MADISON, Wis. – Attorney General Josh Kaul today announced that new data on domestic abuse incidents in Wisconsin is now available for the public’s review.

“By making more data available, we can help law enforcement, policymakers, and advocates for survivors who are working to reduce domestic violence,” said Attorney General Josh Kaul.

In 2018, the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice Information and Analysis (BJIA) published interactive data dashboards on domestic abuse, offering incident- and case-level data detail. At the time, only data from 2013-2016 was available. Data from 2017 is now published on the dashboards, and 2015-2016 data has been updated.

The dashboards are divided into three primary areas: law enforcement reporting, charging, and case processing. Users can view information about incidents reported by law enforcement, including the number of incidents, suspects, victims, and arrests by county. Users can also view information about charging and case processing, including the most common and severe referred, issued, and convicted charges, as well as information about prosecutions, convictions, and sentencing by county and by defendant demographics.

View the domestic abuse data dashboards at https://www.doj.state.wi.us/dles/bjia/domestic-abuse-data.

Additional information regarding the definitions and methodology are available on the dashboard page. Under Wis. Stat. § 968.075 (9), district attorneys are required to annually report domestic abuse law enforcement responses, arrests, prosecutions, and convictions to the DOJ. The data used to construct the dashboards includes only those incidents reported to district attorneys’ offices by law enforcement, entered into, and flagged as a domestic case by staff within the district attorney's office. Law enforcement agencies and the district attorneys' offices are responsible for complete and accurate data reporting.  The data will be refreshed annually.

These data dashboards were developed by BJIA, which works to inform criminal justice policy and practice by conducting objective research, analysis, and evaluation of information. BJIA first launched interactive data dashboards in 2016. Other dashboards currently available, which include uniform crime reporting data from 2013 to 2017, are arrests by location, arrest demographics, offenses by location, offense and arrest data by agency and sex offenses.