Partner abuse statistics: Halloween overtakes Christmas
Dellino Family Law reviewed 2025 FBI NIBRS records and determined that Halloween produced 681 qualifying former-partner incidents, exceeding the 668 incidents recorded on Christmas. This placed Halloween second among the four holidays studied in the former-partner subset drawn from jurisdictions covering 286,966,372 residents.
The complete former-partner figures are New Year’s Day 997 incidents at 0.347 per 100,000 residents with a +101.2 percent change versus matched days, Halloween 681 incidents at 0.237 per 100,000 with +16.7 percent, Christmas 668 incidents at 0.233 per 100,000 with +24.7 percent, and Thanksgiving 561 incidents at 0.195 per 100,000 with +4.7 percent.
Only 13 incidents and a rate difference of 0.004 per 100,000 separated Halloween and Christmas. Christmas nevertheless posted the larger relative increase at 24.7 percent above its own baseline, an 8.0 percentage-point advantage over Halloween’s 16.7 percent rise.
The holiday order reversed when the analysis was restricted to former partners. Christmas ranked second overall but dropped to third among former-partner cases, while Halloween advanced from fourth overall to second in the narrower subset.
Thanksgiving’s 4.7 percent estimated increase rests on an index score of 104.72 whose approximate 95 percent uncertainty interval extended from 96.0 to 114.2. Because the interval includes the baseline value of 100, the data do not establish a statistically clear rise for that holiday.
New Year’s Day stood apart as the dominant outlier with 997 former-partner incidents at a rate of 0.347 per 100,000 and a 101.2 percent increase over baseline, more than four times the relative increase observed on Christmas. Across all four holidays, 2,907 qualifying incidents involved former partners, with New Year’s Day remaining the clear outlier in the analysis by Dellino Family Law. The holiday produced substantially higher numbers than Halloween, which had 681 incidents at 0.237 per 100,000 with a 16.7 percent increase, or Christmas with 668 incidents at 0.233 per 100,000 and a 24.7 percent increase. Thanksgiving recorded the lowest at 561 incidents. These results come from 2025 FBI NIBRS records covering jurisdictions with 286,966,372 residents. The findings indicate that New Year’s Day diverged markedly from the other dates when the focus was restricted to former partners identified through ex-spouse and ex-relationship codes.
Washington state data reproduced the same former-partner ordering. Among 56 qualifying incidents, New Year’s Day accounted for 23, Halloween for 14, Christmas for 10, and Thanksgiving for 9. The ordering mirrors the national former-partner pattern, with Halloween ranking ahead of Christmas despite Christmas’s stronger national percentage increase.
The study examined 2025 FBI NIBRS records for January 1, October 31, November 27, and December 25. Former partners were identified through FBI ex-spouse and ex-relationship codes, and qualifying incidents were limited to aggravated assault, simple assault, or intimidation counted once per record.
