Region’s family harm investigations on rise
Police are conducting more family harm investigations in Southland each year but making fewer apprehensions, figures show.
Family harm includes physical violence in the household, emotional and verbal abuse, threats, and arguments between parents, siblings, and parents and children.
Invercargill Women’s Refuge manager Cathy Robertson said the refuge was busy and there were “definitely some serious family violence incidents happening”.
Methamphetamine played a big part in family harm, while a lot of incidents went unreported, she said.
Based on the number of women the refuge was seeing, she believed family harm was increasing in the south.
“Of course we are working alongside police and other agencies to put everything we can into supporting people going through this stuff.”
Family harm figures, released by police to Stuff, show a trend of more family harm investigations and less apprehensions in each of the past five years.
An apprehension is when a formal proceeding is taken against a person.
In 2019 there were 6340 family harm investigations in Southland.
Of those, 2004 were deemed to be offences and 1357 apprehensions were made.
In 2023 there were 7959 family harm investigations in Southland.
Of those, 3080 were deemed to be offences and 961 apprehensions were made.
The call-outs ranged from arguments that were resolved peacefully, without prosecution, to violent incidents resulting in prosecutions.
Acting Senior Sergeant Scott MacKenzie, of the Southland family harm team, said the increase in call-outs could be due to an increased willingness of victims to report family harm, a better understanding of what family harm was and its impacts, changing family dynamics, and population numbers.
Some prosecutions could not proceed when victims chose not to pursue charges; and mental health issues were an increasing aspect of family harm cases, and due to their nature, would often not reach prosecution.
“Filing charges is not the only route, nor is it always the best route police have when assisting victims in family harm incidents.”
The police focus was on ensuring the wellbeing of those involved, but also holding people to account when criminal charges were appropriate, he said.
Police worked with partner agencies, including iwi and Women’s Refuge.
Various tools were used to assist victims and the multi agency approach had a focus on empowering families and providing them with solutions and wraparound support so they could self-manage, he said.
Offenders participating in the Te Pae Oranga community panels were supported to make a plan, follow set conditions, address their problems and put things right.
Family harm was a complex family situation and every case was different, but it occurred across all towns, areas, ages and income brackets, MacKenzie said.
Family harm, along with mental distress-related incidents, were one of the largest time consumers for police.