There have been signs in the past few days of a turning point in the language and actions used to describe domestic violence offenders.
The most dramatic came on Tuesday, with news of a domestic violence blitz in NSW. It was a multi-day operation that saw 648 arrests and more than 1000 charges laid.
Police Commissioner Karen Webb described the operation at a press conference, using language and sharing statistics that sounded similar to what we’ve previously heard when police forces proudly boast about “blitz” style operations against suspected terrorists, gang members and in breaking down drug syndicates.
Webb said those arrested had been targeted due to the concerns police had for the victims. She said “some of them have been hard to find, avoiding police, which is why we had this big concerted effort.
“The results speak for themselves. I’m very pleased,” she said.
NSW Police released images and video footage of some of those being arrested. It was a PR blitz as much as it was a blitz on offenders, and cynically it’s fair to ask about the motives beyond this “crackdown”. Why now? Why all at once? Why the cameras and the NSW Police issued photographs of arrests?
There is, of course, a state election coming up, and women’s safety and policies around domestic and family violence prevention is getting good attention.
Not just that, mainstream newspapers are also prioritising these issues. The domestic violence “blitz” made some great headlines on Tuesday and has provided excellent “gotcha”-style television.
News.com published the NSW Police supplied footage of one man being arrested, with the headline, “Moments cops found man hiding in trapdoor” across social media (there is a different headline in the piece shared here). The man arrested had been in breach of a court-imposed order, and his potential escape was one of the more interesting and click-baitable elements of “Operation Amarok One”.
Earlier this week, news of NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s pledge to create specialist domestic violence courts saw The Daily Telegraph running with a frontpage headline, “Coward’s Court”. If it sounds familiar, it is.
Who in Sydney can forget the “Coward’s Punch” campaign the city’s major newspapers ran in a major push to rebrand the term “King Hit” to “Coward’s Punch” following a handful of men dying as a result of such violence? There was, as some observers at the time noted, no such similar campaign for women dying in the home, possibly from similar style punches and at much higher rates.
Again, we should ask why it has taken so long to get to this point, and never forget how decades of ignoring and downplaying the seriousness of domestic and family violence has ruined so many lives and families.
But here we are, with the arrest of domestic violence offenders seemingly providing the kind of publicity that was once reserved for the arrest of suspected terrorists. Finally, the words “coward” are being applied to domestic violence offenders, and there appears to be public and political interest in seeing such arrests.
NSW Mininster for Women’s Safety Natalie Ward told ABC Radio National this morning that the NSW Government wanted to “empower police to crack down on this in the same way that other matters are dealt with.”
She said the NSW Police mission was about “wanting to send a clear message” and that “this is about saving women’s lives, it’s about the families and children affected from these deaths.”
It was, she added, “a focused crackdown in a limited time to say we know what these perpetrators are and we will focus on them.”
Nationally today, (February 1) marks another key shift in how we think about domestic and family violence, with casual, part time and full time workers across Australia able to access ten days of paid domestic violence leave. At a press conference on Tuesday, prime minister Anthony Albanese noted the fact “no woman should ever have to choose between her job and her safety” and the ACTU’s Michele O’Neill described the new legislation as a “life saving entitlement.”
Pictured above supplied by NSW Police, and depicts a man arrested this week in the north-west metropolitan police district.