Major Justice Canada study puts big price tag on spousal violence

The cost is high no matter how you view it

Over the Xmas I found this interesting piece of current research reported on by Dean Beeby from THE CANADIAN PRESS. He reported on a major federal investigation into the cost of spousal violence, estimated to be $7.4 billion for the thousands of incidents that occurred in just one year.

The Justice Canada study examined a broad range of economic impacts, from policing and health-care to funerals and lost wages, for every incident of spousal violence in 2009.

Drawing on a Canada-wide police database, researchers found almost 50,000 cases of spousal violence reported to police that year, more than 80 per cent of them involving female victims. The cases included 65 homicides, 49 of them women.

The study also mined an annual Statistics Canada telephone survey, which estimated some 336,000 Canadians in 2009 were victims of some form of violence from their spouse. The definition of spouse included married, common-law, separated, same-sex and divorced partners. Read more 

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