When is the sexual assault unit of domestic violence going to take their job serious
DEDICATION
The Nevada Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence (NCEDSV) dedicates this report
to the women, children, and men in Nevada who lost their lives due to intimate partner
violence.
INTRODUCTION
In 2017, NCEDSV identified 19 domestic violence incidences that resulted in 28 deaths.
These incidences were documented in published news accounts and through publicly
available police reports.
National Snapshot & History
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Intimate
Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) indicates that almost half of the women
(48.1%) and almost one-third of men (30.9%) living in Nevada have experienced rape,
physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner.1 As this report highlights,
domestic violence homicide can be the tragic outcome of a violent relationship.
Additionally, the Bureau of Justice Statistics states that the reporting rate to police for
intimate partner violence incidences is approximately 46.9%.2 For incidences classified as
serious intimate partner violence that includes rape, sexual assault, robbery, and
aggravated assault, the reporting rate is slightly higher at 51.9%.3
For 22 years, NCEDSV has documented the number of fatal incidences by reviewing news
reports and publically available police homicide reports. Each incident received a varying
degree of attention from reporters, ranging from multi-story investigative reporting to
simple one-paragraph crime reports. As such, the descriptions in the report are not an
attempt to capture the full complexity of these events.
Definitions
Nevada has a very broad definition regarding who can be a victim of domestic violence.
Nevada Revised Statutes defines domestic violence to include spouses, former spouses,
family members, persons who have or had a dating relationship, persons with a child or
children in common, the children of two persons, and persons cohabitating together.4 To be
included in this report, NCEDSV identified each homicide as an intimate partner violence-
related incident; the deaths resulted from violence between adults who were either current
or past intimate partners.
1 https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/nisvs/summary_reports.html accessed September 9, 2016 2 Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization 2016, Dec. 2017,
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv16.pdf accessed September 18, 2018. 3 Ibid.
4 Nev. Rev. Stat. § 33.018 (This statute was revised in 2017 to remove persons cohabitating together which
became effective Jan. 1, 2018.)