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Maine Children's Alliance

Domestic assaults reported to police in Maine

Change Indicator

Why This Indicator Matters

All of us deserve to be safe in our own homes. When domestic violence assaults are up, the police are called with increasing frequency to respond to potentially violent situations.  Brain development science has demonstrated that when children are exposed to repeated stressful incidents, it affects their brains in long-term ways. Violence in a child's home is an adverse childhood experience. Children with adverse childhood experiences are more likely to have trouble in school, feel sad or hopeless and continue to have mental and physical health issues into adulthood.  

What the data shows
The Maine state data includes In terms of trend data, domestic violence rates have been falling since 2012. The 2017 rate is the lowest since the year 1999. In 2017, Somerset and Androscoggin Counties had the highest rates with rates of 523 and 421 per 100,000 residents respectively. Although these are the same two counties with the highest rates as in 2016, for both counties the rates went down. Somerset was down 21% and Androscoggin was down 16%.Counties with the lowest rates of reported domestic assaults in 2017 were Piscataquis and Hancock at 107.3 and 134.0 per 100,000 people in the population respectively. 


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Definitions: The rate of assaults reported to the police which were perpetrated by family or household members who are or were married or living together in a romantic relationship, natural parents of the same child (whether or not the couple ever lived together) or other adult family members related by blood or marriage. These are not unduplicated counts, and may include numerous assaults affecting the same individuals. The rate is per 100,000 of the total population. Also, in 2017, there 442 domestic violence assaults handled by state police. In these cases, the county is not known, but these domestic assaults are included in the state total.

Data Source: Maine Department of Public Safety, Crime in Maine Reports     

Footnotes: This includes assaults on children by parents, assaults on parents by children and other assaults between family and household members.  The state total includes arrests made by the state police in any county.The numerator is the number of assaults times 100,000 and the denominator is the total population in 2017 per the Maine Office of Vital Statistics. Domestic violence assaults reported to police are included whether or not an arrest was made.

Last uploaded April 2019.