Monash University Media Release
The spotlight is yet again shining on the national crisis of violence against women in Australia, and the calls for increased action and improved responses to all forms of domestic, family and sexual violence has intensified over the last three weeks.
With the need for a perpetrator register or a disclosure scheme emerging as one option to improve women’s safety, Monash University and University of Liverpool researchers have published a study examining whether such schemes actually improve women’s safety.
Domestic violence disclosure schemes (DVDS) provide a mechanism – for victim-survivors, individuals who feel at risk, and/or an individual’s friends and family members – to apply for information about whether a person has a documented history of domestic violence. The schemes can also involve police proactively providing information to protect potential ‘high risk’ victims from harm from their partner.
Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon, who led this research, said the study revealed significant gaps in terms of both timeliness of data sharing and also the lack of follow-up supports and safety planning provided to applicants.
“This study represents the first examination of the operation of the domestic violence disclosure scheme in Australia,” said Professor Fitz-Gibbon. “It raises significant questions as to the value of the scheme, and serves as a word of caution for other states and territories that are currently considering this approach.”
The research team, including Professor Sandra Walklate and Dr Ellen Reeves from University of Liverpool, interviewed scheme users, relevant practitioners, academics and policy makers in Australia and New Zealand to generate the evidence required to inform decisions about the introduction of a DVDS.
Despite the often used political justification for disclosure schemes – that it provides women with the information they require to secure their safety – this study found that of the applicants interviewed, the majority had already experienced abuse and since separated from their partner when they accessed the same. For these applicants, the information disclosed did not necessarily come as a surprise, but rather a confirmation of suspicions they already held.
“Applicants in this study did not necessarily require the information disclosed to them to support immediate safety planning and relationship decision making, but rather to confirm decisions they had already made about the viability of their intimate partner relationship and their safety in it,” Professor Fitz-Gibbon said.
Sharing information with no follow up may put the applicant at greater risk of harm and represents a missed opportunity to keep the victim-survivor’s risk in view.
In Australia, only South Australia has a domestic violence disclosure scheme. NSW piloted a scheme in 2016 but it was discontinued in 2018. No other state or territory has as yet introduced a scheme, although several have considered a scheme.
Professor Fitz-Gibbon said DVDS carry significant resourcing implications; administrative workload, data sharing, training, support services and access.
“The specialist domestic, family and sexual violence sector are calling for an urgent increase in funding to ensure they can support the safety needs of victim-survivors across Australia. At a time when funding for services is falling short across the country, it is imperative to critically question what policies are supported. While several practitioners described the value of the scheme – whether it is the best use of resources in a chronically under-funded sector was of paramount consideration,” she said.
With national and state conversations currently underway around implementing reforms to end violence against women and children, this study assists policymakers in understanding not only what works, but also what policy approaches may be less effective.
This research calls not for the introduction of a DVDS but for evidence-based policies and adequate funding for wraparound specialist support services to support safer outcomes for victim-survivors.
[textblock style=”7″]
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
[/textblock]
While we have a PM supporting,
violent genocide in Gaza, participating in every US war on offer,buying bigger and better war equipment and cheering on local manufactures of weapons of mass destruction Albanese and Labor are sending the message that violence solves problems and might is right. It is a subliminal message that undermines the prevention of domestic violence and violence in the community in general.
The major purpose of any scheme of this kind should be to get these men into help for their alcoholism, isolation, anger management, and mental illness. Preferably well before their behaviour breaks down and they become irretrievably violent.
We are not going to solve any problems by limiting women’s choices to running away or being their victims and nor should we be ignoring the emotional ties between victims and perpetrators. Domestic violence is likely to be something that has developed over time with many different flags and triggers.
@ ajogrady: Agreed.
”In Australia, only South Australia has a domestic violence disclosure scheme. NSW piloted a scheme in 2016 but it was discontinued in 2018. No other state or territory has as yet introduced a scheme, although several have considered a scheme.”
In NSW there was 12 years of regressive COALition misgovernment and maladministration possibly because membership of both parties requires alcoholism, misogyny and playing away as pre-requisites for election pre-selection.
This is also seen in Feral politics where Beetrooter sets the very low bar of confessed adulterer, practising alcoholic and sexual harasser/misogynist. Anybody for a sleep on the street???
It seems to me that there is a need for women – from high school age – to understand the various forms of DV. Coersive control might not include any “violence” at all and yet it is an insidious mental abuse. Women need to understand before they enter any relationship how to spot the signs of a potential abuser, help him to get support and know what her options are if she has to leave. I think it’s preferable that the abuser should leave the home, and be incarcerated until trial. Why do the mums and children always end up homeless ?? Neighbours and friends have a role too, letting the abused know they have support close to home as needed, and not being afraid to report.
Bail should be completely unavailable to violent partners. If we look at the statistics many of the murders were perpetrated by an offender on bail.
Obvious deterrence, that’s vital, and education – for both boys and girls right from puberty.
Aussies had a great teaching in how to use coercive control during the covid era, and it was delivered by State-backed mandates, written up by bureuacrats, enforced by police and military thuggery, and overseen by the courts which saw to fining and jailing dissidents.
The years 2020-2023 gave us all a glimpse of how the State rolls, and it ain’t pretty. I no longer trust either Labor or the LNP because they abused the public on mutiple levels. And they haven’t walked it back yet.
Violence in subtle forms finds its way into all people’s lives via legislation, including tax legislation. On top of that, msm and the entertainment industry do their best to keep the pot bubbling. It is said that 500,000 marched in Sydney against the invasion of Iraq in 2003. What did we get – another example of willful ignorance of the voice of the people. We got involve in a war and Aust that resulted in the deaths of 160,000 – 400,000 Iraqis.
Politicians march to another agenda. I can only guess there is some perverse value in having society at war with itself, and if that domestic war is going to cost the lives of 100 women per year, so be it. If well-intentioned humans worked in Parliaments & bureacracies, the problem of violence would reduce surely.
First violence in thought, then word (written or spoken), then in physical action. I don’t see how violence can be caught at the thought stage, but expressions of violence in the written or spoken word are a heads up.
Watch what you read, violence is everywhere. This is a training ground for the next generation, and yet for many it’s a big mystery why the domestic violence phenomena exists. We are all involved. You want more violence in the world, speak with violence. Your words will gravitate to the lowest common denominator to be actioned.
Turn off the tv.
So much of how we tackle this issue of DV comes back to what we as a community do. Much of the necessary support for an abused person needs to come from the extended family network : parents, grandparents,siblings and neighbours.
When I hear people like Susssan Ley calling out the government for not doing this or the ‘too little too late’ mantra she and others need to be called out for playing political games.
Certainly the government can provide financial support but the real effort has to come from the grass roots of the community. For instance I’m sure that we all know a local wildlife carer who will open up their home to an injured possum or an errant echidna but do we have these people in the community who will open their home temporarily to a desperate domestic violence victim who needs a brief sanctuary until they can access government support and until the police can apprehend the offender ?
This is a community problem and only community action can address it effectively [with government support].