The geography of family violence

Family violence is a consequence of societies pressures placed on the modern family. In recent years it has become much more open in terms of data and research as more and more women and other family members are speaking out. Traditionally the research of family violence has been restricted to the psychology, provision of services and basic profiling of victims and offenders. There has been little or no research on disseminating the geography of family violence. This has largely been due to the unavailability of reliable data and the consistency of collection. This paper addresses the spatial and socio economic characteristics of family violence in a New Zealand urban context. Currently, much of the geographical knowledge of family violence is based on conjecture with no true evidence. We use five years (2003-2007) of family violence data from the Canterbury Police within New Zealand and investigated the spatial locations of family violence using a suite of interpolation methods. The results showed clear patterns across time and space. The second stage of the analysis took data from the New Zealand Census and correlated against the rates of family violence in each geographical unit. Results showed significant relationships between family violence, deprivation and ethnicity which was then investigated using GIS. This research highlights the first stages of understanding the spatial nature of family violence with a need for better location-allocation of support services and campaigns within the community.