Domestic violence has spiked in Geelong with a 14.2 per cent increase in family incidents and family violence order breaches up by almost a third in a year.
Breaches of family violence orders increased 31.7 from 1992 offences in 2019 to 2555 in 2020, according to Crime Statistics Agency Victoria data released yesterday.
Family incidents rose from 3751 to 4283 an increase of 11.7 per cent per 100,000 people, a measure which takes population growth into account.
Geelong Inspector Paul Edebone attributed the rise in part to victims’ increased willingness to report incidents and people staying at home longer due to COVID-19.
“The victims were able to have confidence that police will attend and do something,” he said.
“From a police perspective our priority is to make sure aggrieved victims are looked after and perpetrators are brought before the courts in a timely manner.”
Geelong police also targetted repeat family violence offenders, Inspector Edebone said.
“It’s a community and police expectation that we all work together to get these offenders before the courts.”
The percentage of local family incidents involving physical injury was decreasing due to police intervention, according to Inspector Edebone.
Overall breaches of orders, including bail, were up 22.7 per cent (20 per cent per 100,000 people) from 2656 to 3259.
Drug dealing and trafficking increased 29.1 per cent (26 per cent per 100,000), and possession and use were up 24.5 per cent (21.6 per cent per 100,000).
“We’ve been running quite a few operations in Geelong targeting the high-end dealers and those stats are a reflection of that,” Inspector Edebone said.
“We’ve been quite effective in disrupting the Geelong drug trade in the past six to 12 months.”
This included two firearms compliance operations, which helped reduce local gun violence by almost half since last October, Inspector Edebone said.
Burglary was down 13 per cent (14.9 per cent per 100,000) and theft 5.5 per cent (7.6 per cent per 100,000).
Overall crime increased by six per cent in Geelong from 21,711 offences in 2019 to 23,008 in 2020.
But minus 794 local COVID-19-related offences, the increase was 2.3 per cent.
The majority of local COVID-19 offences occurred last April (100), August (281) and September (116).
According Inspector Edebone, overall Geelong crime had decreased in the past three months.
