Assault and homicide

< causes of Injury

Intentional violence against another person is classified as assault (injury) or homicide (death).

Males are more likely than females to be hospitalised because of an assault or die by homicide. Among those hospitalised, injuries from assault are most often caused by bodily force, such as punching and kicking.

Assault and homicide resulted in:

This represents 4.0% of injury hospitalisations and 1.8% of injury deaths.

People who seek health care following an assault may choose not to disclose the cause of their injuries. This may be because they know the perpetrator and want to avoid criminal proceedings. For this reason, assault injuries are probably not all identified as such in hospital statistics—they may instead be coded as an unintentional injury such as a Fall or Contact with an object—or details of the assault may be incomplete or unspecified. For more information, see the technical notes.

For those hospitalised with multiple injuries, we have focused on the main, or ‘principal’ injury that led to the hospitalisation.

Causes of injury in assault hospitalisations

Of the injuries in those hospitalised for assault in 2020–21:

• 58% were caused by bodily force
• 15% were caused by a blunt object (Table 1).

Notes

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
3. Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10-AM (11th edition) external cause codes (ACCD 2019).

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see Data tables B29–30.

Causes of injury in homicide deaths

In 2019–20, 2 in 5 homicide deaths were caused by a sharp object such as a knife or glass (Table 2).

Notes

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. Percentages may not total 100 due to rounding.
3. Codes in brackets refer to the ICD-10 external cause codes (WHO 2011).

Source: AIHW National Mortality Database.

For more detail, see Data tables E42–44.

Seasonal differences

Hospitalisations due to assault are higher in the warmer months.

In March 2020, COVID-19 restrictions to movement and activity coincided with a marked drop in overall injury hospitalisations. For injuries due to assault, there were 13% fewer admissions from March to May than the same period of the previous year. As initial restrictions eased, assault hospitalisations rose again (Figure 1).

See the interactive display for further illustration of seasonal differences in injury hospitalisations.

Figure 1: Seasonal differences in assault hospitalisations, 2018–19 to 2020–21

Notes
1. Admission counts have been standardised into two 15-day periods per month.
2. A scale up factor has been applied to June admissions to account for cases not yet separated.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

Trends over time

The age-standardised rate of hospitalisations due to assault in 2020–21 was 2.7% higher than the previous year.

There was a downward trend in hospitalised assaults between 2010–11 and 2014–15. This was followed by an upward trend to 2016–17 – resulting in a net average decrease of 1.3% per year for the period from 2011–12 to 2016–17. Figure 2 shows that, when examined by sex, the decrease is largely accounted for by the rate for males. The age-standardised rate for females in fact increased over this period.

There is a break in the time series for hospitalisations between 2016–17 and 2017–18 due to a change in data collection methods (see the technical notes for details).

The homicide death rate showed an average annual decrease of 1.7% between 2010–11 and 2019–20. There were notable fluctuations, however, over this period. (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Hospitalisations for assault injuries, and homicide deaths, by sex, by year

For more detail, see Data tables C1–3 and F1–4.

Age and sex differences

Rates of hospitalisation for assault injuries and rates of death by homicide differ for males and females, especially for certain age groups (Figure 3).

Of hospitalisations for assault injuries in 2020–21:

• 62% were males
• the age-standardised rates were 116 hospitalisations per 100,000 males and 71 per 100,000 females.

Of homicides in 2019–20:

• 70% were males
• the age-standardised rates of homicide death were 1.4 per 100,000 males and 0.6 per 100,000 females.

Rates of assault injury hospitalisations in 2020–21 for males peaked in the early adult years (209 per 100,000 males aged 15–24), while for females the peak came a little later (129 per 100,000 females aged 25–44) (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Assault injury hospitalisations and homicide deaths, by age group and sex

For more detail, see Data tables A1–3 and D1–3.

Relationship to perpetrator

There are key differences between assaults on males compared with those on females in the relationship of the victim to the perpetrator responsible for the hospitalised assault. For female victims, the perpetrator was a domestic partner in almost 6 out of 10 of hospitalisations where the relationship was specified. For male victims, it was more likely to be a person or persons unknown, or an acquaintance, than a family member (Figure 4).

The perpetrator was unspecified for 44% of hospitalisations of male victims and 15% of hospitalisations of female victims. This information may be unavailable for a number of reasons, including because it was not reported by, or on behalf of, victims, or not recorded in the patient’s hospital record (AIHW 2019).

