Silent Witness uses two kinds of public records. For earlier years we use U.S. Department of Justice figures built from police reports. For 2018 and later we use the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This page explains each one, and why their numbers should not be joined into one line.
Before 2005: police reports to the FBI
Each year, police departments send the FBI a report on every murder, including how the victim was related to the killer. The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics used these reports to estimate how many women and men were killed by an intimate partner each year from 1976 to 2004, adjusting for departments that did not report. The original Silent Witness state maps (1998-2000) do not name their source, but other Silent Witness pages of that time cite the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, so they were most likely built from the same reports.
The weakness of this source is that it depends on every police department sending its reports. Some never did. The old Silent Witness maps show Florida as “not available” or “not reported” in all three years.
2018 and later: the CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System
The CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) collects information on every violent death in the states that take part. It combines three sources:
- Law enforcement reports
- Medical examiner and coroner reports
- Death certificates
Because it draws on all three, it can often identify a partner killing even when one report alone would miss it. The CDC makes the basic numbers public through its WISQARS website (wisqars.cdc.gov).
How the CDC system grew
NVDRS began in 2003 with seven states and grew as funding became available. The CDC now funds all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
| Year joined | States |
|---|---|
| 2003 | Alaska, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia |
| 2004 | Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Wisconsin |
| 2005 | Kentucky, New Mexico, Utah |
| 2010 | Ohio, Michigan |
| 2015 | Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington |
| 2017 | Alabama, California, Delaware, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, West Virginia, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico |
| 2018 | Funding for nationwide expansion |
| 2019 | Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming |
Joining is not the same as having a full year of data on WISQARS. In the counts we pulled for 2018-2023, WISQARS returned data for this many places (including the District of Columbia):
| Data year | States with data | Missing |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 40 | Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming |
| 2019 | 43 | Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas |
| 2020 | 49 | Florida, Hawaii |
| 2021 | 49 | Florida, Hawaii |
| 2022 | 51 | none |
| 2023 | 51 | none |
California, Florida and Texas still report only some of their counties. Their counts and rates cover only those counties.
That is why the CDC counts rise from 2018 to 2023: more states were added. To compare years fairly, use the rate (deaths per 100,000 people), which stayed close to 1 woman in every 100,000 women each year. See Year by year, 1976-2023.
Why we don’t join the two series
- Different records. The Justice Department figures come from police reports only; the CDC adds medical examiner, coroner and death certificate information.
- Different coverage. The Justice Department figures were estimated for the whole country; the CDC counts cover only the states with data each year.
- Different ages. Our CDC counts are people 18 and older; our copy of the Justice Department figures does not say whether children are included.
From 2005 to 2017 neither source gives numbers we can put beside the others, so we leave those years blank rather than guess.
Small numbers
To protect the privacy of the people who died and their families, the CDC does not publish a count under 10; it shows “–” instead. A count of 20 or fewer is marked “unstable,” because one or two deaths more or less would change the rate a lot.
Sources
- CDC WISQARS, About NVDRS data (states and years joined).
- CDC, National Violent Death Reporting System, through WISQARS, data years 2018-2023, retrieved September-October 2026.
- U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, intimate homicide victims 1976-2004, as published on the Silent Witness website.