The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has updated the NSW Criminal court reports for the 2022-2023 financial year, reporting a 16 per cent rise in assault cases across the country.
There were 2,600 sexual assault and related offences through the court system in the last year, a significant increase from the previous financial year.
Operations Manager at the Supported Accommodation and Homelessness Services Shoalhaven Illawarra (SAHSSI), Becky Garratt said this isn’t necessarily a negative increase.
“I think a lot of that is just to do with, you know, people are more aware of the ability to report, are less fearful of reporting crimes now,” Mrs Garrett said.
SAHSSI provides temporary living accommodations for all genders but sees a lot of women come through who have experienced domestic violence in the last year or so.
“When we start doing case management, we start to realise that even if it’s not the immediate cause of the homelessness, there is some domestic violence that’s impacted them.”
The NSW Bureau of Crime and Statistics Research also released crime tables for local government areas, including Wollongong and Shellharbour. Shellharbour’s sexual assault incidents remained stable year-to-year, while Wollongong’s sexual assault cases were up 11.8 per cent over a 60-month trend.
PhD law student at the University of Wollongong Sarah Croskery-Hewitt said we have seen an increase in victims willing to report sexual violence.
“From what I understand, prevalence rates on survey research for sexual violence haven’t changed too much over time but reporting rates have fairly steadily risen over ten years or more. But there’s a lot of factors that could be affecting that,” Ms Croskery-Hewitt said.
While victims are reporting more, Ms Croskery-Hewitt says there is still more work to be done in the courtroom, such as treatment of victims on the stand.
“I do think that conviction rates are still a really big problem – that conviction rates are quite poor for these crimes compared to other crimes.”
Note: *Impact of COVID-19 on data: The COVID-19 pandemics restrictions impacted the number of cases finalised in criminal courts, and this should be considered when comparing previous years data sets. Courts continue to work through backlogs from the restrictions.
