Domestic violence continues to rise in Wyndham, according to Women’s Health West family violence services manager Jacky Tucker.
Ms Tucker said that earlier this year the service was getting about 400 family violence incident referrals a month from several municipalities, including Wyndham.
That figure shot up to 514 reports in September.
She said incidents in Wyndham represented about 25 per cent of all cases; about 125 incidents last month.
Justice Department figures analysing family violence from 1999 to 2010 showed Wyndham cases jumped from 366 to 1026.
But Ms Tucker said her own figures showed that by 2012-13 that had increased to 1124.
In 2012-13, 385 children were present during family violence incidents in Wyndham and 70 per cent of the 1124 cases involved criminal assaults.
“This pattern will continue until the underlying belief that people have the right to take out frustrations on others is changed,” Ms Tucker said. “Only then will we see a decrease in family violence.
“It’s hard to pinpoint the causes of family violence, but Wyndham is in a growth corridor with young families and mortgage pressures.”
Ms Tucker said the statistics confirmed the belief that perpetrators were usually male, with 80 per cent of victims over the 11-year period being women.
“We need men to tell their peers that it is not acceptable to be violent; that’s when things are going to change,” Ms Tucker said.
She said that although the family violence service received additional funding last November, the workload was growing.
It was getting to the stage where only the worst cases, with the greatest threat of personal danger, could be dealt with.
Two women’s refuges, built decades ago, serve Wyndham, which “needs more resources, like crisis accommodation” to deal with the increasing cases, Ms Tucker said.
