New crime data has been released, showing an increase in family violence occurrences within Geelong.
The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) released the recorded crime statistics for the year ending December 2022 this week, which showed an increase in reported family violence within the region.
Victoria Police Geelong superintendent Peter Ward said CSA’s data did not fully comprehend the extent of family violence cases within Victoria.
“While we saw an 11.2 per cent increase in family violence incidents in the last 12 months, a large proportion of family violence offences recorded were breaches of family violence orders, which is due to the methods police are using to monitor known offenders,” he said.
“We know that family violence is chronically underreported due to the relationships between offender and victim, as well as the fact that offending occurs behind closed doors.”
Victoria Police identified that family violence had increased by 1.7 per cent from 2021 and that a similar trend was evident in the breaches of family violence orders which increased by 1.9 per cent.
Mr Ward said the Geelong division was doing what it could to help reduce the number of family violence cases within Victoria.
“For this reason, Family Violence Investigation Unit detectives are out every day, knocking on doors and ensuring they are complying with their orders,” he said.
The data provided by the CSA recorded an increase of close to 500 family violence incidents from January to December last year.
The data also showed that the rate of family incidents increased within the last 12 months by 0.6 per cent to 1400 incidents per 100,00 Victorians.
People can visit the Crime Statistics Agency’s website for more information regarding the latest family violence incidents and more statistics.
