Let’s start with the good news. Since 2022, the City of Melbourne’s rate of family incidents per resident has fallen by 14%. What that number doesn’t show is who is being affected, and when I went through the Crime Statistics Agency data more closely, the group I kept coming back to was children.

In the year to June 2026, police in the City of Melbourne recorded 151 children under 18 as affected family members, compared with 97 in 2022. The rest of this report looks at where those children sit in the data.

I had heard a lot about family violence in the news, mostly about adult partners, but I had never thought about how many children are caught up in it until I saw these numbers.

A heads-up: this report is about family violence, including violence that affects children. If you or someone you know needs support, you can call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, Safe Steps (Victoria’s 24/7 family violence line) on 1800 015 188, Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800 (for young people aged 5 to 25), or 000 in an emergency.

Two terms come up a lot in this report. Police call the person affected by an incident the affected family member, and the person whose behaviour was reported the other party.

1. Good news?

Chart 1. Family incidents per 100,000 residents, year ending June

Melbourne’s rate is down 14% since 2022, while Victoria’s went up

Hover over any line for the exact figures, or pick a council area from the menu at the top right to highlight it in purple. I calculated the Victoria line by combining all the council areas in the data. Source: Crime Statistics Agency (2026).

Chart summary: Every grey line is one Victorian council area. The City of Melbourne (black line) went from 1,363 family incidents per 100,000 residents in 2022 to 1,172 in 2026, and Victoria (dashed line) went from 1,367 to 1,424. I’ve used rates rather than raw totals so that big and small council areas can be compared on the same footing.

Show the data for Chart 1
Area Year Incidents Rate per 100,000
City of Melbourne 2022 2,170 1,363
City of Melbourne 2023 2,114 1,197
City of Melbourne 2024 2,145 1,144
City of Melbourne 2025 2,178 1,120
City of Melbourne 2026 2,292 1,172
Victoria 2022 90,414 1,367
Victoria 2023 92,906 1,367
Victoria 2024 98,598 1,419
Victoria 2025 106,117 1,500
Victoria 2026 102,432 1,424

If you stopped at Chart 1, you’d probably call this progress. I wanted to know who is actually behind these numbers.

##2. The pattern we already know

Chart 2. Share of affected family members who are female, and of other parties who are male, 2022–2026

Every year, about three in four affected family members are women and about three in four other parties are men

I kept the y-axis at 0–100% so small ups and downs don’t look bigger than they really are. The grey line marks an even 50/50 split. Click a name in the legend to hide or show that line. Source: Crime Statistics Agency (2026).

Chart summary: Between 2022 and 2026, women made up 73% to 76% of affected family members in the City of Melbourne, and men made up 74% to 76% of other parties. Victoria (dashed line) looks much the same.

This is the side of family violence that usually gets reported, and it’s important. But it says nothing about children.

##3. Where do children fit in?

Chart 3. Affected family members (left) and other parties (right) in each age group, year ending June 2026

Children under 18 show up as affected family members more than twice as often as they show up as the other party

Switch between the City of Melbourne and Victoria using the buttons at the top right.

Each side adds up to 100%, which means Melbourne and Victoria can be compared fairly even though Melbourne’s population is younger. Hover over a bar to see how many people it represents. The CSA publishes age and sex in separate tables, so this chart only covers age. Source: Crime Statistics Agency (2026).

Chart summary: In the year to June 2026, 151 children under 18 in the City of Melbourne were recorded as affected family members and 64 as other parties. People under 18, people aged 18-24 and people aged 55+ were much more likely to be recorded as affected than as the other party. The middle age groups were more balanced, or leaned towards the other party side.

Show the data for Chart 3
Age group Affected family members Other parties Affected for every 1 other party
Under 18 151 64 2.36
18-24 481 394 1.22
25-34 742 735 1.01
35-44 455 547 0.83
45-54 266 347 0.77
55+ 184 150 1.23

4. Is it getting better for children?

Chart 4. Change since 2022 (2022 = 100), year ending June

Not really. Between 2022 and 2026, children recorded as affected in Melbourne rose 56%, while family incidents overall rose 6%

All three lines start at 100 in 2022, so a value of 150 means 50% higher than in 2022. Indexing them like this shows how fast each number changed, even though there are far fewer children than incidents overall. The grey line marks the 2022 starting level. Hover for the real numbers, and use the buttons to switch to Victoria. Source: Crime Statistics Agency (2026).

