What is Domestic Violence?

Domestic Violence is commonly described as a pattern of learned behavior in which one person uses physical, sexual, and emotional abuse to control another person.

This behavior consists of multiple – sometimes daily – violence. The criminal behaviors include physical assault (hitting, pushing, shoving, etc.) sexual abuse (unwanted, forced sexual activity), and stalking.

Although emotional, psychological and financial abuses are not criminal behaviors, they are forms of domestic assault and may lead to criminal behaviors of abuse. In domestic violence situations, one person is dominating and controlling the other.