Experts Urge Action as Domestic Violence Persists

December 8, 2025 / CBS News Almost 5.4 million Americans reported being victims of domestic violence over the past five years, the Bureau of Justice Statistics says, and nearly 80% of those victims were women. The FBI found domestic homicides more than doubled, rising from 1,065 in 2019 to 2,339 in 2024, a trend experts call alarming. “Domestic violence remains one of the most persistent public health and safety crises in our country,” Nathaniel Fields, CEO of the nonprofit Urban Resource Institute, told CBS News. He and other advocates say the scale and lethality of intimate partner violence demand sustained attention and early intervention. The issue is painfully personal for Lisa DeSort, whose 20-year-old daughter, Azsia Johnson, was shot and killed in New York City in 2022. In October, during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, CBS News returned with DeSort to the tree where she left flowers at the site of the shooting. Prosecutors allege Johnson’s ex-boyfriend, Isaac Argro, shot her; Johnson had been staying in shelters in the months before the killing but allowed Argro to meet their 3-month-old baby one night in June 2022. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged then-23-year-old Argro with murder; he has pleaded not guilty and the case could go to trial next year. Bragg told CBS News his office is currently handling more than 500 cases involving intimate partner violence. Experts distinguish intimate partner violence—a subset of domestic violence involving current or former romantic partners—from other family violence, and say it creates particular challenges for law enforcement and victim services because it often goes unreported. Fields said public attention tends to spike around high-profile cases but that everyday victims rarely receive the same focus. He urged leaders to teach people to recognize warning signs such as controlling behavior and escalating aggression, and to identify abuse earlier. URI runs prevention programs for students and for people in the criminal justice system; Fields said their experience shows the need to begin education earlier, reaching young people in junior high as well as high school. A CBS News analysis of FBI data found roughly 24% of reported violent crime was domestic in nature, about the same share as in 2019 before pandemic-related fluctuations in violent crime. Longstanding community responses were sparked by similarly shocking events years ago. The 1999 killing of Gladys Ricart, who was shot as she prepared to leave for church to marry another man, was captured on home video and helped galvanize activism in Washington Heights. Ricart’s niece, Lethy Liriano, now organizes an annual Brides’ March in which hundreds don wedding gowns and march to call attention to domestic violence. “By hearing each other’s stories, we are understanding that none of us are at fault for not knowing a horrific violent event was going to come,” Liriano said at this year’s march. In interviews with more than a dozen survivors, activists and experts, many described how domestic abuse can be intergenerational. DeSort said she had been a victim herself and recognized early warning signs in Johnson’s relationship—checking her phone, arriving unannounced, demanding to know her whereabouts—and said the boyfriend assaulted Johnson when she was six months pregnant. “Immediately I caught onto the signs and I told her you can’t be with this type of person,” DeSort said. Advocates and service providers say addressing a crisis that remains widespread and deadly requires sustained awareness, comprehensive education about healthy relationships starting in early adolescence, and stronger, better-resourced support for victims so they can get help and stay safe.