Indicator: Decrease family violence deaths
Measure: Number of family violence-related deaths
Family violence, in particular intimate partner violence, contributes to more death, disability and illness in adult women than any other preventable risk factor.1
The Coroners Court of Victoria identifies how many homicides each year are related to family violence.
It is difficult to assess changes in the number of family violence homicides over time, in part due to the small number of incidents. There may be large fluctuations over time that are not significant.
The lag between when a homicide is reported to the register and when an investigation concludes (and thus identifies whether a homicide was related to family violence) further limits our ability to assess change. For 2019–20 and 2020–21 data, the higher number of ‘unknowns’ reflects this lag.
Noting the above limitations, data from 2020–21 does not indicate that the number of family violence homicides is decreasing. In 2020–21, 25 homicides related to family violence were reported to the VHR, with a further 19 yet to be determined whether they are related to family violence.
This number of family violence homicides is the highest reported since 2015–16.
Number of family violence-related homicides by financial year – 2015-16 to 2020-21
| Number of homicide deceased | 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Family violence related | 33 | 24 | 21 | 15 | 21 | 25 |
| Not family violence related | 38 | 31 | 37 | 31 | 37 | 19 |
| Other | ≤ 3 | 7 | 4 | 9 | 23 | 19 |
Source: Coroners Court of Victoria data extracted from the Victorian Homicide Register (VHR) by the Crime Statistics Agency
Notes
1Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2018, Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia, 2018, <https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/domestic-violence/family-domestic-sexua…;.
Updated