A recent article we published by Bettina Arndt shines a light on a subject that police administrations have avoided for a very long time, from three critical perspectives.

Primarily, the adverse impact on genuine victims of domestic violence and secondly, the effect on police themselves, plus the overall impact on the community that suffers from reduced police capacity to deal with many other community issues that are far more serious than two people working through a period of acrimony.

The first change that must be made is to categorise these conflicts as a two-tier response.

For disputes involving violence, and the police can establish evidence to support any claims of Domestic Violence (DV), then that is a Level 1 issue. If there is no corroborating evidence of violence, then the matter is Domestic Acrimony (DA) Level 2. Only in exceptional circumstances is an incident reported to the Police to be categorised as Level 1 without some mitigating evidence.

There needs to be an urgent change in the language around these matters so that valuable Police resources are not wasted.

Police who are sworn to do their duty can exercise discretion in all matters and must therefore be able to decide the category of the incident under investigation. Unless there is compelling and additional evidence forthcoming after the police’s on-scene classification, that classification must not be altered by administrative processes.

This interference in the front-line Police function must not occur.

The problems we as a community face with these issues start with the title ‘Domestic Violence’ or DV.

This has now morphed into any dispute between any individuals in a domestic setting. The ‘Violence’ part of the title is the problem and creates the false illusion that every dispute involves Violence, and that is an abhorrent manipulation of the facts.

It has also created a false narrative around the problem, leading to preconceived perceptions treated as fact, unchallenged and therefore untested, resulting in poor justice outcomes for all parties.

Amongst the most detrimental aspects to actual victims of violence is that allegations in the domestic setting are accepted, and whatever the complainant states is taken as fact without challenge.

When it is obvious to attending Police that there are doubts about the allegations (lack of supporting evidence of the claims made), they should be able to exercise their discretion and downgrade the call to the Domestic Acrimony (DA) in the initial stage of Police intervention.

The police function is to preserve the peace and bring criminals before the courts. Not applying sanctions to individuals on untested allegations, which the current approach requires.

Police are cognisant of the Law and the legal framework they work within/requiring them to perform their task in accordance with protocols that effectively deny them the ability to investigate a matter before applying sanctions on the alleged aggressor, is counterintuitive.

Unless there is evidence to support the claims made by either party alleging Violence, the guilt requiring any sanction must be resolved by the Courts on the evidence, not by the Police.

If that means introducing a 24/7 Family Court system in the interest of Justice, this must be done.

There are many nuances to the issue of responsibility and function of policing, resolving Domestic conflict should not be one of them. We don’t expect police to repair a car that is stolen or a window broken by criminal activity, nor should they act as counsellors.

The function of conciliation, or resolving a dispute, is within the purview of other professionals who are trained and capable of achieving an outcome for the parties involved.

The current approach of referrals, etc, does little to help resolve the issues between the parties. The clinicians are operating in a void, lacking important information, only gained by dealing with these people at the time of the conflict, not days or weeks later, when both parties have had the chance to convince themselves of their role and ingrain the acrimony that exists, from their perspective, which may differ from the facts.

There has been an industry that has evolved to serve the needs of individuals involved in domestic issues. It is time that those in the industry ventured outside their offices and attended the scenes of Domestic dispute calls when they are happening, so they may have a better chance of understanding the reality. Their early intervention will lead to better outcomes for the participants.

There are serious doubts that the current system is working in the best interest of the parties and the community.

The following actions will help improve the current situation.

