How police navigate the complex terrain of domestic violence

Updated

Australian police handle one domestic violence matter every two minutes. How do they negotiate these intimate, complex and often dangerous situations?

Police are often the first on the scene in an emergency, for domestic violence incidents as for everything else, but they don't always have the best reputation for dealing with family violence. Apathy and insensitivity to victims, encouraging victims not to prosecute, not taking out criminal proceedings - are these accusations fair to the police that deal with tense situations every day?

"You're walking into someone else's home, which they deem is their kingdom. That's pretty hard and it's always high risk. Every time you go in you think 'anything could happen'." Acting Sergeant Larissa Shaw

Quentin Bryce's report into domestic violence in Queensland - Not now, not ever - was critical of the police dealing with domestic violence saying: "many [shortcomings] come from a culture in some areas that does not give sufficient weight to what is seen as 'just a domestic'".

Some domestic violence victims have confirmed that many don't feel supported by police.

One young woman, whose estranged and violent husband had pursued her for two months since she left their home, said that she'd spent about 10 hours in police stations giving statements about breached DV orders and violence. "I am very frustrated that nothing gets done about it. I went to the police yesterday about something else he recently did and there are three outstanding requests saying 'wanted for questioning'," she told the ABC.

The ABC talked to police who work around the clock with domestic violence victims and perpetrators, making quick decisions and trying to keep everyone safe in the most intimate and complex of situations.

'Majority of your shift'

Hot summers and weekends are big days for domestic violence calls to triple-0, police say, with the very worst day of the year being Christmas Day. But every day is a domestic violence day for cops in Logan, this area on the southern outskirts of Brisbane.

"The majority of your shift as an on-road copper is disturbances or domestic violence incidences," says Acting Sergeant Larissa Shaw, domestic and family violence coordinator for Logan.

Her colleague, Acting Superintendent Glenn Allen, confirms the high rates of domestic violence: "That is by far the biggest call for service ... it's core business and we treat it that way."

There were more than 3,000 domestic violence matters in the Logan district in the most recent 12 months counted. Shaw says that between leaving work on a Friday afternoon and getting back in on a Monday morning, there are usually 40 to 60 new domestic violence incidents logged, all of which she needs to sort through in her role as coordinator.

Queensland Police applied for more than 15,000 domestic violence orders in the same 12-month period - with police handling another 25,000 domestic violence matters state-wide.

"It's tough anyway because you're walking into someone else's home, which they deem is their kingdom," says Shaw. "That's pretty hard and it's always high risk. Every time you go in you think 'anything could happen'."

She says removing children after they have witnessed their parents' violence is the hardest part. "Having to sit them down and try and explain why that's going to happen, why you're taking dad away - because mum's been belted and might be in the ambulance and you're trying to arrange care for the kids."

"Or you've gone there to help a family and it's now reality that you're taking him away," Senior Sergeant Peta Jordan adds. "She now doesn't want him to go so she's now attacking you for taking him away - that kind of scenario."

"Police can sometimes be very black and white, but everything in domestic violence is just a shade of grey." Acting Senior Sergeant Roger O'Malia

An added complexity is that sometimes women will want to show their partner that they are resisting his arrest but when he's actually taken away, they express relief that they are safe and he is gone, the officers say. Eventually, he'll be out of the watch house or prison, and partners can already foresee what would happen at the other end of the cycle if they would seem to be aiding the police in arrest.

These tensions and complexities are big problems for police enforcement of domestic violence, and can frustrate efforts to keep the peace and resolve matters.

Acting Senior Sergeant Roger O'Malia is a specialised domestic and family violence liaison officer for north-west Brisbane. He says police do get frustrated when the victim doesn't press assault charges or support officers in taking out a domestic violence order.

"Sometimes there's very little other physical evidence to corroborate other than their testimony, which means you're really reliant on what they're going to say ... They're my only witness - the victim - and they don't want to talk. They won't tell the magistrate so it puts us in a very difficult position."

"Police can sometimes be very black and white, but everything in domestic violence is just a shade of grey," O'Malia adds.

