW stated that they could provide such 
demographic data for 3 of its 8 grant programs we reviewed--the 
Transitional Housing Assistance Grants Program, the Safe Havens: 
Supervised Visitation and Safe Exchange Grant Program, and the Legal 
Assistance for Victims Grant Program. 

Recipients of grants administered by HHS and DOJ use varying data 
collection practices. For example, some recipients request that 
victims self-report data on the victim's race, whereas other 
recipients rely on visual observation of the victim to obtain these 
data. Since we issued our July 2007 report, officials from HHS's 
Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and OVW told us that 
they modified their grant recipient forms to improve the quality of 
the recipient data collected and to reflect statutory changes to the 
programs and reporting requirements. Moreover, ACF officials stated 
that they adjusted the demographic categories on their forms to mirror 
OVW's efforts so data would be collected consistently across the 
government for these grant programs. In addition, OVW officials stated 
that they have continued to provide technical assistance and training 
to grant recipients on completing their forms through a cooperative 
agreement with a university. As a result of these efforts, and others, 
officials from both agencies reported that the quality of the 
recipient data has improved resulting in fewer errors and more 
complete data. 

As we reported in our July 2007 report, HHS and DOJ officials stated 
that they would face significant challenges in collecting and 
reporting data on the demographic characteristics of victims receiving 
services by type of service funded by the 11 grant programs included 
in our review. These challenges included concerns about victims' 
confidentiality and safety, resource constraints, overburdening 
recipients, and technological issues. For example, according to 
officials from ACF and OVW, requiring grant recipients to collect this 
level of detail may inadvertently disclose a victim's identity, thus 
jeopardizing the victim's safety. ACF officials also said that some of 
their grant recipients do not have the resources to devote to these 
data collection efforts, since their primary focus is on service 
delivery. In addition, ACF officials said that being too prescriptive 
in requiring demographic data could overburden some grant recipients 
that may report data to multiple funding entities, such as federal, 
state, and local entities and private foundations. Furthermore, HHS 
and DOJ reported that some grant recipients do not have sophisticated 
data collection systems in place to allow them to collect additional 
information. 

In our July 2007 report, we did not recommend that federal departments 
require their grant recipients to collect and report additional data 
on the demographic characteristics of victims receiving services by 
type of service because of the potential costs and difficulties 
associated with addressing the challenges HHS and DOJ officials 
identified, relative to the benefits that would be derived.[Footnote 
15] 

In conclusion, there are important issues to consider in moving 
forward on the reauthorization of VAWA. Having better and more 
complete data on the prevalence of domestic violence, sexual assault, 
dating violence, and stalking as well as related services provided to 
victims of these crimes can without doubt better inform and shape the 
federal programs intended to meet the needs of these victims. One key 
challenge in doing this is weighing the relative benefits of obtaining 
these data with their relative costs because of the sensitive nature 
of the crimes, those directly affected, and the need for services and 
support. 

Chairman Leahy, Ranking Member Grassley, and Members of the Committee, 
this completes my prepared statement. I would be happy to respond to 
any questions you or other Members of the Committee may have at this 
time. 

Contacts and Acknowledgments: 

For questions about this statement, please contact Eileen R. Larence 
at (202) 512-8777 or larencee@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices 
of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last 
page of this statement. Individuals making key contributions to this 
statement include Debra B. Sebastian, Assistant Director; Aditi 
Archer, Frances Cook, and Lara Miklozek. Key contributors for the 
previous work that this testimony is based on are listed in each 
individual report. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] Pub. L. No. 103-322, tit. IV, 108 Stat. 1796, 1902-55 (1994). 

[2] Violence Against Women Act of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106-386, div. B, 
114 Stat. 1464, 1491-1539. 

[3] Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization 
Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-162, 119 Stat. 2960 (2006). 

[4] Pub. L. No. 109-162, § 119, 119 Stat. at 2989-90. 

[5] GAO, Services Provided to Victims of Domestic Violence, Sexual 
Assault, Dating Violence, and Stalking, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-846R] (Washington, D.C.: July 19, 
2007) and GAO, Prevalence of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Dating 
Violence, and Stalking, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-148R] (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 13, 
2006). 

[6] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-846R] and 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-148R]. 

[7] We selected 2001 as the first year of our review of reporting 
systems and surveys to enable us to review national data collection 
efforts conducted over a 5-year period, through 2005. 

[8] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-148R]. 

[9] Incidence based data is data based on the number of separate times 
a crime is committed against individuals during a specific time period. 

[10] CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System collects data 
through a nationally representative school based survey of students in 
grades 9-12 that monitors priority health risk behaviors that 
contribute to the leading causes of death, disability, and social 
problems among youth and adults in the United States. 

[11] The Victimization of Children and Youth survey examined a large 
spectrum of violence, crime, and victimization experiences in a 
nationally representative sample of about 2,000 children and youth 
ages 2 to 17 years in the contiguous United States. 

[12] This survey is gathering information on a victim's experiences 
retrospectively, but is not being administered to individuals under 
age 18. Therefore, if this effort is completed as planned, it will not 
fully address prevalence rates related to teen dating violence and 
stalking. However, OJJDP's survey on children's exposure to violence 
provides prevalence rates on a national level related to teen dating 
violence and CDC's initiative on "Dating Matters" is to address 
prevalence rates related to stalking for individuals under age 18. 

[13] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-846R]. 

[14] As part of our work in 2007, we focused on 11 federal grant 
programs that were specifically designed to provide direct services to 
victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and 
stalking. There were three statutes authorizing these grant programs 
including the Violence Against Women Act, the Family Violence 
Prevention and Services Act, and the Victims of Crime Act of 1984, as 
amended. See Enclosure II of [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-846R] for additional details on 
these grant programs. 

[15] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-846R]. 

[End of section] 

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