The shock number of cases police went to in just one week

A man is armed with a hammer, strangles his ex-partner, douses his home in petrol and threatens to set it alight. Another robs his former partner at gunpoint while a third slaughters his family dog.

These are just three of the 161 cases Victoria Police’s family violence division at Dandenong dealt with in a single week last month.

They arrested 95 perpetrators, recording nearly 300 offences, including 66 assaults, eight rapes, and 14 harassment incidents over the area which spans Greater Dandenong, Cardinia and Casey.

The horrifying reality of the statistics is laid bare in how Senior Sergeant Jason Iles describes that week at work.

“That’s basically business as usual for us at the moment. It’s unfortunate,” he told The Age.

The rise in family violence and national fury following a spate of intimate partner homicides in 2024 led to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declaring a national crisis, ordering a rapid review and committing to a $925 million prevention package.

Several Victorian women have allegedly been killed at the hands of their current or former partners in recent years, including 23-year-old student Hannah McGuire, 32-year-old mother Anu Kumar, Lise Muliaga, stabbed in front of her children, and Chamindika Jayawardena, whose partner then took his own life.

But despite the review, new laws and funding boosts, family violence has continued to rise. Victoria alone recorded an all-time high of 106,427 incidents last year, an 8 per cent jump from the year prior, according to Crime Statistics Victoria.

At the same time, fewer intervention orders were made, charges decreased, and unsolved cases increased. Demand for support also rose, with family violence crisis response centre Safe Steps reporting a 17 per cent spike in demand for calls in the same time frame.

Of the perpetrators arrested by Dandenong detectives, 58 of the 95 were charged with family violence offences. Six of them are recidivist offenders, committing multiple offences against their partners and children over extended periods of time.

Iles said in his experience, it remains difficult terrain for police to navigate, with charges dropped due to a lack of evidence – in some instances because victim-survivors withdraw their support from criminal proceedings, often compelled by safety fears or their relationship to the offender.

“If they do come forward and make statements against a partner or previous partner, we’re trying to instil in victims that we are there for them, and we will do anything and everything to ensure their safety,” he said.

“Whether or not a victim-survivor wants to come forward and provide statements and evidence, there’s other ways and means that we try and go about trying to prosecute people if we believe it’s necessary to intervene.”

High-risk offenders are managed by the unit’s detectives, who conduct surveillance and frequent check-ins. “We want to know everything about them,” Iles said.

The sergeant said his unit had noticed an increase in non-fatal strangulation and stalking incidents.

Family violence breaches have also continued to increase, with police intelligence showing that most of these related to offenders using technology including mobile phones and social media to target victims, particularly former partners.

Iles said the Alexis program, which embeds specialist workers within Victoria Police family violence units to provide support and resources to high-risk families, was “invaluable”.

“As we all know, for some people their only source of income is their partner – if that’s taken away from them, then they can’t see any way out. So getting the Alexis workers involved to basically show them yes, there is. We can support you, we can clothe you, put a roof over your head. Sometimes people can’t see that.”

A 2024 study found the program – which works with both victim-survivors and offenders – significantly reduced the threat level in cases and positively impacted families. Of victim-survivors surveyed, 78 per cent said the model helped reduce family violence in their lives.

Non-fatal strangulation was outlawed in Victoria last year – six years after reforms were first announced by the state government following the murder of Victorian woman Joy Rowley.

Data from the Crime Statistics Agency shows that in the first 12 months of the landmark law’s operation, between October 2024 and September last year, police charged 996 people with this crime.

In April, Premier Jacinta Allan carved out a new portfolio, appointing Frankston MP Paul Edbrooke as minister for men and boys. Edbrooke said the new role included looking at the impact of right-wing influencers who have been accused of promoting dangerous and hateful views about women online, a world dubbed the “manosphere” and recently explored in a documentary by Louis Theroux.

“They are having, for want of a better word, an influence on young Victorian men, and it’s definitely unhealthy,” Edbrooke said.

In Australia already this year, 18 women have died by violence, according to national advocacy group Counting Dead Women.

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