DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa ranks second in the nation for the percentage of women that have experienced domestic violence.

It is not a good statistic, and Iowa lawmakers want to change it before it becomes too late for some.

Last year, there were 669 murder-suicide incidents nationwide, with more than half of the offenders shown to have a past history of domestic violence.

That is why legislation is being drafted to offer law enforcement better tools to assess domestic violence calls, and help police determine the true threat facing the victim.

“Has the offender ever strangled you? Do they have access to a weapon? Have they ever threatened to kill you? Have they ever threatened suicide? Answers to questions like that eventually pop out a score, which is a risk score of how likely the offender is to escalate to homicide. That score would then follow the offender to jail, and if they were at high risk we would ask then that they be put on GPS monitoring during the court process,” said Tiffany Allison, Founder of Soaring Hearts Foundation and a domestic violence survivor.

Over 23 percent of American murders from 2010 to 2019 were domestic homicides. Allison says that this GPS system can notify victims if the offender is close to them, especially around a victim’s home and place of work.