A new report examining intimate femicide cases in Australia indicates that very few occur without prior interaction with the justice system.
This is despite an unusually high number of killings allegedly by men’s violence in Australia. At least one woman a week is murdered by their current or former partner, and in the first five months of 2024 alone, groups tracking the violence put the number of women killed at 35 already.
The Monash University report, Securing women’s lives: Examining system interactions and perpetrator risk in intimate femicide judgements over a decade in Australia, scrutinised judicial understandings of risk and system interactions prior to the intimate femicide in order to build better understandings of early intervention and the prevention of women’s deaths in Australia.
Researchers examined judicial sentencing remarks from 235 cases of men who have been convicted in Australia for killing their current or former female intimate partners over a decade.
The sentencing judgments were analysed, in part, to identify potential points of intervention that might have provided an opportunity to prevent such killings.
“Our research finds that many of these deaths could have been prevented,” said Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon, who led the study.
“The majority of perpetrators featured in these judgments had known histories of violence and in many cases, different points of the system were aware of the violence within the intimate partner relationship.”
“Our study supports recent calls across Australia for a greater focus on the perpetrators of this violence. All Australian state and territory jurisdictions need to embed effective perpetrator risk identification, assessment and management practices.”
Findings revealed that 65 per cent of offenders had a prior conviction for a criminal offence, and 34 per cent of offenders had a prior conviction for a domestic violence related incident.
This shows significant patterns in perpetrator histories prior to committing femicide, researchers say, in terms of histories of domestic violence and histories of broader criminal activity.
The research also looked at perpetrators’ interactions with other support services. In 53 per cent of intimate femicide sentencing judgments analysed, the judge cited that the perpetrator had a history of alcohol abuse, 41 per cent of offenders had a history of drug abuse and 46 per cent had a history of mental illness.
Ten per cent of offenders were on bail or parole at the time of the intimate femicide as well.
In cases where an offender was on bail at the time of their lethal violence, this was cited as an aggravating factor during the sentencing process – particularly where the bail conditions had been put in place specifically to secure improved safety for the victim.
“These findings highlight the critical role of other services and intervention points beyond the criminal justice system in preventing intimate partner violence. Preventing escalation of harm and death requires a whole of system effort,” Professor Fitz-Gibbon said.
The analysis also found that in 29 per cent of the cases the offender had experienced intergenerational violence. This is a relatively unexplored factor in research on men’s use of fatal intimate partner violence.
Professor Fitz-Gibbons said it’s “critical” to better understand “the life histories and trauma backgrounds of men who commit intimate femicide” as this “assists us to better understand earlier points of intervention, and ultimately prevention of lethal violence.”
These findings also have “international ramifications”, according to Professor Sandra Walklate from the University of Liverpool (UK), who was the international partner investigator on this project.
“They encourage a more holistic approach to early intervention, which focuses on what systems already know about men’s violence,” she said, noting that “Without this little will change.”
Image above: Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon.