Public violence takes toll on young Victorians
A new report shows that more than 5000 young Victorians are treated in hospital each year as a result of violent assault in public places and another 11 lose their lives. Almost 90 per cent of the victims are male.
The comprehensive analysis of ten years of statistics on hospital admissions and deaths resulting from assault in public places among Victorians aged 15 to 35 was carried out by the Victorian Injury Surveillance Unit (VISU) at Monash University.
Lead author and VISU Director Erin Cassell said there was significant public interest in assessing trends in public assaults on young people.
"Our analysis of the data reveals several pertinent factors, such as age, gender, location and whether alcohol and drugs were involved. All of this can inform the development of targeted prevention campaigns, and help increase public awareness.
"Of the 72 fatalities examined in our report, over two thirds of the victims had used alcohol or illicit drugs. Comparing these findings to studies of drug use in the community provides support for the theory that the use of illicit drugs increases the risk of fatal assault due to the effects of the drugs - such as decreased inhibition, the increased vulnerability of intoxicated people, or exposure to violence associated with buying and selling drugs," said Ms Cassell.
The report also sheds light on the circumstances in which assaults take place, the most complete data being available in the case of fatal assaults.
"We found that the scenarios accounting for the majority of fatal assaults involved young men who are known each other. This can include confrontations between groups of young men that escalate from verbal challenges to violence, either immediately or at a later date, altercations between friends or acquaintances, and attacks motivated by jealousy following a relationship breakdown," said Ms Cassell.
"Assaults related to criminal activity are also reasonably common. A fifth scenario, involving assaults by people with mental illness, is much more unusual."
Ms Cassell said the report supplemented existing research on violent assault, and specific recommendations on violence prevention were beyond its scope.
The report was compiled using multiple sources of data. Deaths, hospital admissions and ED presentations were extracted from the National Coroners Information System, the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset and the Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset, respectively.
For the full report see the VISU website.