North Harbour Living Without violence: cost of family violence

The cost of family violence in New Zealand is immense. Conservative estimates indicate that the financial cost of family violence in New Zealand is of the order of approximately $4-5 billion. This cost is partially comprised of the following:

Greater use of health services, including ambulance call-outs and hospitalisation time by victims of family violence.
Significant use of police and court time by perpetrators of family violence, using resources that could otherwise have been allocated elsewhere
Greater use of mental health services by both victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, including treatment for the effects of family violence (including depression, loss of will to live, and various psychiatric illnesses) as well as rehabilitation programmes for perpetrators of family violence.
Loss of income and work for employees due to family violence

Many many more factors contribute to the great financial cost of family violence in New Zealand.
The non-financial costs of family violence are also huge. In New Zealand

One woman is killed by her partner or ex-partner every five weeks
10 children are killed every year in acts of domestic violence
Half of all female homicides are the result of domestic violence
Domestic violence is the fifth leading cause of death from injury for New Zealand women
One in seven women has been assaulted by her partner
Women's refuge assisted about 20,000 women and children last year
15 per cent of Women's refuge residents have a permanent disability as a result of battery and four per cent can no longer have children
21 per cent of New Zealand men admit they have physically abused their partners in the past year
Battered women are five times more likely than other women to use psychiatric services