Police cautiously welcome fall in family violence figures

GREATER Dandenong has bucked the state’s soaring rate of reported family violence, according to a Crime Statistics Agency report released last week.
In 2014, there were 2095 reported family incidents to Greater Dandenong police – down from 2250 the previous year.
Statewide, the number of incidents rose by 8.2 per cent.
The local result also breaks a rising trend in Greater Dandenong over the previous four years.
Greater Dandenong police’s local area commander Inspector Bruce Kitchen said the municipality was one of just two in the state that had defied the continuing rise.
“I’m mindful, though, that there is still a lot of under-reporting among our multicultural community.”
He said the result was aided by the targeting of recidivist family-violence offenders – an approach now being mimicked by other policing areas in Victoria.
“We’re also concentrating on repeat victims, making sure they get appropriate refferals to services such as refuges and counselling.”
Over the same period, the rate of thefts of motor vehicles rose by 25 per cent in Greater Dandenong.
Inspector Kitchen said the rise was largely due to several “recidivist groups” operating last year.
The rate had also come off a low base in 2013, he said.
– CAM LUCADOU-WELLS