WA crime data reveals domestic violence surge across the past decade

Updated

An alarming increase in domestic violence in WA over the past decade is partially due to growing awareness in the community, but shows more long-term support systems and early intervention is needed, advocates say.

An analysis by the ABC of statistics from WA Police reveals the number of family violence offences in the state has risen sharply.

Family violence offences, including assault and threatening behaviour, have surged more than 100 per cent in the past decade.

This included a spike of 32 per cent between 2014-15 and 2015-16, with the total number of offences jumping from 25,796 to 34,118.

The trend has continued so far this financial year, with recorded offences sitting above the five-year average.

A similar trend can be observed in numbers of breaches of violence restraining orders.

The trend is backed up by data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics — which measures numbers of victims, while the WA Police data measures number of offences — which also indicates a rise in domestic violence in the state.

The ABS recorded a 12 per cent rise in the rate of family violence-related assault victims in 2016 in Western Australia, on the back of a 23 per cent rise in family violence assaults in 2015.

Western Australia was second only to the Northern Territory in terms of the rate of domestic violence in 2016, with 792 victims of assault by a close partner or family member per 100,000 people.

In WA, 64 per cent of recorded assaults were family-violence related in 2015-2016, according to the ABS, and women were more likely than men to be victims of family violence-related assault.

More family violence turning fatal

The WA Police data does not break down homicide statistics by family violence, but ABS data shows there were 14 murders or attempted murders connected to family violence in WA in 2014, rising to 19 in 2015 and 35 in 2016.

Women's Council chief executive Angela Hartwig said the appointment of Rosie Batty as Australian of the Year in 2015 may have helped raise awareness of the issue and encouraged more people to come forward.

"Those conversations that have gone through the media and common households about domestic violence (have) helped break down some of the barriers and fears and myths about reporting domestic and family violence," Ms Hartwig said.

"Where you have a real national push, or a state primary prevention push, you will start to see increases in reporting."

Ms Hartwig said women's refuges in Perth were usually always full, and despite a State Government $21.7 million election pledge to fund domestic violence services, more could be done to provide medium and long-term programs to support victims to stay in their homes.

"We know that ... those reports represent only around 20 per cent of what's going on out there.

"It (sends) a message, a strong message, that obviously we need to not take our foot off the pedal, we need to keep ensuring that more can be done."

Children threatened, injured

But women are not the only victims.

The WA Police data does not break down offenders by age, but ABS data finds victims aged 19 years and under made up 12.7 per cent of family violence-related assault victims in 2016. Of these, 4.2 per cent were 0-14 years of age.

In WA, five of the state's 35 family-violence related homicide victims were aged under 19 years in 2016. There were no victims in this age category in the previous two years.

Commissioner for Children and Young People Colin Pettit said children had a right to live free from violence and called for domestic violence support services to ensure they had child-specific responses in place.

"The negative effects of exposure to family and domestic violence on children and young people are well documented and can include depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, antisocial behaviour and school difficulties," he said.

"While the child themselves may not be the subject of the violent behaviour, the existence of violent behaviour in their household has been shown to cause trauma."

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Topics: domestic-violence, community-and-society, assault, law-crime-and-justice, wa

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