"That doesn't really meld with the black and white view of the world and you need those officers because they're the officers who go through some horrible situations and still manage to get the job done."

On the front lines of domestic violence This is the second article in a three-part series covering the experiences and perspectives of workers on the front line of Australia's fight against domestic violence. Part 1: Has he hit you? Meet the phone counsellors who help get women out of dangerous situations.

Meet the phone counsellors who help get women out of dangerous situations. Part 3, Who needs protection? Step inside a 'closed' domestic violence court This is the second article in a three-part series covering the experiences and perspectives of workers on the front line of Australia's fight against domestic violence.

O'Malia says his job is more people-focused than general officers on the beat, and he can spend the time to guide victims through the decision of whether to press charges. Sometimes, he also has to take a long view.

"I promise you if you don't want to get help and you've already taken up my time, I'm actually still here to help, and you know, keep me in mind because there may be a next time."

He says it's hard to make judgements in violent situations, even with his decades of experience in rural and urban Queensland and in the East End of London. On the beat in London, the first thing police would do when entering a domestic violence dispute would be to hide the kitchen knives in the gap behind the washing machine.

All police interviewed say that they firstly separate the couple to calm them down and get each version of events clear.

"I went to one particular [domestic violence matter] a little while ago now where I spoke to the boy and he gave me a version of events and I thought 'that's terrible', she must be a bad person, she must be the baddie. Then my colleague was speaking to her and he said, 'Rog, you're flat-out wrong. She's the victim and here's what really happened: This guy was sitting on top of her, smashing her head into the floor and she said the only reason he stopped was because he heard your siren. He would have killed her.'"

He and his partner arrested the man involved, but Sergeant O'Malia was "mortified" with his own misjudgement. "I was convinced this guy was the victim and he wasn't."

The police usually only deal with this kind of violence at the pointy end - when someone is at the crisis point - however, more and more intervention is being woven into best-practice for the police.

The local domestic and family violence coordinators try and take the intimidation out of reporting to police or taking out a domestic violence order in the courts.

Part of Sergeant Shaw's job is to ring up victims whose details have been supplied by other support agencies in the community. She says, just by calling up, she can help. A secondary benefit of giving them the call is that they're then not looking at a police officer in uniform, they're talking to a person offering help on the phone. It's these little things that can make the difference.

What helps too, is that Sergeant Shaw has also been a victim.

It can happen to anyone

Shaw is small for a police officer and explains how the patrol vest she wears to carry critical equipment such as capsicum spray, torches etc can make it hard for her to get close enough to restrain and arrest resistant people. But you can see that she probably manages pretty well out on the beat. She's strong and fit and you wouldn't want to mess with her, despite her small size.

She has to be tough. The big men are more likely to fight back than the women and she's copped full punches to her face on the job. This kind of professional strength seems to be buoyed by her personal story.

"You're not exempt just because you're wearing a uniform," Shaw says, describing how she got into an abusive relationship with an older man when she was 18 years old. She was with him for two years in a cycle of violence, control and abuse; she was hospitalised more than once.

The final straw was when a doctor told her she might not be able to have children because of her boyfriend's beatings.

"To be told that at the age of 21, told you're not allowed to have kids - that was my one dream."

She says when she finally left her partner, she felt conflicted about it. She didn't feel entirely relieved and had many misgivings about what he might still do to her. When he found out she was training to become a policewoman, he took out a domestic violence order against her.

Shaw describes this kind of reversal of orders as a control tactic he was attempting a full year after they'd broken up, trying to thwart her career in the police force.

It didn't work. Sergeant Shaw is forging a successful career as a police officer, a source of inspiration for the dozens of women she speaks to every week who are still stuck in abusive relationships.

Shaw says her early relationship helped her learn to spot the signs of a possible domestic violence perpetrator. After the first, she would notice the signs when she was dating other men, and as soon as there were any signs of them exerting control, she'd get out, awareness that needs to be taught to other women.

She's now happily married. It's a State of Origin week and the back office at Logan Police is full of maroon paraphernalia. Proudly draped over Sergeant Shaw's office chair is a Queensland Origin jersey emblazoned with "Mumma" on the back - a Mother's Day gift from the kids she was able to have because she got out of her abusive relationship in time.

