NZ DV Victims

Comments on Allison Morris (1998) "Victims of Crime: The Women's Safety Survey", New Zealand Law Journal, (February), pp.46-48.

This paper "continues the discussion of the National Survey of Crime Victims by looking specifically at female victims".

The sample - Starting with the 5000 randomly selected New Zealanders in the National Survey of Crime Victims, women from this group who were currently living with a male partner or who had been living with a male partner within the last two years were invited to become part of a pool from which 500 women were randomly selected. In other words, they were randomly selected from a self-selected group.

351 of the women were non-Maori, 149 were Maori. NZ Maori made up 9.7% of the population in the 1991 Census according to the 1996 Yearbook. 1996 Census spreadsheets indicate that the percentages were 14.9 in 1991 and 15.7 in 1996. In any event, the figure is well below the 30% in this sample.

The paper speculates on factors resulting in the sample over- or understating the incidence of violence, suggesting the former due to victims being more likely to respond, and the latter due to victims being harder to trace.

Victimisation - the women were asked if they had experienced any of 22 items of physical or sexual abuse including, "using a weapon against you", "choked or tried to choke you", "threatened to slap you", and "threatened to push or grab you in a way that could hurt you". The most common behaviour reported was, "pushed or grabbed in a way that hurt". Around a quarter of the 438 women with current partners had experienced at least one of the 22 acts by their partner. One in seven women (i.e. about 70) had experienced at least one act from their current partner in the last twelve months. The figure for Maori was one in four (i.e. about 37), so the figure for non-Maori is less than one in ten.

Multiple acts - two percent (i.e. 9) of the women with current partners had experienced 10 or more acts (time period not specified). In the conclusion it states that one in one hundred women (i.e. 4 or 5) reported that they had been victimised by their current partners very or quite often in the last 12 months. The figure for Maori was one in fifty (i.e. 3, which leaves one or two non-Maori).

International comparisons - 3% of Canadian women had experienced violence by a spouse or ex-spouse within the last 12 months, and also 3% in an Australian study, compared to 15% for this survey (not counting ex-spouses). 15% of Canadian women and 8% of Australian women experienced at least one incident during their relationship, compared to 24% in this study (44% for Maori, and hence about 15% for non-Maori).

Conclusion - "Whatever the accuracy of the estimates of violence revealed in this survey, the data are certainly indicative of high levels of violence experienced by New Zealand, especially Maori, women at the hands of their current partners." She does not consider that the New Zealand study might overestimate violence in New Zealand, rather suggesting that overseas studies might give underestimates. She treats the overall results as representative of the situation in New Zealand, although Maori are significantly over-represented and they have a much higher incidence of reported violence, thus markedly inflating the figures.

Equivalent New Zealand studies have not been done to measure women's violence against their male partners, except for the Dunedin longitudinal study.

	Male %	Female %
Verbal aggression	85.8	94.6
Minor physical violence	21.8	35.8
Severe physical violence	5.7	18.6
Any physical violence	21.8	37.2

	Male %	Female %
Verbal aggression	89.7	83.8
Minor physical violence	31.8	26.1
Severe physical violence	21.2	12.7
Any physical violence	34.1	27.1

(From: Magdol L, Moffitt TS, Caspi A, Newman DL, Pagan J, and Silva PA, "Gender Differences in Partner Violence in a Birth Cohort of 21-Year-Olds: Bridging the Gap Between Clinical and Epidemiological Approaches", Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1997, Vol. 65, No.1, pp.68-78)

This would suggest that if, as Morris claims, New Zealand women are experiencing high rates of violence from their partners, then the experience of New Zealand men is even worse.

There is some information on prevalence of partner abuse in Young W, Morris A, Cameron N, and Haslett S (1997) New Zealand National Survey of Crime Victims 1996, commissioned by the Victimisation Survey Committee from Victoria Link Ltd and ACNielsen McNair. Wellington, N.Z. : The Committee. See here.