Northern Virginia residents are less likely than those living in other parts of the state to commit violent acts against members of their own families, according to a new report.
The number of adults or juveniles committing violent crimes against family members — whether sexual or nonsexual in nature — was lower in Northern Virginia than in other regions of the state, according to a report published Tuesday by the Family & Children’s Trust Fund of Virginia.
The fund is a state agency run by a governor-appointed board of trustees, and its data spans the years 2004 to 2009. The fund’s report provides a first-of-its-kind statewide tally of family violence broken down by locality.
“What makes this report really unique is that it looks at violence and abuse across a lifespan,” said Marianne McGhee, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Social Services.
Alexandria and Arlington County agencies reported slightly higher rates of elderly abuse than most Northern Virginia jurisdictions but still ranked in the top half of all Virginia communities in that category, according to the report. Northern Virginia communities also reported the lowest levels of poverty, homelessness and substance abuse — all major factors the report associates with family violence.
McGhee said the term “family violence” refers to any violent act committed by one family member against another.
“Family violence can include the abuse and neglect of elderly people or child abuse and neglect, not just violence between partners,” McGhee said, underscoring the difference between family violence and domestic violence. The state’s attorney general’s office publishes an annual report on domestic violence, but the fund’s family violence report is meant to be a new resource for social service officials.
“We don’t want to prescribe what every locality should do. Rather, we want to give them the data so that they can address their own issues,” McGhee said.
One of the report’s goals is to encourage consistent reporting among localities, McGhee explained. She said the data would become more useful when analyzed next to future statistics.
“It’ll take a little bit of time before trends and patterns emerge,” she said.
