October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Wisconsin data shows that 61 people died in domestic violence-related incidents last year.
Carmen Pitre talked about the issue in the city of Milwaukee with WUWM’s Race & Ethnicity Reporter Teran Powell. Pitre leads Sojourner Family Peace Center, a domestic abuse treatment center.
She shared the misconceptions about domestic violence and resources for people to get help.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Teran Powell: What are some of the common misconceptions people have about this topic?
Carmen Pitre: That it's always physical — and that's not true. I think we have this belief that survivors are beaten every day. You know, it can be a cycle of violence that happens over time in a relationship and there's a pattern of coercion and control. There's tension, an incident, a honeymoon phase and people go around this cycle. And some relationships are severely violent that way. And they are being held hostage against their will, being hurt physically daily.
But that is not the only condition. There are lots of ways that people live with violence that doesn't look that way, right? Many survivors go to work. They're controlled around their finances, their paycheck, what they can and can't do, where they can go. So, I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that violence is always physical, and that's not true. There are many different shades of and ways that people can be hurt.
So far this year we're at 38 homicides, right, related to domestic violence? Can you share a little bit more of the data we know?
We do something called a death report and and in that report, we have been tracking number of deaths for the past 10 years. So, in 2016 we had 35 domestic violence-related homicides. And 2025 we had 32. During COVID in 2020 we went all the way up to 51; we had two mass killings.
We had 41 homicides in 2021. So prior to 2016 — I've been doing this work for about 42 years and looking at these numbers — prior to 2016, a really bad year would have been 25. And we hovered anywhere from 12 to 15. So, you can see in 2016 the number started to go up.
What that means is there are far too many people living with lethal violence. Our homicide rate has gone up. We run the domestic violence high-risk team. They meet twice a week, and their only job is to prevent homicides from happening. They started meeting in 2017 because of this trend.
We now can tell you who's more likely to be murdered based on an assessment at the scene when law enforcement comes to your home. So if you screen high-risk, you get staffed by this team. And the kinds of lethal violence we're seeing is strangulation to the point of unconsciousness or losing your bowels, burning, stabbing, felony-related physical violence, strangulation.
There's so many strangulations happening we cannot staff all those cases on a weekly basis. So, I would say lethal violence has gone up and homicide has gone up and that's very concerning.
You've said before that it's not just the victim or the survivor that you guys are trying to help, it's also the perpetrator. So any other resources that you can mention?
So there's the Alma Center, there's a Nevermore program which is run by Community Advocates. There's Asha Family Services that has programming. I think the city Department of Community Wellness & Safety has some resources available. But my message to people who are hurting others you is: you deserve help as well. You deserve some resources to help you understand why you believe that it's okay to use violence in your relationships. And you have a responsibility to heal it.
If you or someone you know is in need of help, follow these links for more resources:
Hmong American Women's Association
National Domestic Violence Hotline
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