Analysis of family violence incidents, July 2003 - June 2004: final report

Abstract

The Family Violence Intervention Program (FVIP) commenced in May 1998. Phase two commenced in May 2000 and now covers the whole of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). It aims to provide a best practice model for criminal justice intervention in family violence incidents. The AFP Family Violence team reviews family violence incidents which have occurred in the ACT and maintains a data base of these incidents. This database provides information about trends in family violence incidents in the ACT in order to improve AFP responses to family violence incidents. The first report from this database was compiled by the AFP for the 2001-02 financial year. The Australian Institute of Criminology was commissioned to analyse the data for the 2002-03 financial year and base the structure of the findings around that contained in the first report with additional analyses and recommendations where appropriate.

This third report presents the findings for the 2003-04 financial year. This report focuses on all incidents which were recorded by the AFP on their data base for the financial year 2003-04. The incidents recorded in the AFP Family Violence data base refer to each recorded incident of family violence in which police were either involved or notified. For the purposes of this report an 'incident' includes what happened immediately prior to police arrival and during police presence. For ease of comparison with the previous year the findings in this report are, in most cases, presented for 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04.

Prepared for ACT Policing, Australian Federal Police.