NSW domestic and family violence offending worsens

ABC NEWS (Australia)

New data out of New South Wales shows domestic and family violence offending is getting worse with one in five apprehended violence orders being breached.

Transcript

00:00These figures paint a grim picture of domestic violence in New South Wales.

00:07In the short term, the reporting period has shown a 6.5% increase in domestic violence

00:12offences across the board, whereas in the long term, over a decade, a 2.8% increase,

00:18which is the kind of statistics that are particularly worrying as it's a longer term trend and an

00:22indication of overall where offending is heading.

00:25So what is actually driving these numbers?

00:28Well, the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research say it's largely to do with an increase

00:32in offending in the Greater Sydney area, where some pockets of Sydney have seen particularly

00:38higher numbers of offences, both in the Northern Beaches region in the short term, as well

00:43as the Outer and South West and Blue Mountains region.

00:46However, there are some pockets in regional New South Wales where offending has also picked

00:51up.

00:52The Orana and Far West New South Wales region of the state, three times the state average

00:56of offending, while the New England district also more than double the state average for

01:01domestic violence offences.

01:03Overall, 15 adult women have been murdered via domestic violence, while three children

01:08have also been killed in this period.

01:10No adult men were killed in this period, as recorded by Boxar.

01:15All of this has prompted national action and outrage prior to the statistics being released.

01:20It's been a major part of the nation's conversation around responding and reducing rates of family

01:26and domestic violence right across the country.

01:29In New South Wales, in July 1 this year, coercive control laws did take effect, and this dump

01:35of data does show some insight into how many cases are being pursued.

01:39For July and August this year, we saw 56 cases of coercive control pursued by police.

01:45Fifty-three of them are impacting women, while three are impacting men.

01:49Thus far, what is surprising police is the number of instances of financial abuse as

01:55part of coercive control, as well as harassing, tracking or monitoring as a means of coercive

02:00control.

02:01Now, of course, this doesn't include any of the data for September or the month of October

02:05now at the moment, so we would naturally expect those numbers to tick up, and the full picture

02:11we may not know for some time yet to see just how insidious coercive control is across the

02:16state of New South Wales.

02:18One thing undeniable, though, as this data reveals, offending is getting worse and it's

02:23a problem the entire state will have to tackle.

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