Reports of domestic violence ticked upward in Monroe County and Rochester in 2015.
The latest data from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services says countywide, there were 4, 804 reported incidents last year, up two percent from 2014.
The increase was 5 percent in the city of Rochester, but officials say the reported abuse came from every zip code in the county. 49 percent of the 2015 reports were from the suburbs; 51 percent came from the city of Rochester.
“It may sound counterintuitive, but when we have more reporting of domestic violence, it’s not a bad thing,’ said Jaime Saunders, president and CEO of Willow Domestic Violence Center, “because we know that domestic violence is so prevalent in our community with one in three women and one in four men experiencing it in their lifetime; so to us, when we see the rates increase, that means we as a community are making it safer for people to step forward to actually share what is happening behind closed doors."
Other data show a 3 percent increase from 2014 to 2015 in petitions for orders of protection in Monroe County, but a 9 percent decrease in the number of temporary orders that were granted and a 3 percent decline for final orders of protection.
Saunders says it's important to understand why that is.
"It could be a range of factors, but we need to make sure that when someone is taking that step and is seeking change and seeking safety that we as a community and a system are there to support them.”
While Saunders hopes more victims will feel safe enough to report their abuse in the next decade or so, she expects those reporting rates to decline in another generation.
“Science tells us that those who grow up in a household of violence have an increased likelihood to be either a victim or a perpetrator of violence,” she said. “This is 100 percent learned; therefore it is 100 percent preventable. We as a community have to focus on disrupting that cycle.”
There were 4,732 calls to Willow Domestic Violence Center's 24-hour hotline in 2015. The center provided counseling for 584 clients; court advocacy for 1,976 clients, and housed 458 residents at its emergency shelter.
