Study: Cost of Domestic Violence in North Carolina Tops $300M

By Sawsan Morrar

Domestic violence statistics have always been unsettling: 1 out of every 4 women will be a victim at some point in her life. While the emotional devastation is difficult to calculate, a new study shows that domestic violence costs North Carolina over $307 million every year.

The Jamie Kimble Foundation for Change, a nonprofit that created the Enough Campaign, initiated the study and partnered with the University of North Carolina. The study raises the concern that domestic violence is a serious financial burden on the state and taxpayers.

Stephen Billings, co-author of the study and economics professor at the University of North Carolina, said that it reaches people who think they are not directly impacted by domestic violence.

“Everyone is paying for it,” Billings said. “There is a lot of public cost. We need to step back from strong emotional arguments and ask to see more quantification.”

Nationally, the cost of domestic violence exceeds $8.3 billion each year, $2.5 billion of that total being lost productivity. Victims of domestic violence lost almost 8 million work days, which is equivalent to the loss of 32,000 full-time jobs.

While health care costs account for 40 percent of the total, absence from work due to injury and seeking shelter are all costs that the public inevitably pay for.

Charisse Moore knows all to well what it felt like to miss work because she endured abuse. Moore spent all of her sick days at home tending to bruises, because she was too ashamed to have be seen by coworkers at the call center she was employed at.

“Nothing could bring me to walk through those doors looking the way I did,” Moore said.

Moore spent 3 years with her abusive boyfriend before moving out of their shared apartment. She ultimately confided in her shift supervisor when she feared her lack of productivity would cost her the very job she needed to support herself.

“I missed a training course that I confirmed I would participate in, and I worried that would be the tipping point,” Moore said.

She sought help at a local clinic, and her physician recommended she seek counseling for being repeatedly threatened. With long waiting lists to visit a therapist, and costly co-payments that Moore couldn’t afford, she never sought professional help that she needed.

According to Ron Kimble of the Kimble Foundation, focusing on prevention and education will dramatically help reduce the cost, and will ultimately lead to fewer domestic violence cases in North Carolina.

“We have gone to colleges, employers, and religious institutions to talk about domestic violence, but the study is especially useful for lawmakers at the local and national level,” Kimble said.

Kimble hopes this new study will encourage the state to create more programs in the state. In Charlotte, the state’s largest city, police received more than 36,000 domestic violence calls last year.

Yet all current state programs struggle for consistent funding. According to the North Carolina Coalition against Domestic Violence, out of the state’s 100 counties, 17 do not have shelters and only 66 have abuser treatment programs.

“Things like police costs, court costs, incarceration costs—those are all being borne by local law enforcement criminal justice systems,” Billings said. “We need to contribute funds to prevention, and we will see fewer abuses and less of an economical impact.”