Assembly Resolution No. 962
BY: M. of A. Gonzalez-Rojas
MEMORIALIZING Governor Kathy Hochul to proclaim
February 24, 2026, as Domestic Violence Awareness
and Prevention Day in the State of New York
WHEREAS, Domestic violence is a pattern of coercive behavior and
tactics used by someone against their intimate partner in an attempt to
gain or maintain power and control, and types of abuse can include
physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, technological and economic
abuse or threats of actions or other patterns of coercive behavior that
influence another person within an intimate partner relationship; and
WHEREAS, Domestic violence is not limited to specific groups based
on race, socioeconomic status, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation,
ethnicity, age, religious affiliation or social location, but rather is
perpetrated by abusers from all social groups; and
WHEREAS, On average, 24 people per minute are victims of rape,
physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United
States-more than 12 million people over the course of a year; and
WHEREAS, On average, about one in four women and one in ten men
experience contact sexual violence, physical violence and/or stalking by
an intimate partner and reported an IPV-related impact during their
lifetime, and approximately 1.5 million women and 835,000 men are raped
and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner each year in the
United States; and
WHEREAS, Due to systemic racism, racist policies and racist societal
structures, both Black women and Black men experience intimate partner
violence at a disproportionately high rate with 45 percent of Black
women and 40 percent of Black men experiencing intimate partner physical
violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner
stalking in their lifetimes; and
WHEREAS, Domestic violence affects the LGBTQ+ community at a rate
equal to or even greater than that experienced by the cisgender,
heterosexual community, with 43.8 percent of lesbian women and 26
percent of gay men experiencing rape, physical violence and/or stalking
by an intimate partner at some point in their lifetime, and 54 percent
of the transgender and gender non-conforming community have reported
experiencing some form of intimate partner violence, with transgender
women of color experiencing heightened levels of violence; and
WHEREAS, According to a study from the National Institute of
Justice, more than half of Native American and Alaska Native women have
experienced physical violence at the hands of an intimate partner; and
WHEREAS, Among high school students who dated, nearly 21 percent of
females and 10.4 percent of males experienced some form of teen dating
violence within the past 12 months of the survey, and 43 percent of
dating college women report experiencing violent or abusive behaviors
from their partner; and
WHEREAS, Researchers estimate that between 3.3 million and 10
million children are exposed to adult intimate partner violence each
year and observing intimate partner violence in childhood increases the
risk of later perpetration for men by an estimated 56 or 63 percent,
depending on severity; and
WHEREAS, Domestic violence survivors experience a host of physical
and mental health-related consequences at far greater rates than their
counterparts who have not been abused; and
WHEREAS, According to an annual survey conducted by the National
Network to End Domestic Violence, New York State consistently has the
greatest demand for domestic violence services in the country with
10,609 survivors requesting services on just one day in 2024, and 1,717
unfulfilled service requests on that same day because of insufficient
resources or staff; and
WHEREAS, In 2024, there were 241,351 orders of protection issued
that required entry in the New York State Registry, a three percent
increase from 2023 and a 17 percent increase from 2021; and
WHEREAS, The NYS Office of Children and Family Services reported
that 47,700 survivors of domestic violence and their children received
services from New York residential and non-residential domestic violence
service providers, and nearly 275,000 hotline calls were received across
the State in 2024; and
WHEREAS, According to the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services
and the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, there
were 71 intimate partner homicides in New York State in 2024, a 13
percent increase from 2020; and
WHEREAS, The cost of a single homicide is estimated at $17.25
million when considering medical care, lost future earnings, other
related public programming and services, and property damage and other
losses; and
WHEREAS, The economic burden of domestic violence in the United
States is staggering, with costs to the U.S. economy estimated to exceed
$8.3 billion annually, with 21-60 percent of victims of intimate partner
violence losing their jobs due to reasons stemming from the abuse; and
WHEREAS, Primary prevention strategies address the root causes and
conditions that make domestic violence possible, and public health
research has shown that implementing prevention activities at multiple
levels on the social ecology scale-individual, relationship, community,
and societal-will lead to lasting social change; and
WHEREAS, Primary prevention is focused on establishing gender
equality, cultivating and promoting healthy relationship behaviors, and
changing conditions in communities and culture to stop domestic violence
before it starts; and
WHEREAS, Domestic violence advocates consistently provide
comprehensive and compassionate life-saving services, advocacy, and
support to survivors of domestic violence and their children, while
leading essential primary prevention efforts within their communities to
motivate the change needed to stop domestic violence from happening in
the first place; and
WHEREAS, As part of executing its mission, the New York State
Coalition Against Domestic Violence seeks to create and support the
social change necessary to prevent and confront all forms of domestic
violence, to ensure the availability and accessibility of innovative and
effective supports and services for all domestic violence survivors and
their families, and to dismantle oppression, end systemic racism and
uproot the inequities that foster violence; and
WHEREAS, New York State needs to continually and significantly
invest in services and support for domestic violence survivors and their
families in order to meet the rising demand for assistance and to
continue progress toward ending domestic violence once and for all; now
therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to
memorialize Governor Kathy Hochul to proclaim February 24, 2026, as
Domestic Violence Awareness and Prevention Day in the State of New York;
and be it further
RESOLVED, That copies of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be
transmitted to The Honorable Kathy Hochul, Governor of the State of New
York, and the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
