Police handle 5,000 domestic violence matters a week, up 7 per cent

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Australian police are dealing with 5,000 domestic and family violence matters a week. That's one every two minutes.

Or 264,028 per year.

There is no official count of the number of domestic violence incidents in Australia.

But data the ABC has collected from police forces around the country shows the number of times police are dealing with domestic violence matters has climbed 7 per cent in the past year.

"This is not acceptable," Our Watch chief executive Mary Barry said.

"This is not the society that we in Australia should be living in and we should not be accepting that this is how we live."

Ms Barry said the rise may show the community is becoming more aware that domestic violence is a crime.

"People are more confident that they can communicate [about violence]," she said.

"It's bringing attention to the perpetrators, that we're not blaming the victim, this is a crime and these women need support."

The figures point to an increase in victims letting police know about violence, rather than a real-world increase in violence, according to Mayet Costello, the acting chief executive of Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS).

They might mean public awareness campaigns are having an effect.

"Sometimes the indicator of success is an increase in reporting," Ms Costello said.

"As you would be aware over the last year we've seen an increase in public attention to the issue. Along with the media attention is that people are feeling less shame or isolation.

"Historically domestic violence has been underreported but every time there's a campaign or news report we see a spike in the number of reports."

Ms Barry said it would take generational change to see a decline in these numbers.

"It's not going to happen overnight," she said.



Where we got the data

ABC News collected the data from each of the state and territory police and crime statistics departments.

There is no standard definition of domestic and family violence across all jurisdictions in Australia and no standard way for counting the number of police call-outs to situations related to domestic violence.

The details of the data being captured varies across jurisdictions and can include:

attendance at suspected domestic and family violence incidents;

domestic and family violence court orders made by the police;

domestic and family violence assaults (encompassing threats and physical violence); and

associated agencies reporting domestic and family violence to the police.

It is not recommended to compare the states with each other, as each state or territory has its own definition of family and domestic violence and its own way of counting incidents.

However, it is worth looking at the percentage change across the years in each state. For example, the ACT and Northern Territory show declines in police dealings with domestic violence matters.

But the sharp increase in the South Australian figures should be treated with caution: SA Police described their figure as 'anecdotal' as they do not specifically collect domestic violence statistics.

A SA police spokesperson said: "Over 480 matters are reported to police each week. We have engaged heavily with the community through educating and encouraging people to report any incidents related to these important crime types. As a result, we believe that community confidence in police to deal with these issues has increased and this can result in further reporting."

The Federal Government has been working towards getting better data about domestic violence but estimates the process of setting up national data collection and reporting won't be complete until 2022.

How often do police deal with domestic violence matters? Date range Number 12-month change Vic 2015 74,385 9% Qld 2014-15 71,777 9% NSW 2014-15 65,120 2% Tas 2014-15 4,410 8% WA 2014-15 16,461 9% ACT 2014-15 2,876 -13% NT 2015 3,970 -6% SA 2016 25,029 20% Aust 264,028 7%

Topics: domestic-violence, law-crime-and-justice, crime-prevention, australia