Sexual assault incidents are on the rise in the Shoalhaven, with an increase of 11 per cent in the last two years.
The region is higher than the state rise of sexual reports, with NSW recording a rise of 10.2 percent for the same period.
The BOSCAR statistics also examined non-domestic assaults with the region also recording an increase of 6.4 per cent, which is higher than the state trend.
Shoalhaven caravan park groundskeeper Toby Williams said the region was a popular holiday destination and this may be a reason for an increase above the state average.
“I’ve seen two accounts of assault in the year I’ve been here,” he said.
“I had to attend to a stabbing on the beach in the holiday season.”
Mr Williams said both cases of assault correlated with the holiday season and increased traffic at the park.
“Both incidents I have been to have been over the holidays,” he said.
“People are coming down from Sydney and down the coast, they’re coming from all over the place.
“It being a tourist hotspot puts them all together and most people seem very entitled and are easily triggered.”
NSW in general is seeing a decline in some categories of crime, however, non-domestic and sexual assault is slowly on the rise, creeping to a concern able level.
Statistics collected by BOSCAR over a 5-year period from 2019 to 2023 has seen sexual assault up by 47% percent in rural Australian areas. Non-domestic violence has also seen a rise in percentage of 14% in rural areas.
BOSCAR data shows that during the Covid period of 2020 – 2021, crime relating to assault charges, had declined exponentially.
Post-Covid, as the nation was picking up the pieces of a lengthy lockdown and economic crisis, crime rates rose across the board.
The Shoalhaven region is facing an increase in reported assault cases, particularly in non-domestic and sexual assault charges.
A 60-month trend from 2021 to 2023 in the Shoalhaven area shows an increase in non-domestic violence by 6.4 percent as well as an increase in sexual assault charges by a 11.2 percent.
NSW saw a national increase of sexual assault by 10.2 percent while the Shoalhaven is pushing past the boundaries of the national average.
The cases wane across the years, however, from 2023 onwards the number of assault cases are at a high.
Image: The Daily Liberal
