Society tends to think of the family as a relatively safe place, a safe harbor, a place of sustenance
and care. It is a place where spouses love each other and their children. Regrettably, this view
of families is idealized. Far too often, families are a source of maltreatment and violence. How
common is child abuse, sibling abuse, abuse of parents, dating abuse, spouse abuse, and elder
abuse? For a variety of reasons, this question is very difficult to answer. First of all, there is
little agreement on exactly what constitutes family violence. Even when definitional consensus
is achieved, however, the fact remains that most family violence occurs behind closed doors.
It is often hidden, unnoticed, and ignored. As a result, it does not come to the attention of
authorities and become part of official estimates. In addition, victims may not recall abuse,
may not perceive the behavior as abusive, may not wish to disclose the abuse, or may not even
be able to report the behavior. Given these numerous impediments, any statistics on family
violence should be interpreted with a degree of caution; most are underestimates. In actuality,
there is simply no way to know with certainty how much family violence exists in society.
There are a number of data sources that provide a sense of the scope of the problem. Some,
for example, monitor the number of criminal assaults, while others record the number of