The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) recently released data showing that in Yarrawonga alone crimes against a person, which in part includes family violence incidents, have steadily increased 73% in the last nine years.
Family and domestic violence continues to be a pressing issue in our community, with Moira Shire unfortunately seeing yet another rise in reported incidents.
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The Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) recently released data showing that Moira Shire saw 653 family incidents in the year to September 2024, a 3.2% increase from the previous year and a concerning rise of 204 incidents or 45% increase over the past five years.
Criminal incidents rose by 6.7%, from 1690 to 1804, with breaches of family violence orders being the most common offence.
In Yarrawonga, crimes against the person have steadily increased from 48 in 2015 to 83 in 2024 - a 73% rise. The most reported offences include assault, stalking, harassment, and threatening behaviours. Property and deception offences also saw an increase in the last 12 months.
The past 12 months of crime statistics in Yarrawonga and the whole Moira Shire continue to show an increase in incidents.
Most of these were relating to theft, burglary/ break and enter, property damage, deception and arson, breach family violence order, assault and related offences, drug use and possession.
Concerningly, the CSA data reveals that Moira Shire has experienced increases across all crime categories, with alleged offender incidents rising significantly by 16.9% and recorded offences increasing by 15.5%.
The only data which saw a decrease was victim reports with a 5.2% drop.
Yarrawonga Police Acting Senior Sergeant Bree George said that community awareness via education and the media has played a really big role in the increase of Family Violence Incidents being reported to police.
“Victims, families, friends and neighbours are now more inclined to either report the Family Violence to police directly or to encourage victims to report the incidents. Whereas in the past, there was a lot of underreporting happening, people turning a blind eye or pretending they didn’t see or hear the incident as they didn’t want to get involved,” Snr Sgt George said.
“The increase in family violence reports is not ideal, but if it means police are able to help more family violence victims and can hold offenders to account, then it can also be seen as a step in the right direction.”
Senior Sergeant George explained that while increased family violence reporting has both positive and negative implications, the rise in statistics across all categories can be attributed to several factors.
“The community has had a rough year, the cost of living has increased dramatically, our housing interest rates have become out of control, people are really struggling financially, therefore unfortunately, they are trying to find other means to support themselves and this I’m sure are all reasons why our thefts, shop steals, theft of motor vehicles crimes have all increased,” Snr Sgt George said.
“We have also seen a significant growth in population in our shire, which can be related to both offending and reporting crime.
“The increase of drug possessions and drug trafficking reports can be attributed to some of the great proactive police work that is occurring within our shire.
“Usually, drug offences are detected by police, our members are out the searching and locating drugs on our offenders or in their vehicles, or police are acting on some of the great information we are provided via the community and crime stoppers, to conducted investigations which lead to search warrants to recover these illicit drugs in our community.”
CSA Chief Statistician Fiona Dowsley said that family incidents have reached their highest levels ever in Victoria, exceeding 100,000 in a year for the first time.
“There have been increases in incidents involving serious assaults, particularly aggravated assaults against females and threats of serious injury,” Ms Dowsley said.
“Aggravated assaults on females frequently coincided with breaches of family violence orders, criminal damage, and common assault, contributing to the overall increase in family incident-related offences.”
If you witness a crime, please contact: - Yarrawonga Police: 5744 3641 - Mulwala Police: 5743 8099 - Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000 - Cobram CIU: 5871 1977 For emergencies, always dial 000.
If you become a victim of any scams firstly contact your financial institution and the police.
The Victoria Police website also has valuable crime prevention tips, party safe registration, firearms applications and forms as well as lots of other useful data for the community so visit police.vic.gov.au for more information.
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