Perceptions, Help-Seeking, and High-Risk Domestic Violence in Black Communities

One in four women report experiencing intimate partner violence. Yet, nearly 45% of Black women report experiencing this same crime. In addition, while Black women compose 14% of the U.S. population, they represent 31% of domestic violence fatalities and are three times more likely than White women to be killed by an intimate partner. This points to the continued need to better understand how the Black community perceives domestic violence and how their perception influences their help-seeking strategies. This paper reports on a project examining how Black communities perceive domestic violence, high-risk domestic violence, and how these perceptions impact their help-seeking strategies. The study was conducted between April 2020 and October 2020 with 128 participants that participated in focus groups in six geographically diverse U.S. cities including rural, urban, and suburban communities. The findings reaffirmed and presented new information about the perceptions of domestic violence, the impact of inadequate and negative systems' responses, the lack of cultural responsiveness and poor police interactions, and the calculated decision-making that survivors in the Black community use to determine who to tell, how to tell, and where to go in use of adapted help-seeking strategies. Implications are provided as to how to address these issues.