Local Pastors Turn Day-of-the-Week Crime Data into Anti-Domestic Violence Campaign

Whywhynot

Anti-Domestic Violence advocates say victims often turn to their faith leaders for support, which is why some pastors have formed the Safe on Sunday campaign.

It's Monday, which means, according to federal data, that you're more likely to be forcibly sodomized today than any other day of the week. Sorry if we just made your Monday blues 10 thousand times worse.

Information gathered by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention from FBI crime data points to a jump in certain crimes on certain days of the week. On Sundays, aggravated and simple assaults, which often indicate domestic violence, go way up.

And Sunday's crimes are getting a lot of attention in Dallas.

Some local church leaders, in collaboration with The Family Place domestic violence shelter, are taking the data as a cue for a new anti-domestic violence campaign. The Safe on Sunday program will train church leaders in how to provide resources to victims and encourage ministers to preach against domestic violence from the pulpit.

"The idea of Safe on Sunday is that a victim of domestic violence is likely to go to their faith leaders first," says Paige Flink, CEO of The Family Place. "It's often that people trust their religious leader, and so they often feel that this is somewhere they can go. Deeply religious people use their religion to guide them through a lot of things. And so if a person is going to go to that faith leader, we want the faith leader to have good information to give to them."

The chart points to other telling information. While domestic violence assaults are up on Sundays, murders are up on Wednesdays, kidnappings up on Fridays, rapes up on Thursdays

It's not clear why Sundays lead to a spike in domestic violence. Some claim that there's a jump in domestic violence reports on Super Bowl Sundays, although that's generally dismissed. Flink says it's likely because fewer people work on Sundays and spend more time at home.

"People are more likely to be at home together on that day. They're in proximity to each other," says Flink. "It's the same thing that happens during the holiday season, because there's more time together, more family time together. More extended family is also around, which can sometimes cause pressures."

The online database allows certain crimes to be broken down several different factors. Check out the information broken down by day of the week and type of crime in Texas.

OJJDP

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