by Armin A. Brott

About the author: Armin A. Brott is a freelance writer living in Berkeley, California, and a frequent contributor to the Washington Post.

[Everyone remembers how the brutal murders of] Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman . . . kept millions of Americans close to their television sets. But there’s a third victim of these killings: the truth about the prevalence of domestic violence and female victimization—a truth maimed almost beyond recognition by the irresponsible use of statistics.

Domestic Violence Figures Are Questionable

Consider the wildly varying number of women who are supposedly beaten by men each year. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, for example, estimates that more than half of married women (over 27 million) will experience violence during their marriage, and that more than one-third (over 18 million) are battered repeatedly every...