Chart summary: Children recorded as affected family members in the City of Melbourne went from 97 in 2022 to 151 in 2026. Over the same years, all family incidents went from 2,170 to 2,292. The children’s numbers are fairly small, so they jump around a bit from year to year. The overall direction tells you more than any single year does.

Show the data for Chart 4
Year Children recorded as affected family members Children recorded as the other party All family incidents
2,022 97 68 2,170
2,023 119 62 2,114
2,024 102 71 2,145
2,025 128 65 2,178
2,026 151 64 2,292

##5. Is it just Melbourne?

Chart 5. Children under 18 as a share of affected family members and of other parties, every council area, year ending June 2026

In 49 of 78 council areas, children make up a bigger share of the affected than of the other parties, and Melbourne has the 7th-widest gap

Each circle is one council area, and bigger circles mean more family incidents. You can find a particular area using the menu at the top right. Drag to zoom in, and double-click to zoom back out. Source: Crime Statistics Agency (2026).

Chart summary: In the City of Melbourne, 7% of affected family members were under 18, compared with 3% of other parties. Children are a smaller part of Melbourne’s records than in a lot of other council areas, possibly because fewer families with kids live in the city centre. But when they do show up, it’s much more often on the affected side.

##What I took from this

Melbourne’s rate really has gone down, but that isn’t the full picture. Since 2022, the number of children recorded as affected family members rose 56%. In 2026, 2.4 children were recorded as affected for every child recorded as the other party. Across Victoria, the figure was 1.1.

Kids don’t often feature when family violence is in the news, and they can’t always speak up or ask for help on their own. A falling overall rate shouldn’t make them easier to overlook. Teachers, health workers and other adults around children are often the ones best placed to notice when something’s wrong and point a family towards support.

If anything here has affected you or someone close to you, support is available: 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732), Safe Steps (1800 015 188), and for young people, Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800).

##About this story

Data. Everything in this report comes from the Crime Statistics Agency’s Family incidents by LGA data tables for the year ending June 2026, which cover July 2021 to June 2026 (Crime Statistics Agency, 2026). Each year runs from July to June. I got the Victoria figures by adding up all the council areas in the data. The CSA blanks out some very small numbers to protect people’s privacy, so a few small council areas drop out of some charts in some years. People whose sex or age wasn’t recorded aren’t included in Charts 2 to 5.

Things to keep in mind. These are only incidents that were reported to police. A lot of family violence never gets reported, so the real numbers will be higher. Changes in how often people report, or in how police record incidents, can also shift the trends. “Other party” is just the official term for the person whose behaviour was reported. It doesn’t mean they were charged or found guilty. The data also doesn’t say how the people in an incident are related, so it can’t tell us who harmed whom, only which age groups police recorded in each role. Children’s numbers in a single council area are small, so they can rise and fall from year to year. The City of Melbourne also has a lot of visitors and a young population, so rates per resident need to be read with some care. That’s why Charts 3 and 5 compare shares instead of totals. Finally, age and sex aren’t published together, so the children’s charts only look at age.

Accessibility. I picked colours that people with common types of colour blindness can tell apart, and each colour means the same thing across the charts: dark blue for affected family members, grey for other parties, black for the City of Melbourne and dark green for Victoria. Groups are also named in words, so you don’t have to rely on colour alone. Every chart has a written summary, and Charts 1, 3 and 4 have a data table you can open.

##Acknowledgements

I used OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT , in refining my written work and reviewing spelling and grammar to improve the clarity, accuracy, and overall quality of this assignment.

##References

OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT. https://chatgpt.com.

Crime Statistics Agency. (2026). Family incidents by LGA – Year ending June 2026 [Data set]. DataVic. https://discover.data.vic.gov.au/dataset/data-tables-family-incidents/resource/17c15b66-35fe-4397-be58-f2618f97c3e7