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Tag Archives: domestic violence
Tasmania Police To Lead The New Safe Families Tasmania Unit
Tasmania Police will lead the new Safe Families Tasmania unit under the Family Violence Action Plan.
Tasmania Police has welcomed the opportunity to play a key role in a coordinated cross-agency strategy to assist those affected by family violence and manage the perpetrators of violence.
“Women and their children have the right to live in safety, without the fear of violence. The Family Violence Action Plan will improve agency coordination and responses to make the home the safe place it should be,” said the Commissioner of Police, Darren Hine.
Read more on Tasmania Police website.
Meet Those Accused of Family Violence – and the Lawyers Who Defend Them
Since last December, the Dandenong court has run a pilot to see how prioritising family violence intervention orders improves outcomes.
Under the pilot, the first appearance for those who have breached an intervention order is one week. For those on summons, mentions and contested hearings, it’s four weeks. Before the pilot, it often took three months for a case to be listed, due to the explosion in intervention orders, up 200 per cent from 16,889 in 2000-01 to 33,135 in 2013-14.
Offenders have high rates of recidivism, and dealing with matters promptly should protect victims by preventing an increase in the frequency and severity of further abuse.
But timely intervention is also good for perpetrators. Research published by the Centre for Innovative Justice in March on the pilot program suggests there is an ideal window of opportunity within the first days and weeks following police attendance or a court appearance, where the consequences of the perpetrator’s behaviour, the reality of the situation, has started to sink in and there is an openness to change.
“The early indications are good and clients are not coming back,” Scott says of the pilot.
Access to legal advice at this point is also essential. That sounds obvious – knowing whether to cop or contest charges or IVO applications requires evaluation of the evidence and advice on options.
But the reality is much more subtle than that. In effect, magistrates’ courts with family violence expertise offer a sophisticated triage system. At Dandenong, all clients with family violence-related matters are seen by either a VLA or Community Legal Centre lawyer, who refer alleged perpetrators to a suite of services to help them address problems underlying their offending, which commonly include drugs or alcohol, debt, anger management, mental illness and homelessness.
Read the (rather long) article in The Age.
Queensland Police Swarm Southport Street During Siege
A man has been taken into custody after a standoff with police at Southport this morning.
Multiple police crews were called to the Stevens Street unit block at about 8.30am responding to an ‘agitated man’ who allegedly made violent threats to his ex partner.
Polair helicopter had been tracking the man for much of the morning and directed the Regional Duty Officer, District Duty Officer, dog squad, CIB and ground crews to the three storey walk up about 8.30am.
Police negotiators were speaking with the man through a unit door before he surrendered peacefully at about 9.20am.
Acting Inspector John Hamrey said the man had allegedly been involved in a domestic violence incident at Labrador last night.
Read more in Gold Coast Bulletin.
Family Violence: Victoria Police Must Act On All Order Breaches
“A client went to report an assault to police who responded by saying, `He only hit you in the head this time, that’s not too bad, is it?’.
Victorian police must take a zero-tolerance approach to breaches of intervention orders, the state’s Royal Commission into Family Violence will hear.
The royal commission is examining the monitoring and enforcement of family violence intervention orders on Wednesday, but the Federation of Community Legal Centres says police need to improve their approach.
In its submission to the commission, the FCLC says there have been substantial improvements in policing family violence, but it’s still not consistent across the state and doesn’t always adhere to the Police Code of Practice.
Read more on SBS News.
Women-Only Police Stations Proposed To End Domestic Violence
“If we’re serious about ending violence against women, we must trial women-only police stations.”
That is the belief of Queensland University of Technology criminologist Professor Kerry Carrington, who is calling for at trial of women-only police stations in Australia to help end violence against women.
Professor Carrington is head of QUT’s School of Justice and investigated the key features and different models of women-only police stations in South America earlier this year and said once a woman gets through the doors, she is safe.
“Women experiencing violence have all the services they need in the one place at these police stations,” said Professor Carrington, who is presenting her findings at the National Policing Summit in Melbourne tomorrow, Wednesday, August 5.
Read more in CQ News.
Police Say Man Refused Bail Punched and Kicked His Pregnant Partner
Being in custody is a revolving door for an Orange man who police allege assaulted his pregnant partner by punching and kicking her and threatening her with a knife in a violent domestic violence assault.
Orange Local Court heard on Tuesday the man was released from prison in February this year after serving time for a similar violent domestic assault on another female.
The man was arrested after police claim a verbal argument between the man and his 10-week pregnant partner had escalated.
Police allege on July 18, while the woman was on the floor nursing her two- year-old child from another relationships, the accused punched and kicked the victim before going to the kitchen and returning with a knife, threatening the woman by holding it to her face.
Read more in Central Western Daily.
Source: www.centralwesterndaily.com.au
Axe or Baseball Bat: Extremely Stressful Choices Between Emergency Family Violence Calls
One assailant was armed with a baseball bat. The other was wielding an axe. The two desperate phone calls concerning family violence came through to a police sergeant at a busy Melbourne station at the same time.
The sergeant didn’t have two divisional vans to send out and had an unenviable choice to make.
Choosing between emergency calls for which you haven’t enough officers is the stressful consequence for police of a rise in family violence.
Police and their union say officers are making choices like this almost every day when it comes to family violence situations.
A newly released survey conducted by The Victorian Police Association has found family violence now takes up an estimated 70 per cent of a frontline officer’s shift.
Read more in The Age.
Source: www.theage.com.au
Police officers are finding family violence “soul-destroying” and say they are not equipped to handle it. Photo: Jason South
If We Want To Help Victims, We Can Start By Helping Police
An alarming increase in reporting of sexual offences has put added pressure on both support services and police.
More than 500 victims across the North East have sought help in the past year alone.
And that figure relates only to new cases, not those that the Centre Against Violence see on an ongoing basis.
The centre’s chief executive Kerry Burns said she believed the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse had prompted more men to come forward seeking help.
Ms Burns said because the most common form of sexual assault was by a friend or family member, it was often the case that people were not aware how often it was happening, creating a false perception that sexual assault doesn’t happen much “around here”.
Read more in Border Mail.
Source: www.bordermail.com.au
Domestic Violence: Former Police Officers Teaching Family Violence Survivors
These two self-described “crusty old ex-coppers” know a fair bit about managing risk and family violence.
They have scoured the houses and cars of frightened women for GPS trackers or hidden cameras, placed there secretly by abusive partners bent on following their every move.
They have beefed up security so that victims feel safe to live in their own homes.
New locks, security cameras and even secure internal rooms to offer a place of last resort.
And Stephen Wilson and Steven Schultze have accompanied family violence victims to court appearances all over the state, helping them through the bewildering process of applying for an intervention order.
Stephen Wilson and Steven Schultze run Protective Services, Australia’s only risk-management and security company that specialises in helping family violence victims.
Read more in The Age.
Source: www.theage.com.au
Photo: Steven Schultze and Stephen Wilson run a company offering security for victims of family violence.