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.
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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.