Stop thinking of domestic violence as a special crime that requires leniency just because it happens in a family setting.
That's the key message from Australia's leading criminologist Don Weatherburn, who has spent the past 30 years poring over crime numbers in his role as director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
In a report published last year, Violent Criminal Careers, Weatherburn and co-author Wai-Yin Wan aimed to determine the long-term risk that someone charged with a violent offence will commit another violent offence.
The research shows that offenders are much more likely to commit another violent offence more quickly if they are male; and if one of their previous offences carries a domestic violence flag.
Domestic violence is a risk factor for other forms of criminal behaviour.
Think Man Haron Monis, the Lindt Cafe killer. Dimitrious Gargasoulas, alleged perpetrator of the Melbourne horror. Notorious underworld figure Victor Peirce, who shot at his wife when she refused to dance.
"Stop thinking of domestic violence as special, and just think about these offenders as ordinary, garden-variety criminals who are dangerous for other reasons, who are at risk of reoffending and who have a depth of involvement in crime," Weatherburn says.
Some offenders look perfect on the outside, the typical "street angel", but are violent at home. But many domestic violence offenders aren't specialists; they don't keep their offending to family members. They offend in other areas outside the family. And maybe police and the courts still have remnant feelings that these crimes are private and don't lead to anything else, but the facts differ.
Bianca Fileborn, a lecturer in criminology at the University of NSW, says domestic violence offenders are "generalists". In other words, they commit other offences in addition to domestic violence.
"While it's not necessarily clear that this makes them more likely than other 'types' of offenders to commit violent crime, at the very least it suggests that it's unwise to view domestic violence offenders as not being a threat to the general community," she says.
Expert after expert on domestic violence tells us we need to be much more vigilant about related offences. Jan Breckenridge, the co-convener of the Gendered Violence Research Network at the University of NSW, explains that there remain serious challenges with getting apprehended violence orders (AVO) against offenders whose behaviour does not include physical violence.
"Some magistrates are very loath to give restraining orders and police are very loath to breach perpetrators, if those perpetrators breach orders that are in place.
"But while we still have a culture where respect for women isn't universally shared and there is an acceptance of violence against women and children, domestic violence will flourish."
Breckenridge makes it perfectly clear that domestic violence doesn't always spring from nowhere.
"A smaller number of offenders may have a history of mental illness and family dysfunction which must be treated – that's at least one way of combating domestic violence.
"We need to intervene earlier and we need more services."
In cases where domestic violence has already occurred, the acting chief executive officer of Domestic Violence NSW, Sophie Trouwer, says the state has made big gains on appropriate punishment for offenders through the use of video recordings of a domestic violence victim's evidence made at the scene, which is then played in court as their primary evidence. Clearly, it reduces the trauma of giving evidence but it has had other excellent results.
"NSW police say the videos produce dramatic results in court, where an increase in conviction rates for domestic violence cases has been observed, as well as more early guilty pleas," she says.
What we do know from the research is that there are several steps along the road to violent crime. Homicide is not usually a first offence, but many homicide perpetrators have domestic violence offences in their background. Maybe domestic violence is a gateway criminal activity – one that offenders practise in the privacy of their own homes without too much attention from the outside world. But we can only stop domestic violence – a horrific crime on its own – if governments fund services that work to prevent that violence.
Samara McPhedran, senior research fellow with the Violence Research and Prevention program at Griffith University in Queensland, says what the research "tells us to focus on is: don't wait until people are engaged in violent behaviours, and recognise that this behaviour often has its roots in family background and childhood experiences".
"There are measures we can put in place around early intervention which may more effectively prevent young men from becoming involved with crime and violence," she adds.
The good news is that we will soon have more answers – Kate Fitz-Gibbon, a criminologist at Monash, and her colleagues have just been funded to create a national database of women killed by their male partners, with data on points of intervention for the murdered women and known risks.
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