Safe from Harm: Victoria Police Strategy for Family Violence, Sexual Offences and Child Abuse 2024–2029 reflects our commitment to continue improving our approaches to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.
Victoria Police is at the frontline of responding to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.
We play a critical role in increasing the safety of victim survivors and holding perpetrators to account.
We are committed to serving the Victorian community by consistently delivering high-quality responses to all victim survivors.
Victoria Police is not doing this work alone. Safe from Harm is aligned to key national, Victorian and Victoria Police policy frameworks and we are working closely with our government and sector partners in an effort to prevent and reduce these crimes across our communities, state and country.
National, Victorian and Victoria Police policy frameworks
National
- The National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022–2032
- National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse 2021–2030.
Victoria
- Ending Family Violence: Victoria’s Plan for Change
- Strong foundations: Building on Victoria’s work to end family violence
- Dhelk Dja: Safe Our Way.
Victoria Police
- Keeping You Safe: Victoria Police Strategy 2023–2028
- Equal, Safe and Strong: Victoria Police Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2030.
A new focus on outcomes
Over many years of sustained effort through structures, training, policy and programs, we have transformed how Victoria Police understands and responds to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.
Building on this foundation, our next set of reforms will be guided by a stronger focus on the outcomes generated by our efforts and the impact we have on the community.
Safe from Harm is underpinned by a new Victoria Police Family Violence, Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Outcomes Framework (Outcomes Framework). The Outcomes Framework establishes a structured and evidence-based approach to continuous improvement that will allow us to measure the quality of our responses. Safe from Harm sets out our five-year plan to progress the goals and outcomes established in our Outcomes Framework.
6 minutes
Police responded to one family violence incident around every six minutes.
60%
60% of incidents of sexual offending reported to police have increased 60% over the past 10 years.
2,579 (5%)
2,579 (5%) of family violence perpetrators were ‘prolific perpetrators’ – having committed five or more family violence incidents in the year. Prolific perpetrators were responsible for 19% of all incidents.
27%
27% of police issued a Family Violence Safety Notice or applied for an Intervention Order at 27% of family violence incidents.
A note on data
Crime data used in this Strategy relates to the 2023 calendar year (1 January to 31 December 2023) and as such is point in time.
The data included in this report has been obtained from the Crime Statistics Agency (CSA) Victoria.
All percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number.
For explanatory information on how data is counted and reported, refer to the CSA.
Updated