RADAR Alert: NPR Article Diverts Listener's Attention Away From Majority of Victims

Considering that the majority of those victimized by violent crime are men, why does National Public Radio turn a story about the Federal Crime Victim's Fund into a story about battered women?

Men are 3.4 times as likely to be murdered than women according to the U.S. Dept. of Justice. And although rates for all types of violent crime have dropped significantly in the last decade, men continue to be 38.4% more likely to be victims of violent crime than are women (see http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/vsxtab.htm).

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If NPR must focus on victims of domestic abuse, why do they focus exclusively on female victims when the U.S. Dept. of Justice reports (PDF document) that 834,732 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner, constituting 36% of those so victimized?

The article claims, "Money goes to states to help families make up for lost wages or pay hospital bills or funeral expenses." But based on the organization featured in the article, it would appear that funding is going instead to organizations that blatantly discriminate against males, both adult and child. The featured organization is the Family Crisis Center's Prince Georges County "Safe House", which is listed on the DC Housing Network's website as accepting only women and their children, and then only if the children don't happen to be boys over 12.

After discriminatory organizations like that have received their cut, is there any money left to cover the lost wages, hospital bills, and funeral expenses that the program was intended to cover? Are the majority of crime victims, who happen to be male, left unserved while the funding that was intended to compensate them is used by organizations that vilify them? And why does NPR choose to glorify such organizations?

Contact National Public Radio and tell them:

1. More than three times as many men as women are murdered annually. (U.S. Dept. of Justice: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm)


2. 38.4% more men than women suffer violent crime. (U.S. Dept. of Justice: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/vsxtab.htm)


3. Even when considering only domestic violence cases, over one-third of those victimized are men. (U.S. Dept. of Justice: http://ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/183781.pdf).


4. By using only battered women to illustrate a story on the Crime Victim's Fund, they've made the majority of victims of violent crime invisible.

Here’s the contact information:

U.S. mail:

Weekend Edition

National Public Radio

635 Massachusetts Ave., NW

Washington, D.C. 20001-3753

Ombudsman:
Jeffrey A. Dvorkin

Send comments to Mr. Dvorkin via the webform found here.


FAX: 202-513-3329

When you write, be sure to include your name, address, and daytime telephone number.

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