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THREATENED ASSAULT ^{Endnote 1}

WHAT IS THREATENED ASSAULT?

For this survey, threatened assault is defined as a verbal and/or physical threat to inflict physical harm, where the person being threatened believed the threat was able and likely to be carried out. Threatened assault may occur face-to-face or via non face-to-face methods (such as email).

Threatened assault includes:

• any threat or attempt to strike the person which could cause pain
• situations where a gun was left in an obvious place (including fake or toy guns where the victim thought it was real) or where the person knew the perpetrator had access to a gun
• incidents where the person was threatened in their line of work.

• any incident of name calling or swearing which did not involve a physical threat
• threats that resulted in an actual assault (the latter are counted under the offence category of physical assault).

Face-to-face threatened assault includes any verbal and/or physical threat, made in person, to inflict physical harm where the person being threatened believed the threat was able and likely to be carried out. It excludes any incident where the victim did not encounter the offender in person (e.g. via telephone, text message, e-mail, in writing or through social media).

WHO EXPERIENCED FACE-TO-FACE THREATENED ASSAULT IN THE 12 MONTHS PRIOR TO INTERVIEW IN 2014-15? (Table 12)

In the 12 months prior to interview, 491,900 Australians aged 15 years and over experienced face-to-face threatened assault (2.6% of the population).

Persons who experienced face-to-face threatened assault were:

• more likely to be male (2.9%) than female (2.4%)
• more likely to be unmarried (3.6%) than married (2.0%)
• more likely to be unemployed (7.3%) than employed (2.6%)
• as likely to be living outside capital cities (3.0%) as in capital cities (2.5%)
• more likely to be born in Australia (3.0%) than born overseas (1.8%).

• The offender was more likely to be male (for 81% of victims) than female (11% of victims)
• The offender was more likely to be known to the victim (62%) than to be a stranger (39%)
  • For both males and females, the offender was more likely to be someone they knew than a stranger (56% compared with 44% for males, and 69% compared with 31% for females)
• The location of the incident was more likely to be the victim's home (28%) or work (27%) than any other location
  • Female victims were more likely than male victims to have experienced face-to-face threatened assault in their home (38% compared with 20%)
• A weapon was not used in the most recent incident for the majority of victims (93%)
• For one in five persons who experienced face-to-face threatened assault (22%), the main reason they did not report the incident to police was they considered it to be too trivial/unimportant.

• equally likely to be male (0.9%) as female (1.2%)
• more likely to be unmarried (1.7%) than married (0.6%)
• more likely to be unemployed (3.0%) than employed (1.0%)
• more likely to be living outside capital cities (1.3%) than in capital cities (0.9%)
• more likely to be born in Australia (1.3%) than born overseas (0.5%).