• Instigate a 24/7 Family Court system available to Police to refer matters they are dealing with for Court-imposed directions and sanctions.
• Family Courts must have the capacity, within certain circumstances, and where warranted, issue a direction that an electronic monitoring device be worn by the alleged aggressor (Ankle bracelets).
• If a party declines to follow the court-imposed rules, the courts can upgrade the case to Level 1 and, with that, apply more restrictive sanctions.
• Add the title of Domestic Acrimony (DA) as a level 2 event as opposed to Domestic Violence (DV), a level 1 priority.
• Review the administration required by the Police for a level 2 incident, and only the essential components applied.
• In all Domestic incidents, Police must only complete the administration that is relevant to the Police function, and if other agencies require information, then they must collect it.
• As a matter of course, where a complainant provides false evidence in reporting an incident, they must be prosecuted for ‘making a false report’. A warning must be issued about this possibility before any action is taken.
• The issue of domestic violence or acrimony involving Police members must be reviewed. The dispute, when private and not Police-related, should be treated as any other private incident.
• Critically achieve early intervention by professionals.
• Calls to Police for assistance must be triaged by professionals into either of the two categories to give the Police a chance to respond according to need.
• Develop an advertising campaign to inform people of the consequences of domestic disputes getting out of hand or becoming violent. (Currently, no effort is made regarding prevention.)
• Introduce DART (Domestic Acrimony Response Teams). A response capacity following the very effective CATT teams model used by Psychiatric Units in hospitals throughout Melbourne. Achieving a DART response would reduce the likelihood of Level 2 Incidents from escalating to Level 1.

• Require agencies working in the domestic space to provide resources to create a 24/7 Domestic Acrimony Response Team (DART).
• The priority for DART is to attend any domestic situation where children are present to minimise the impact on the children and ensure their safety.

Anybody who has witnessed CATT in action will attest to the successes in their ability to de-escalate people suffering psychotic episodes, and there is no question that in a highly charged domestic situation, the participants in a Domestic dispute can be having a psychotic episode without necessarily suffering from a Psychiatric disorder. Therefore, there may be a crossover with the CATT function.

The CATT Teams achieve better outcomes for patients and their families than the Police can ever hope to, or be expected to accomplish in the psychiatric space, and those outcomes would flow over to the Domestic space.

Police can’t be trained up to perform the tasks that the professionals have mastered over many years, and neither should they, as the normal scope of Police work, enforcing the Law, is not conducive to a conciliation function.

The function of the Police in separating or reducing physical violence as it happens is a counterintuitive skill set compared to conciliation.

Victoria Police attend over 100,000 family violence incidents annually, with the most recent data showing 102,082 incidents were recorded in the 12 months ending December 2024.

This equates to police attending a family violence incident around every six minutes in Victoria. Or about 300 per day, which equates to approximately 600 police taken from other duties per day, but this does not include the many hours the members must undertake to follow up on administrative work post-event.

The number of reported incidents has been steadily increasing over the past decade, partly due to increased public awareness and improved police recording practices ( which translates into a growth of paperwork of questionable necessity).

The issue revolves around the Police role and the unnecessary (for policing) functions foisted on them. If there is no risk or minimal risk of violence, then the Police should get out of the way and let professionals do their job.

Box-ticking administration serves no good purpose and is not a good use of Police resources; these tasks can probably be done over the phone by another agency. Police can forward the participant’s phone number to the attending agency for attention.

Activists involved in this area have been agitating for the police to undertake more de-escalation and other psychiatric training to handle domestic situations.

When fists are flying,  de-escalation is moot.

We would argue that the Police need to stick to their knitting, and that all the experts and others who make up the support industry for Domestic incidents get out of their cushy nine-to-five work environments, to get where the rubber hits the road, and take the load off the Police.

This will have an enormously positive impact on the frequency and seriousness of Domestic violence incidents and improve the overall community compliance with the Law.

More importantly, it will have a very positive influence on the ability to achieve a settlement of the acrimony amongst parties between the ‘blow up’ and the attempt at resolution; time is the greatest enemy.

The chances of a resolution, or at least a workable peace, deteriorate rapidly as the parties’ attitudes become entrenched over time; early intervention is essential.

Circumstances for violent offenders do not change, with the exception that they can be brought before a Court much earlier than would be the case in other circumstances. Dealing with these individuals early also reduces the risks to the victim.

We are aware of a number of incidents where false allegations against Police in their Domestic setting have ended careers and seen innocent parties sanctioned severely without any recourse.

The number of Police officers who become involved in their own Domestic Acrimony is minuscule when viewed from the overall numeric size of the community (Over 100,000 DV incidents reported per annum), which raises an important question that demands action to review the status quo.

Comparing the number of Police falsely accused of violence to the number of civilians who have been processed for DV would suggest that the number of civilians who have been processed and sanctioned who are innocent must be truly staggering.

“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer”

– Sir William Blackstone

The underlying principle is that convicting an innocent person is considered a far greater injustice than failing to punish someone who is guilty.