27 February 2020
The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) has released a Data Snapshot entitled "Police Reported Adolescent Family Violence in Victoria". The report examines family violence incidents occurring between 1 July 2014 and 30 June 2019 which involve an adolescent primary aggressor. Adolescent aggressors' historical and future contact with justice system entities are also investigated.
The report found that the number of adolescent family violence (AFV) incidents recorded by police has increased 11.8% over the past five years, with adolescent partner violence experiencing the largest growth, increasing 21.2% from 2014-15 to 2018-19.
An examination of adolescent aggressor histories found that over half of adolescents had evidence of prior exposure to family violence as a young person, through contact with police as a witness or victim-survivor of a family violence incident, or with courts as a protected person on a Family Violence Intervention Order.
The report also investigated adolescent outcomes at a five year follow up from their first police reported family violence incident. It found that most young people (80%) went on to have some kind of future contact with a justice system entity, with 52% recorded as an aggressor at a subsequent police reported family violence incident. Over half of aggressors also had subsequent involvement with police or courts as a victim of crime, a victim-survivor of a family violence incident or as a complainant on a family violence intervention order.
The Data Snapshot Police Reported Adolescent Family Violence in Victoria is available here (External link).
The media release for this paper is available here (External link).