Report offers 2024 Homicide Data, highlights the need for a Missing and Murdered African American Women and Girls Task Force, and examines the impact of funding instability on programs and survivors
Madison – According to the newly released annual End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin Homicide Report, 109 people in Wisconsin lost their lives to domestic violence (DV) and family violence in 2024. End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin (End Abuse) Executive Director Monique Minkens announced the release of the report during the launch of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and as major federal funding cuts actively impact programs and survivors statewide.
“As Domestic Violence Awareness Month begins,” said Minkens, “Wisconsin domestic violence programs are scrambling to navigate severe funding instability.
Domestic violence homicide continues to be a community crisis in our state, and we are not seeing meaningful state or federal government investment to prevent it. Programs are forced to cut staff, reduce service availability, and even close their doors.”
End Abuse has produced the annual report since 2000, with the intention of honoring victims’ lives, drawing attention to the pervasiveness of domestic violence, and catalyzing change.
In 2024, domestic violence homicides took place in 27 WI counties. Approximately 53% of the homicide incidents occurred in rural areas and 47% in urban areas, with a rate of 1 death every 3.7 days and an average age of victims being 36 years old.
Past reports’ patterns re-emerge in the latest report. In 2024, 77% of perpetrators were male, reflecting that most harm-doers in domestic violence homicide cases are male. As in past years, firearms remain the most common means of perpetrating domestic violence homicides – firearms were the weapons used in 71% of domestic violence deaths in 2024.The report, as in past years, also reflects the connection between homicidality and suicidality in domestic violence cases with 14 harm-doer suicides in 2024.
In addition to data on 2024 homicides, the report offers historical, national, and global context and spotlights the impact of funding instability on programs and survivors, the need for a Missing and Murdered African American Women and Girls Task Force in Wisconsin, and tangible ideas for community response to this community crisis.
“Nationally,” said Minkens, “Black women are 6 times more likely to be killed than white women. It is far past time for our state to establish a task force to investigate and address the root causes of violence against Black women and girls. To ignore this racialized epidemic is to participate in the violence. Do not look away.”
To review the Annual WI Domestic Violence Homicide Report, visit www.endabusewi.org/resources
