Incidents of domestic violence are on the rise in Cincinnati, data from the Cincinnati Police Department shows.
CPD crime statistics show more than 1,600 domestic violence incidents through August this year. That's 200 more than the same time frame last year and 300 more than 2024.
CPD Supervising Crime Analyst Jillian Desmond says the increases have come in all CPD districts, encompass a number of different offenses, and are part of a national trend.
"The last half of the year this year, there has been an increase in strangulations; there's been an increase in stalking; there's been an increase in simple assault domestic violence," she said at a conference focused on problem-solving policing approaches last month. "That is what a lot of cities across the country are seeing — we're not the only one."
Desmond says violence between intimate partners is part of the overall increase, but there's also been an uptick in assaults between other family members, including minors.
Increase ongoing since the pandemic
Women Helping Women CEO Kristin Shrimplin says her organization has seen increasing domestic violence numbers since the pandemic. She says not only are the numbers going up, but incidents have become more serious more quickly in the past two years.
"Before, it was pretty common that, for instance, when someone would call our hotline, they're like, 'Hey, I've lived with verbal, emotional, psychological abuse for awhile. It's just now escalating to physical,' " Shrimplin said. "That has quantifiably changed. First-time callers, first-time to the hospital, first-time 911 calls, it's going quickly to strangulation, threats with weapons, and sexual assaults."
CPD data shows the number of strangulations in the city increased by 65% from January to August 2026 over the same time frame the previous year.
Strangulations are especially concerning, survivor advocates like Shrimplin say, because research shows they indicate a much higher risk of a domestic abuse situation becoming fatal.
Funding a likely issue
Shrimplin says the reasons for the increase in domestic violence are likely complex. But she points out one factor is likely the funding landscape for organizations like hers that advocate for survivors and try to intervene in domestic violence situations.
Shrimplin says only about one dollar out of seven for domestic violence funding is allocated for prevention. The rest is usually earmarked for response to emergency situations.
And that money is dwindling, she says. Some federal and local funding sources have been delayed or eliminated in recent years. The government funding sources make up a about 67% of its $8 million budget, Shrimplin says.
Women Helping Women has received federal grants associated with the Victims of Crime Act Fund in the past to fund advocates for domestic violence survivors. Shrimplin says the amount of money in the national fund has dropped significantly in recent years. And the availability of the grants, which are parceled out by states, is unclear this year.
"The state of Ohio, to my understanding, still hasn't received it," she says. "We don't know how much is in there for local agencies."
Another significant federal grant, through the Department of Justice's Office of Violence Against Women, also is delayed, Shrimplin says.
"There are a limited amount of private foundations," Shrimplin says. "We no longer receive United Way funding. That was a loss. We navigated a reduction in money we receive from the county. That was a loss. When you take all of those pieces of the puzzle — and our agency isn't alone in this — it's very difficult as violence goes up."
What's being done
CPD data analyst Desmond says the department currently is relying on arrests of repeat offenders to try and address the uptick in domestic violence. But she says the department is also looking into more targeted, problem-solving approaches that work similarly to the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence. Under CIRV, CPD partnered with community organizations to build relationships in an effort to prevent crime.
"There are a few models out there, research that addresses repeat offenders, really trying to find repeat offenders and trying to create that deterrence inside of them, that we know we know who you are, your neighbors know who you are, we know what you're doing," Desmond says. "But that's relatively untested."
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