Rather than supporting people who experience family violence, police in Victoria are all too often extending the violence and amplifying trauma, a major new report shows.
Released today, the first-of-its-kind research reveals widespread harm caused by Victoria Police’s responses to family violence, with 225 frontline workers sharing what they’ve seen.
The report, ‘Harm in the Name of Safety’, documents evidence of police in Victoria minimising and dismissing family violence, engaging in racially targeted, sexist and discriminatory practices, as well as colluding with perpetrators and misidentifying victim-survivors as perpetrators.
Many of the 225 Victorian frontline workers documented in the report also witnessed cases of police-perpetrated family violence and widespread institutional protection of officers that were abusive.
Ninety per cent of workers witnessed police discrimination or bias, and 83 per cent saw police misidentify the victim-survivor as the perpetrator.
This staggering research was released by the Beyond Survival Project, Flat Out and RMIT University.
“The testimony from family violence workers is a significant indictment of Victoria Police and their role in family violence response across this state,” said report co-author and criminologist Dr Peta Malins.
“Family violence sector workers in Victoria are in a unique position to be able to observe the practices of police in family violence response work, seeing the practices firsthand and through the experiences of the people they support.”
“Their experiences and observations show that these policing harms – like misidentification, collusion and protection of officers who abuse – are not standalone mistakes or failures, or caused by individual misconduct, but are patterned and widespread occurrences across the state.”
Fellow report co-author and coordinator of ‘Beyond Survival Project’, Lauren Caulfield has said the research “offers a window into the reality of family violence policing”.
“The evidence gathered dismantles the idea that policing equals safety for victim-survivors,” Caulfield said.
“Too often when police harms are exposed, the calls are for further training, more resources, but these reforms inevitably function to entrench and further embed the role of police in family violence responses, rather than addressing and actually constraining the harm.”
The report is calling for an urgent decentralisation of police from family violence response work, through the creation of alternative first responder models, strengthening and extending community-based support services and investment into non-carceral violence prevention and accountability initiatives.