What I Learned from Looking at ~100K Domestic Violence Cases in San Antonio and Bexar County

Domestic violence affects one in three women in their lifetime, according to the National Coalition against Domestic Violence. For one in four, the domestic violence is severe. (Stock photo.)

I’ve spent much of my free time for the past few months analyzing almost 100,000 domestic violence cases in Bexar County over the past 10–20 years (10 for felonies, 20+ for misdemeanors). I also read widely in the domestic violence and criminal justice research literature, consulted at least weekly — often daily, sometimes hourly— with experts, and attended several court-mandated offenders’ groups, one for men and one for women (with attendees’ permission).

Regarding the data, which was available on the court system’s website going back 10 or 20 years, I started by looking at two particular domestic violence felonies, then expanded that to five; wrote a white paper detailing my findings; and then started the process over with domestic violence misdemeanors, choosing two particularly prevalent ones to examine, and wrote a white paper about those findings also.

Roger Enriquez, J.D., associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), and head of the Policy Studies Center at UTSA’s College of Public Policy, was my co-author, and we had many interesting conversations as the work progressed.

If you have had a chance to read the two white papers — and even if you haven’t — here are some…