4510.0 - Recorded Crime - Victims, Australia, 2015 Quality Declaration
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 13/07/2016
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Reports of sexual assault reach six-year high Reports of sexual assault have reached a six-year high on the back of a three per cent rise since last year, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today. William Milne from the ABS said that the Recorded Crime - Victims publication revealed that “there were 21,380 victims of sexual assault recorded by police during 2015. "This was an increase of three per cent on the previous year, and the highest number of sexual assault reports we’ve seen in six years," said Mr Milne. “Nationally, over four in five sexual assault victims were female. "Females aged between 15 and 19 years were seven times more likely to have been a victim of sexual assault compared to the overall population.” Most sexual assaults had occurred at a residential location and did not involve the use of a weapon. Reported homicides decreased by two per cent nationally in 2015; from 421 to 413 victims. “This is the fourth consecutive year in which reports of homicide and related offences have fallen,” said Mr Milne. Between 2014 and 2015, use of a firearm in the commission of a homicide decreased by 24 per cent nationally (from 75 to 57 victims) whilst, those involving another weapon type did not change over the same period. More than three in five homicide victims were male. This Recorded Crime – Victims release also includes experimental data about victims of family and domestic violence (FDV) – related offences, which reveal that over a third of all sexual assault victims in 2015 experienced victimisation within a family or domestic relationship (7,464). Similarly, more than a third of all homicides recorded by police in 2015 were FDV-related (158). For both sexual assault and homicide, the majority of FDV-related victims were female (84 per cent and 65 per cent respectively). Further information can be found in Recorded Crime - Victims, Australia, 2015 (cat. no. 4510.0) available for free download from the ABS website: https://abs.gov.au/. Media notes:
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