As Baltimore City residents continue to grapple with various forms of violence daily, city officials are examining its root causes as a way to slow the pace.
Intimate Partner Violence, previously known as domestic abuse, accounts for 21% of all violent crime across Baltimore City, according to the Baltimore City Police Department.
Nearly two years ago, city councilmembers on the Health, Education and Technology committee drafted a resolution with a goal of addressing this type of violence, most frequently committed against women, through a different approach. A public health lens, officials said.
It’s an “overlooked public health crisis,” according to advocates working for government agencies and community organizations that have been collaborating to tackle the issue.
“In 2022, women made up more than half of all victims of aggravated assault,” said Shantay Jackson, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement during a discussion during city council on Wednesday.
Jackson said that violence against mostly women has continued to increase. She added that women made up a third of victims of homicide in the same year.
The department now has a data analytics team that will soon release “an innovative, public safety accountability dashboard.”
The dashboard is expected to be released to the public in mid-February.
“It’s more imperative than ever that we rely on data to inform our approaches,” she said.
The dashboard will track domestic violence incidents by neighborhood, as well as arrests and the conviction status of those arrests.
Read more (and listen) at WYPR.
