Family Violence and Youth

Key Issue - Identification of families at risk to reduce violence

The 1987 Ministerial Committee of the Inquiry into Violence led by Justice Roper described family violence as "the cradle for the perpetuation of violence and crime in the community". It is estimated that up to 80 percent of all violence is family-based.

Family violence offending varies hugely in both significance and seriousness. It is significantly under-reported, with the police often called as a last resort when people are in crisis. Family violence situations are potentially dangerous for attending police officers and have been the scenes of greatest tragedy for police in terms of injury and death to officers. Police vigorously support the whole of government effort to reduce family violence, especially its harmful effects on young people.

One measure of effective family violence prevention across the community is fewer family violence-related murders. Unlike some other overseas jurisdictions where family violence murders have fallen by 75 percent, family violence murders in New Zealand have remained stubbornly consistent over the last 15 years. Research indicates family violence murders are relatively predictable, and this predictability gives the police and other agencies an opportunity to work with victims, offenders and families to reduce family violence.

Police gather data on family violence incidents in some districts to conduct lethality assessments, these assessments will guide future family safety planning. Police are working in partnership with other agencies to make interventions based on a probability that action is required. Police are leading the joint Family Safety Teams initiative, and we expect to see a reduction in young persons placed at risk through a reduced exposure to family violence.

Key Issue - the increase in young people in the general population

The proportion of young persons coming to police attention has remained reasonably constant over recent years. The anticipated increase in youth population that will flow through over the next decade will likely cause an increase in police interaction with young people. Thus, we anticipate an increase in youth offending, and this is resource intensive work that relies on good cross agency co-operation and a significant investment of police and partners' time.

Most police interactions with youth offenders occur without placing the child or young offender formally into the Courts process. Police ability to manage this early intervention is dependent on availability of sufficiently trained staff, with sufficient time. These are primarily youth aid officers and youth development team staff. Support for young people will also be enhanced through the activities of police education officers delivering information to equip young people to make good life choices.

Over the next three years the Minister will be interested to monitor the following activities:

• the effectiveness of family violence reduction initiatives;
• police youth services and our cross-sector interaction to reduce youth offending and re-offending;
• consider applying increased funding to police youth services to add more prevention capability; and
• the clarified roles of police education officers and their effectiveness in preventing young people entering the criminal justice system.