When Homicide Rates Fall but Domestic Violence Deaths Do Not: What Marin County Can Learn
By Tara Peterson, Executive Director, Center for Domestic Peace
Recent national headlines have delivered encouraging news: homicide rates across the United States continue to decline from the alarming levels seen during and immediately following the pandemic. Yet beneath those positive trends lies a troubling reality. Domestic violence-related homicides have not experienced the same decline. Family and intimate partner killings now represent a growing share of homicides nationwide, reminding us that progress in reducing violence overall does not necessarily translate to greater safety within our homes and relationships.
For those of us working closely with survivors, advocates, educators, law enforcement professionals, and community partners, this trend is both heartbreaking and familiar.
Domestic violence is often misunderstood as a private matter. In reality, it is a public health issue, a public safety issue, and a community issue. Unlike many acts of violence, domestic violence frequently follows recognizable patterns. Coercive control, isolation, stalking, escalating threats, extreme jealousy, and access to firearms are among the warning signs that can precede lethal violence. In many cases, these tragedies are not unpredictable; they are the culmination of patterns that have developed over time.
No Community Is Immune
It can be tempting to view headlines about domestic violence homicides as stories that belong somewhere else—in larger cities, different states, or communities facing different challenges.
Yet domestic violence crosses every boundary of geography, income, education, race, culture, and political affiliation. No community is immune, including Marin County.
Domestic violence has remained the most frequently reported violent crime in Marin County for more than two decades. In fiscal year 2024–2025, Marin law enforcement agencies made 873 domestic violence-related referrals to the Marin County District Attorney’s Office. These referrals represent individuals, families, and children whose lives have been impacted by abuse and whose safety often depends on an effective community response.
Center for Domestic Peace hears this reality every day through our hotline, counseling programs, legal advocacy services, housing programs, and community-based support. Behind every call, referral, and request for assistance is a person seeking safety, stability, healing, or hope.
While most cases do not end in homicide, every domestic violence death reminds us that prevention cannot begin at the moment of crisis. It must begin long before violence escalates.
Why Coordinated Community Response Matters
For decades, Marin County has made a commitment to addressing domestic violence through collaboration.
The Marin County Coordinated Community Response Network, led in partnership by the Marin County District Attorney’s Office and Center for Domestic Peace, brings together representatives from law enforcement, healthcare, education, social services, advocacy organizations, and other community institutions. Its purpose is simple but powerful: to ensure that survivors encounter a coordinated system of support rather than a fragmented one.
No single agency can prevent domestic violence fatalities alone.
A healthcare provider may identify injuries or hear concerns about a controlling partner. A teacher may notice changes in a student’s behavior. A police officer may respond to repeated calls at the same residence. An advocate may help a survivor develop a safety plan. Each interaction provides important information and opportunities for intervention.
When systems communicate, collaborate, and learn from one another, communities are better able to identify risk, support survivors, and prevent violence from escalating. This coordinated approach remains one of our most effective tools for reducing harm and increasing safety.
Prevention Must Be Part of the Conversation
Yet if our efforts focus only on responding after violence occurs, we risk overlooking a more important question:
What would it take to prevent violence from happening in the first place?
At Center for Domestic Peace, prevention begins with young people.
Through Marin Against Youth Abuse (MAYA) and Champion Men Zone (CMZ), we work directly with middle and high school students throughout Marin County to promote healthy relationships, consent, respect, accountability, empathy, and violence prevention. These programs help young people recognize warning signs of abuse, challenge harmful stereotypes, and develop skills that contribute to healthier relationships throughout their lives.
These efforts may not generate headlines, but they represent some of the most important violence prevention work happening in our community.
Every adult was once a young person learning what relationships look like. If we want future generations to build healthier relationships, we must be intentional about the lessons they receive today.
The Challenge of Sustaining Prevention
Ironically, prevention is often among the most difficult investments to sustain.
Its successes are measured not by what happens, but by what does not happen. A controlling relationship is recognized before it escalates. A young person develops healthy conflict-resolution skills. A survivor receives information early enough to avoid greater harm. A family never enters the criminal justice system.
These outcomes rarely make headlines, yet they represent some of the most meaningful measures of community well-being.
Over the years, prevention funding has often been among the first resources reduced, both locally and nationally, even as evidence continues to demonstrate the value of early intervention and education. Like many organizations, Center for Domestic Peace has had to scale back prevention efforts despite growing recognition that long-term reductions in violence require sustained investments in prevention.
The need has not diminished. If anything, it has become more urgent.
Looking Beyond Individual Incidents
The persistence of domestic violence, even as other forms of violence decline, invites us to look beyond individual incidents and ask broader questions about the culture we are creating together.
What do young people learn about power, belonging, conflict, and respect?
How do we respond when controlling behavior is normalized, minimized, or explained away?
What messages do people receive about masculinity, relationships, accountability, and equality?
These questions feel especially relevant today. We are living in a time when public discourse often rewards division, when respect for difference is increasingly challenged, and when rigid ideas about gender, power, and identity are resurfacing in many corners of society.
While domestic violence cannot be reduced to a single cause, it thrives in environments where domination is valued over mutuality, where control is mistaken for strength, and where inequality is accepted rather than questioned.
Domestic violence does not emerge in isolation. It reflects not only individual decisions but also the cultural conditions in which those decisions are made.
Building a Safer Future
At Center for Domestic Peace, we believe ending domestic violence requires action at every level.
It requires immediate safety and support for survivors.
It requires accountability for those who cause harm.
It requires strong partnerships among law enforcement, healthcare providers, schools, advocates, and community organizations.
It requires prevention education that reaches young people before harmful patterns take hold.
And it requires a willingness to examine and transform the conditions that allow violence to persist.
The decline in overall homicide rates is worth celebrating. But the persistence of domestic violence deaths reminds us that progress is rarely linear and that some forms of violence require deeper examination.
In Marin County, we have an opportunity to continue strengthening the systems that respond to violence while also investing in the conditions that help prevent it. Through coordinated community response, youth prevention programs, survivor services, and efforts to foster healthier relationships and communities, we can move closer to a future where violence is not simply addressed—it is less likely to occur.
Because the safest homicide is the one that never happens.
And prevention is only possible when communities are willing to invest in it before violence takes root.