Domestic and family violence played a role in the majority of murders of women and girls across North Carolina, according to a new report from the state's Criminal Justice Analysis Center, which also found that domestic violence factored into roughly 40% of all violent crimes against people statewide. The findings, drawn from data spanning 2020 through 2025, land amid a grim statewide tally: 50 people were killed in domestic-violence homicides across North Carolina between January and September alone.
WFAE reported on the analysis center's report. Separately, a release from the North Carolina Department of Public Safety said the analysis center's report found that domestic and family violence accounted for more than half of reported kidnappings and simple assaults in the state. The release described domestic and family violence as continuing to stand as a top contributor to violent interpersonal crime in the state, noting it was identified as a factor in 42% of violent interpersonal crimes reported statewide. Women, Black residents, and adults ages 25 to 34 were identified as among the most frequent victims in the analyzed reports.
A Record Year For Domestic-Violence Homicides
The numbers behind those findings paint a troubling trajectory. North Carolina recorded a record 90 domestic-violence homicide cases in 2024, according to WRAL — a staggering 69.8% increase in such homicides between 2018 and 2024. The station's report also found that domestic-violence-related homicides are now occurring roughly every 5.5 days somewhere in the state.
Firearms have become increasingly central to these killings. From 2018 through 2022, firearms were involved in 70% of domestic-violence homicides in North Carolina; that share rose to 75% between 2021 and 2023, per the same WRAL analysis. A separate study by the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence, reported by WECT, found the state has seen an increase of nearly 70% in domestic-violence homicides since the pandemic.
Shelters Strained, Services In High Demand
The surge in violence has translated into surging demand for help. Domestic-violence agencies across North Carolina served 75,562 survivors in 2021-2022, a 25% increase from 2018, the WRAL report notes. Overall service provision increased 72% between 2018 and 2022 and remained 51% above 2018 levels as of 2023.
That demand pushed shelters past capacity during the pandemic, with facilities full for 133 days during the 2020-2021 stay-at-home restrictions, according to the same report. WECT's reporting adds that victims have been staying in shelters 38% longer than they did in 2019, a sign that the path out of dangerous situations has grown more difficult to navigate even as more survivors seek help.
Funding For Survivors Has Shrunk Dramatically
Even as need has grown, the money available to meet it has not kept pace. Annual federal Crime Victims Fund support for North Carolina declined from $103,435,763 in 2018 to just $24,576,283 in 2024, according to WRAL's analysis of state data. North Carolina received $41.5 million for victims' services in 2026, per the state agency, an amount less than half of what it received in 2018.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said in a release that funding to address these crimes has become scarcer due to federal cuts. The agency's statement frames the funding decline as a direct constraint on the state's ability to respond to a crisis that, by the Criminal Justice Analysis Center's own accounting, now touches the majority of homicides involving women and girls across North Carolina.
