It has long been known that women are more likely to be killed in their homes at the hand of someone they know and that the weapon of choice is most often a firearm, said Elmire Raven, executive director of My Sister's House, a shelter-based program that provides round-the-clock help to victims in three counties.

The new information in the study released Tuesday by the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., was South Carolina's national ranking, based on 2002 statistics. South Carolina ranked sixth nationwide in the rate of women killed by men in single-victim, single-offender cases. Cases from that year were analyzed because those are the latest numbers available from the FBI.

"That's an improvement. We were number one last year," Raven said. Last year's report was based on 2001 homicides.

South Carolina has ranked first twice in five years, Raven said.

"We kind of fluctuate in the top five. The fact we're not in the top five is kind of a miracle itself," Raven said.

The lower rate is an improvement, state Attorney General Henry McMaster said. But "the number is still outrageously high and it needs to come down. It needs to come down to zero."

The 2002 figures don't show the impact of changes in the state's domestic violence and abuse laws in the past couple years.

For instance, tougher domestic violence and abuse penalties hit the law books last year. McMaster last year launched a program in two counties that trains volunteer lawyers to prosecute domestic violence cases."I think we've had over 300 convictions and a hundred dismissals," McMaster said. The program is expanding to York County and eventually will be spread throughout the state.

Tougher laws and better enforcement should help break a violence cycle that spreads from battering and battered spouses to children who follow those examples when they grow up, McMaster said.

"It is slow, but we are making enormous progress," McMaster said.

Continued early education and awareness of domestic violence could improve South Carolina's ranking, Raven said. My Sister's House holds programs for all school levels, Raven said.

"To me, the sooner you start them to understand that no one deserves to be abused, that women and men should be equal ... I think the better off we would be," Raven said.

Rob Dewey, senior chaplain of Coastal Crisis Chaplaincy, agrees that children need to be taught early on to respect human life and respect each other.

The challenge is to break the cycle of domestic violence and encourage women in abusive situations to have enough trust in the process to get help through programs such as My Sister's House or victims' advocates who are now standard in all police departments, Dewey said. Community resources are available today that didn't exist 10 years ago, he said.

"We can legislate a lot of things, but until we develop trust in our neighborhoods, I don't know how much change we will see," Dewey said.

The Violence Policy Center is a nonprofit educational organization. A snapshot of its 2002 analysis of South Carolina homicides revealed:

- The average age of victims was 39.

- More than half of the victims were black (29 of 49).

- Most women (68%) were killed with guns (when the weapon used could be identified).

- Most women (75%) were killed during arguments with the offender.

- The majority of women (93%) were killed by someone they knew. Most victims were wives, common-law wives, ex-wives or girlfriends of the offenders.

49 - Number of females murdered by males in South Carolina in 2002

3 - Number of victims under the age of 18

68 - Percent killed with guns

93 - Percent killed by someone they knew

39 - Average age of victim

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