PERSONAL CRIMES - ASSAULT

Crimes committed against individuals impact both directly and indirectly on the wellbeing of the victim, as well as the people around them.

In 2008-09, 6.3% (or 1.1 million) of all Australians aged 15 years and over reported that they had been the victim of at least one assault in the 12 months prior to interview. Of these victims, 59% were men.

For the purpose of this page, the term assaults will refer to victims of physical assault or threatened assaults. Sexual assaults are examined separately in the 'Sexual assault' page. In the 12 months prior to interview, more people reported being a victim of a threatened assault (4.2%) than a physical assault (3.1%) (Endnote 1).

Men were more likely to be victims of both physical and threatened assault than women. In the twelve months prior to interview, 3.9% of men were the victims of at least one physical assault, compared with 2.4% of women. For threatened assault, 5.0% of men and 3.5% of women were victims.

Young people were also more likely to be victims of assault. Of people aged 15-19 years, 13.2% were victims of at least one assault, 8.7% were victims of physical assault and 7.9% were victims of threatened assault (Endnote 1). The likelihood of being a victim of assault decreased steadily with age. Of people aged 65 years and over, 1.3% were victims of least one assault, with 0.4% victims of physical assault and 0.9% victims of threatened assault.