A range of factors may influence disclosure of the perpetrator in a hospital setting, for example: personal feelings such as fear or shame; and factors specific to the setting, including sufficient privacy and time to disclose, and appropriate staff training and procedures which support disclosure.

Figure 4: Relationship of perpetrator to hospitalised assault victim, 2020–21

For more detail, see Data tables B31–32.

Severity

There are many ways that the severity, or seriousness, of an injury can be assessed. Some of the ways to measure the severity of hospitalised injuries are:

• number of days in hospital
• time in an intensive care unit (ICU)
• time on a ventilator
• in-hospital deaths.

The average number of days in hospital for assault injuries, and the rate of in-hospital deaths were both lower than for all hospitalised injuries. The percentage of assault cases that included time in an ICU, and the percentage that involved continuous ventilatory support were both higher than for all hospitalised injuries (Table 2).

Note: Average number of days in hospital (length of stay) includes admissions that are transfers from 1 hospital to another or transfers from 1 admitted care type to another within the same hospital, except where care involves rehabilitation procedures.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see Data table A13–15.

Nature of injuries sustained

In 2020–21, the head and neck was the body part most often identified as the main site of injury in hospitalised assaults (Figure 5). In part, this may reflect the serious nature of head and neck injuries—injuries to other parts of the body may be less likely to lead to admission to hospital.

Figure 5: Hospitalisations for assault by main body part injured, 2020–21

Hover over a body part for more information:

Notes

1. Main body part refers to the principal reason for hospitalisation.
2. ‘Trunk’ includes thorax, abdomen, lower back, lumbar spine & pelvis.
3. Number and percentage of injuries classified as Other, multiple, and incompletely specified body regions and Injuries not described in terms of body region not shown—see Data table A11.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

For more detail, see Data table A11.

Fractures and open wounds were the most common type of main injury for people who were hospitalised for injury due to an assault (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Hospitalisations for assault, by main type of injury, by sex, 2020–21

For more detail, see Data table A10.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

Among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people:

• there were 7,336 assault hospitalisations in 2020–21 and 33 homicide deaths in 2019–20 (Tables 4 and 5)
• hospitalisation rates were higher among people aged 25–44, compared with other life-stage age groups (Figure 6).

Note: Rates are crude per 100,000 population.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

Notes

1. Rates are crude per 100,000 population.
2. Deaths data only includes data for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory.

Source: AIHW National Mortality Database.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians, after adjusting for differences in population age structure, were:

• 15 times as likely as non-Indigenous Australians to be hospitalised due to assault in 2020–21  (Table 6)
• 6.8 times as likely as non-Indigenous Australians to die due to homicide in 2019–20, however caution is advised when using this figure due to the relatively small numbers involved (Table 7).

Notes

1. Rates are age-standardised to the 2001 Australian population (per 100,000).
2. ‘Non-Indigenous Australians’ excludes cases where Indigenous status is missing or not stated.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

n.p. Not published because of small numbers, confidentiality, or other concerns about the quality of the data.

Notes

1. Rates are age-standardised to the 2001 Australian population (per 100,000).
2. ‘Non-Indigenous Australians’ excludes cases where Indigenous status is missing or not stated.
3. Deaths data only includes data for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory.

Source: AIHW National Mortality Database.

For more detail, see Data tables A4–6 and D4–8.

The rate of hospitalised assaults was highest among the 25–44 age group for Indigenous Australians and the 15–24 age group for non-Indigenous Australians (Figure 7). Deaths data are not presented because of small numbers.

Figure 7: Hospitalisations for assault injuries by Indigenous status, by age group and sex, 2020–21

For more detail, see Data tables A4–6 and D4–8.

Remoteness

In 2020–21, people living in Australia’s Very remote areas, compared with those living in Major cities, were 20 times as likely to be hospitalised due to assault (age-standardised) (Table 8). 

Note: Rates are age-standardised per 100,000 population.

Source: AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database.

The highest rate of hospitalised assaults was among the 25–44 age group living in Very remote areas of Australia (Figure 8).

Deaths data are not presented because of small numbers.

Figure 8: Hospitalisations for assault injuries, by remoteness, by age group and sex, 2020–21

For more detail, see Data tables A7–9 and D9–10.

To read how statistics are calculated by remoteness, see the technical notes.

Data details

Technical notes: how the data were calculated

Data tables: download the full tables

Glossary

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