Strangulation (domestic violence)

Strangulation in the context of domestic violence is a potentially lethal form of assault. Unconsciousness may occur within seconds of strangulation and death within minutes. Strangulation can be difficult to detect and until recently was often not treated as a serious crime. However, in many jurisdictions strangulation is now a specific criminal offense, or an aggravating factor in assault cases.

Although sometimes the words are used interchangeably, "strangulation" and "choking" are not the same thing. Choking is when air flow is blocked by food or a foreign object in the trachea – something that can be addressed by the Heimlich maneuver. Strangulation, by contrast, is defined by reduced air flow and/or blood flow to or from the brain via the intentional external compression of blood vessels or the airway in the neck. Notably, however, many victims of strangulation refer to the assault as "choking".

Manual strangulation (i.e., gripping the throat with one’s hands) is the most common method of strangulation in intimate partner violence, although ligatures (e.g., belts, scarves) are sometimes used.

A systematic review of 23 articles based on 11 surveys in 9 countries (N=74,785, about two-thirds of whom were women) found that 3.0% to 9.7% of women reported that they had at some time been strangled by an intimate partner. A total of 0.4% to 2.4% – with 1.0% being typical – reported that they had experienced it in the past year, and women were between 2 times and 14 times more likely to be strangled by an intimate partner than were men.

The most recent national survey in the U.S. that asked about strangulation by an intimate partner asked 16,507 adults (55% of whom were women) if a partner had tried to hurt them by choking or suffocating them. A total of 9.7% responded that a partner had done so at some point in their lifetime; 0.9% reported that it had happened during the past year.

The prevalence of strangulation appears to be decreasing in Canada, the only country with multiple cross-sectional surveys that measure strangulation.

The first major study of surviving victims of strangulation assault found that 99% of the 300 victims in criminal cases involving "choking" were female. In 2000, a meta-analytic review of gender differences in physical aggression against a heterosexual partner concluded that ". ..'choke or strangle' is very clearly a male act, whether based on self- or partner reports." A similar conclusion was reached in a 2014 multi-nation review: "…women are more likely than men to report that they were strangled by an intimate partner."

A series of studies conducted in Canada found the same gender discrepancy and reported that strangulation by an intimate is more common among disabled persons, cohabiting (vs. married) persons, and those in a step- (vs. biological) family. Women who had been abused by an intimate partner reported higher rates of strangulation.

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