Physical abuse and violence across age groups in America

Physical Abuse

Physical violence and abuse takes a number of different forms. Unfortunately, no one of any age or gender is spared. Domestic violence, for example, has been a rapidly growing health concern throughout the United States over the past couple of decades. The United Stated Department of Justice estimates that over 2.5 million women have been the victim of some form of violence each year including rape. Also, nearly 2 out of 3 females in this specific population were attacked by someone in their family. Spousal abuse is also an issue that impacts men, as well as gay and lesbian relationships.

Child abuse is of considerable concern. Most states recognize four major types of maltreatment:

neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse. Although any of the forms of child abuse can happen separately, they frequently occur together. has been reported between 300,000 to 400,000 times a year, but the number of unreported instances is far greater, because the children are afraid to tell anyone what has happened, and the legal procedure for validating an episode is difficult (Gaudiosi, 2000).

As the population in the United States becomes older, increasing numbers of elderly abuse have also been reported. The National Crime Victimization Survey reports that the rate of violent crime victimization of persons ages 65 or older was about 4 per 1,000 (Bureau of Justice, 2001). The abuse of the elderly fall within five categories: physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse and neglect.