'No-one talks to the perps'

The police all agree that male-on-female partner violence is the most common, but that the reach of the problem is expansive and extends to all family and intimate relationships with the most vulnerable victims being the elderly, disabled and transgender.

"I don't go into genders. There are only victims and perps. Everybody is capable of everything at all times." Acting Senior Sergeant Roger O'Malia

"I don't go into genders," says O'Malia in our conversation in a room next to a domestic violence session at Brisbane Magistrates Court. "There are only victims and perps. Everybody is capable of everything at all times. You can't lose sight of that."

"Perpetrators in the domestic violence sector, they're a dirty word, they're judged, they're this, they're that, they're every bad name but they're also human beings and nobody actually stops to talk to them.

"People don't seem to have the capacity to actually sit down with blokes and talk to them and say, 'look, it's going to be an ugly conversation but we've got to have this conversation. You need to know and you need to understand.' It's women as well, it's not just blokes.

"Some of those perpetrators are very responsive to what you have to say. They know they've done the wrong thing, they are remorseful, but they want to be heard and nobody ever listens to them... these guys and girls, you can work with them, you can get traction, you can build some trust with them, you can actually try and make changes with them."

O'Malia says, "There is a group of perpetrators, and they're men, and you can't change them. They just are what they are. They're just hard-core. You may never change them but if you work with them fairly intensely you can delay violence."

His strategy is to give them his phone number and ask them to walk away and give him a call when they think they're reaching boiling point.

"I had one fellow phone me up and said, 'you'd be really pleased with me Rog, I've just done this.'" And I said 'What have you done?', and he said 'I've just walked away and I'm so pleased I just thought I'd tell you.' I'm really pleased, I'm touched, I'm even more pleased that you've actually phoned me and let me know."

O'Malia's jurisdiction is large and covers the wealthy suburbs of western Brisbane. The only domestic violence homicide in this area during his time as domestic violence liaison was the murder of Allison Baden-Clay, whose husband Gerard Baden-Clay is now serving a life sentence for murder. The Baden-Clay house and family had never been flagged as a domestic violence risk.

"I didn't even know she was drawing breath, I didn't even know she existed. It was one of those circumstances that nobody knew."

As we walk near the police district office looking for a backdrop to take a photograph of O'Malia, he asks that we not go down one of the hedge-rowed streets leading to the most opulent houses by the river. He explains he has not one but two domestic violence households down there and it wouldn't be appropriate for him to be seen being photographed nearby.

We walk on. After all, any house will do. Any house is possible.

What's the cause?

Sitting with officers Allen, Shaw and Jordan in an interview room in the Logan police station, they each have a different view of what the largest contributing factor to domestic violence is.

"If we can engage a man to see the light ... and take some help, that will stop our repeat calls." Acting Superintendent Glenn Allen

The powder keg, Allen says, is drugs and alcohol. Shaw says a lot of the trouble stems from money worries. Jordan says there are many complex problems with family violence in recently migrated families. She's working with community organisations to conduct information sessions with recent immigrants to the area and in different languages.

Allen makes a pragmatic case for police attempts at early intervention, based on how often they're called to domestic violence scenes.

"The ultimate aim is for us to stop it. So if we can engage a man to see the light ... and take some help, that will stop our repeat calls," says Allen.

"I talk about our [domestic violence] calls for service - we want to try and stop those as much as we can, because there's so many other things the police can do here."

O'Malia is wary of the concentration on domestic violence as a 'hot button' topic, and conscious police will still be on the front lines if that interest dulls.

"This is the topic or flavour of the month and [people will] just lob in there and that's disheartening in some ways," he says.

"I know also that 12 months from now, me and my fellow domestic violence liaison officers, we'll still be here and we'll still do what we can do and some of these people will be gone."

If you’re in an abusive situation or know someone who is, call 1800 RESPECT. If it's an emergency, call triple-0. You can also call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Safe Futures Foundation.

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Topics: domestic-violence, law-crime-and-justice, crime-prevention, indooroopilly-4068, logan-central-4114

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