October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. During this time we renew our commitment to educating all members of our communities about this serious crime and the frightening toll that it takes on America’s citizens. Everyone has a role in addressing domestic violence—whether providing necessary and comprehensive services for victims and their families or holding offenders accountable for their crimes. One of the most important goals of Domestic Violence Awareness Month is ensuring that we all recognize, acknowledge, and assume responsibility for the ways in which we can help to end domestic violence—as individuals, as communities, and as a nation.


The Department of Justice is proud to partner with the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Department of Defense in our efforts to strengthen the Federal response to domestic violence. Collectively, we are addressing such issues as children who witness domestic violence, culturally and linguistically-specific services, dating violence, tribal issues, and enforcement of protection orders. Within the Department of Justice, the Office on Violence Against Women and the Office of Justice Programs work hand-in hand to ensure collaboration on domestic violence research, statistics, and grant-funded programs.
It is essential that we recognize the critical role that survivors of domestic violence play in the understanding and awareness of this crime. From survivors we have learned the importance of co-locating services for victims of domestic violence. As of October 1, 2006, eleven family justice centers have opened around the country as part of the President’s Family Justice Center Initiative. Since January, more than 12,000 victims have come through the doors of these centers and received help with filing protection orders, meeting with law enforcement, getting medical treatment, talking with a victim advocate, arranging for child care and supervised visitation, and more. The Family Justice Center concept is the physical embodiment of the coordinated community response at its best.
During this month, we would also like to pay tribute to the dedicated women and men who have chosen domestic violence as their life’s work. These individuals provide domestic violence victims with the hope that they need to move past the trauma and reclaim their lives. We are so very grateful for their efforts.
The Department of Justice is committed to ending domestic violence in this country. Too many families are suffering. Too many children are learning that violence is an acceptable way to deal with conflict. It is the responsibility of this Nation to consider every month Domestic Violence Awareness Month until the day that every man, woman, and child can live without fear in their homes, free from violence. Working together, that day will come.