The Crime Statistics Agency quarterly data from January to March 2022 showed family incidents — including incidents of family violence — rose by 21.5 per cent since the same time last year.
Campaspe Acting Inspector David Bowler said while the rise did seem alarming, it was the result of police increasing reporting methods for victim survivors of family violence.
“Throughout COVID we expected an increase in family violence reports,” he said.
“We all concentrated on alternative ways for family violence reports to be lodged to allow people to seek refuge from family violence.”
He said police focus on reducing family violence also accounted for breach of family violence intervention orders becoming the top criminal incident subgroup for the quarter.
Five hundred and thirty-two breaches were recorded in Campaspe last quarter, up from 447 last year.
Insp Bowler said the top subgroup of criminal incident in the area reflected officers were focusing their efforts on holding perpetrators of family violence to account.
“We are holding our offenders to account,” he said.
Total criminal incident reports in Campaspe has dropped by 1.5 per cent, but the rate of criminal incidents per 100,000 residents was recorded as higher than the state average, at 6388.5 compared to 5142.2.
Insp Bowler said it was a trend seen in many regional areas in Victoria.
“As we come out of the COVID recovery period, we’ve seen a huge growth in residential sales in Echuca Moama, so we can expect to see an influx of crime and road trauma,” he said.
“The challenge for us is to get back to our community to see what’s important to them, and balancing our service delivery.”
Insp Bowler said youth crime was an emerging issue in the community, while drug and alcohol-fuelled offences continued to be a concern.
He said in order to solve the issues, it would take the entire community.
“These are not just police problems,” Insp Bowler said.
“It’s about working collaboratively with community groups, business and agencies to develop long-term strategies to stem the flow of these issues.”
Insp Bowler said victim survivors of family violence could report incidents to a range of groups and authorities, including police, magistrates’ court staff, Orange Door, and other organisations.
For those who need support, call the Orange Door, Loddon, on 1800 512 359 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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