Understanding family violence data Workshop facilitator: Pauline Gulliver

Background to family violence data in NZ Population vs agency data Some practical examples Terminology (unravelling the mysteries of terminology) PLEASE Ask questions, Highlight your own examples 2

Family violence event Identification (reporting) Recording Reporting 3

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Mortality Collection Hospital discharge data Police Courts Family Violence Death Review Committee 5

Monitor service use; Determine resource requirements; Identify improvements (efficiencies) in service delivery; Advice and support on new legislation and legislative reform 6

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Data concerning: – Hospital discharge events, crimes committed, apprehensions made, Protection Order applications, cases initiated under the Domestic Violence Act (1995)/Children, Young Persons and their Families Act (1989)… 8

Identify the relationship between the assailant and the victim; Count events where the majority of the cases are associated with family violence; Flag events considered to be associated with family violence 9

Definitions Labelling Years Consistency Recording/reporting The media 10

Examples: – New Zealand Crime and Safety Survey; – New Zealand Violence Against Women Survey; – Youth 2000 (2007 & 2012) Surveys 11

What they can provide: – Prevalence estimates of victimisation in New Zealand Limitations – Usually limited to those aged years;  do not provide estimates of elder abuse;  estimates of child abuse subject to recall. – Require consistent methodology over time to produce comparable results; – Subject to changing societal understanding of what constitutes violence. 12

Family violence event Identification (reporting) Recording Reporting 13

Two figures provided for Family Violence Incident Reports: 53,000vs41,000 Same calendar year; Both calendar years (not calendar vs fiscal) Why the difference? 14

Occurrences vs offenses – Occurrence: May involve more than one offense; – Offense: A breach of criminal law;  Both numbers were correct: 41,000 = number of family violence incident report occurrences; 53,000 = number of family violence incident report offenses 15

Be sure you understand WHAT is being reported; If you don’t understand, go to the SOURCE (or the NZFVC) and ASK. 16

What is being reported:  Hospital discharges;  Occurrences or offenses (Police);  Prosecutions, convictions, sentencing (Courts);  Homicide, murder (deaths) Over what time period?  Calendar year  Fiscal year (March vs June year end) 17

An expression of the amount of discharges/crimes/convictions… that are family violence related; Requires a numerator and a denominator; Example, deaths attributed to family violence 18

SourceDefinition Family Violence Death Review Committee (2009) Family violence deaths out of culpable deaths 25 out of 53 (47%) 26 out of 63 (41%) 19 out of 65 (29%) 41 out of 88 (47%) 26 a out of 72 (36%) New Zealand Police Statistics Recorded family violence murders out of total murders 26 out of 49 (53%) 21 out of 49 (44%) 16 out of 52 (31%) 36 out of 65 (55%) 25 out of 46 (54%) Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families, Family Violence Indicators Report (2011) Recorded family violence homicide offences (out of total family violence and non-family violence homicide offences) 31 out of 64 (48%) 28 out of 65 (43%) 19 out of 65 (29%) 42 out of 91 (46%) 32 out of 75 (43%) Different numerator definitions; Different denominators; 19

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Prevalence – A measure of how commonly an event occurs in a population: Usually expressed as a rate (e.g. per 100,000 people) or a percentage (8.5%) – 12 month prevalence = how commonly the event occurred in the previous 12 months; – Life-time prevalence = how commonly an event occurred at any point in the life of the population under investigation. 21

Incidence – The rate or occurrence of NEW events; Number of new cases per year divided by the population at risk Incident – An event 22