During the COVID lockdown in 2020, advocates for victims of family violence sounded an alarm with so many folks stuck at home adjusting to new economic and social stressors.
Experts feared that rates of domestic violence would go way up — and indeed studies did repeatedly show there was an uptick in family violence cases during that period.
But where do we stand now?
Tabetha Harrison, the Texas Council on Family Violence coordinated response and safety strategies manager, said that the most recent report includes statistics from 2024.
In 2024, 161 Texans were killed in family violence incidents.
“In 2020, we did see a sharp increase, and that increase has continued,” she said. “This year is the first year we’ve seen a significant decrease in the number killed.”
Harrison said in 2022, the overall number killed was 215. In 2023, it dropped down to 205.
“There could be a number of factors at play,” she said. “My team and I are very excited to look at these numbers in comparison with past models…and also use the data that we have from other programs to be able to look and see if the intervention points that are operating within the state are responsible for the decrease.”
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Harrison said she is cautiously optimistic with this drop.
“I would love to be optimistic. I often tell people that I would love to work myself out of a job,” she said. “However, it’s something that we have to look at very carefully because we don’t want to put out information that falsely makes the public think that one thing or the other thing is the magic ticket. Unfortunately, that’s just never the case. But we are very much dedicated to finding out what works and getting this number down.”
Harrison said there is also now a statewide Domestic Violence Homicide Task Force, which was established during the last legislative session.
“It’s going to be out of the office of the governor,” she said. “And we will be using not only the Honoring Texas Victims report data, but also our domestic violence high-risk teams data to go into those meetings and give some numbers and give statistical information to inform decisions that are being made next year.”
Despite the drop, Harrison said she was still struck by how many things did not change in this year’s numbers.
“We are still seeing over 100 people being killed by domestic violence,” she said. “We’re still seeing that it impacts every socioeconomic group, every ethnicity, every community, and we’re also seeing that people across age groups are still being killed.”
» MORE: Resources for survivors of domestic violence
One thing that might make a dent in this number? Harrison said enforcing existing firearm laws would be a good start.
“Texas must enforce the existing firearm laws that are already in place in order to lower domestic violence homicides. There were multiple cases within our data, like in previous years, where the abuser was the respondent of a protective order or there were previous convictions for domestic abuse, which meant they should not have legally had access to a firearm,” she said.
“Unfortunately, there is a deadly gap between the law and the application of the law. And once an offender or someone who is subject to a protective order is admonished that they are not to have a firearm, there is very little follow-up in most of the state to ensure that happens.”
