Lack of Statistics on Family Violence a Concern

April 03, 2014 at 8:49 AM

Police have released crime statistics for the year ending 31 December 2013, showing a drop in recorded crime by 5% per head of population. In relation to family violence data, Police provided the following information:

"These statistics include offences recorded by police in all contexts, whether family violence or not. Since 2011 these statistics have not distinguished between different contexts in which offending occurs, but simply categorised offences according to how they are defined in legislation.

Police are developing a new set of statistics that will include the relationship between victim and offender. This will provide greater insight into the contexts in which crime occurs. For example, we will be able to distinguish crime occurring within families from crime where the victim and offender are acquaintances or strangers. We expect this new information to be available later this year."

You can read more about these issues here.

You can also read the recent report released by the Families Commission on Family Violence Indicators here.