This week, the Australian Institute of Criminology released their data on intimate partner homicides in 2024.
The data report, part of the National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP), is an important addition to the tools we have to help us understand family and gender-based violence in Australia.
What does the data capture?
The NHMP collects verified data on cleared incidents of intimate partner homicide perpetrated against a female.
‘Cleared incidents’ refer to incidents where the offender has or would have been charged with a homicide offence (like murder or manslaughter), or if the incident was otherwise legally cleared.
All victims in this data set are women, but the perpetrators can be either male or female – as long as they were a current or former intimate partner of the victim.
According to the data, there were 35 female victims of intimate partner homicide between 1 January and 31 December 2024 – a decrease of nearly 24 per cent when compared to 2023, where 46 victims were recorded.
While at this stage of reporting the figures for 2024 show a reduction in intimate partner homicides, we need to take a nuanced and cautious approach in interpreting this data and its implications. The NHMP updates their data quarterly, so it is still possible that the figure for 2024 will increase. Overall though, a decrease is consistent with the long-term downward trajectory for intimate partner homicides over the last few decades.
However, we also need to recognise the limitations of this one data source.
What isn’t fully captured?
The NHMP data captures intimate partner homicides. While family violence is most commonly used by men against their current or former partners, we know it can also occur outside of intimate relationships, and can encompass family members, carers and kinship relationships.
These figures also do not capture the deaths that have gone unacknowledged or unrecognised as family violence, including missing people or deaths that are still under investigation or subject to ongoing coronial processes. In particular, this creates barriers to the full representation of key communities, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, refugee women, LGBTIQA+ communities and sex workers. Deaths by suicide that have occurred in a family violence context are also not included.
Finally, it’s important to recognise that homicides, while incredibly tragic, form the tip of the iceberg in terms of experiences of family and gender-based violence. Although experiences of violence may not always result in death, they do result in injury, hospitalisation, and long-term psychological damage. For some, these impacts will last a lifetime.
Creating a true picture of the impacts of family and gender-based violence in Australia is a complex and difficult task – and while this new data is welcome, the picture is not yet complete.
For now, it’s also important to look at other sources of homicide reporting – including from Destroy the Joint’s Counting Dead Women project, and Sherele Moody’s Australian Femicide Watch. What’s needed is consistent investment in a varied and robust program of data and research in Australia, that will continually inform all our work in preventing and responding to family and gender-based violence.
