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Family violence victimisations

Family violence victimisations are acts intended to cause injury, sexual assault and related offences and abduction, harassment and other related offences against a person where the relationship of the offender to the victim is family member (including ex- partner) [12]. New Zealand has among the highest rates of recorded family violence in the developed world[13] and there are likely many more people affected by family violence than are captured by family violence indicators, as many instances of family violence go unreported [14].

Family violence is linked to a series of negative health and wellbeing outcomes both in the short and long term. For example, children who witness violence between parents or who are victims of parents’ violence are at higher risk of experiencing behavioural problems, or bullying other children, or achieving poor school performance [15]. Domestic violence also brings about high public costs for victim support, medical care, mental health services, police, and other losses of productivity [15].

This indicator presents the number of victimisations for acts intended to cause injury, sexual assault and related offences and abduction, harassment and other related offences against a person where the relationship of the offender to the victim is family member (including ex-partner), monthly, in the greater Christchurch area (stations from Canterbury Metro Area and Canterbury Rural combined to approximate the greater Christchurch boundary).

The figure shows that there may have been some overall decline in the recorded number of victimisations for family violence in greater Christchurch between July 2014 and April 2022 (the extent of the time-series data available under the current crime reporting system), however trend analysis is not available for these data. The number of victimisations has fluctuated and ranged between 27 and 89 per month over the period shown. The figure also shows that the number of victimisations for acts of family violence is somewhat higher during the summer months. This is likely to be related to both social and physical environmental factors (related to temperature and changes to patterns of routine activities) [12, 16].