There has been unprecedented attention at the national and state level over the last decade on improving and reforming responses to domestic, family and sexual violence across Australia.
Significant national evidence comprising the views and experiences of 1261 Australian victim-survivors of Domestic and Family Violence points to the need to criminalise coercive and controlling behaviours AND to adopt a whole system approach.
The survey by Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Ellen Reeves, Silke Meyer and Sandra Walklate examined victim-survivors views on the criminalisation of coercive control. This study provides new evidence to inform the safe implementation of coercive control for jurisdictions that proceed to introduce an offence of coercive control. As in all areas of policy development, it is essential that state governments across Australia respond to the evolving evidence-base and ensure that policy and practice reform is informed by the views and experiences of victim-survivors. Queensland and New South Wales state governments have committed to implementing a stand-alone offence of coercive control. This study provides vital insights into the broader reforms needed to best ensure safe implementation of any new laws.
Full report can be downloaded at https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/report/Victim-survivors_views_on_the_criminalisation_of_coercive_control_in_Australia_Findings_from_a_national_survey/22309345?fbclid=IwAR1y6xZtKUuFyPw8ttyn9YBKgVbpJ0twiw2yNUtNiUygZsPsGT5vqvJHr-k
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
There has been unprecedented attention at the national and state level over the last decade on improving and reforming responses to domestic, family and sexual violence across Australia. The findings of recent national and state level reviews have revealed the significant limitations in legal responses to domestic and family violence, and the need to develop new policies and practices to better respond to perpetrators and ensure the safety of victim-survivors. Within this reform context, and in the wake of several high-profile intimate partner homicide cases, there has been increasing debate surrounding the need to criminalise coercive and controlling behaviours.
This study originated from a recognition that debates surrounding legal responses to coercive control were largely occurring across Australia and elsewhere internationally in the absence of any significant evidence as to the views and experiences of victim-survivors of domestic and family violence. Presenting the findings of a national survey of 1,261 victim-survivors of coercive control, this study significantly advances Australian understandings of victim-survivors views on the
criminalisation of coercive control.
This study found that 87.5 per cent of survey participants believe coercive control should be a criminal offence including 91 per cent of female identifying survey participants and 69.5 per cent of male identifying survey participants. 86.67 per cent of LGBTQA+ participants; 85 per cent of First Nations participants believed coercive control should be a criminal offence and 87 per cent of participants with disability believed coercive control should be a criminal offence.
Responses received from victim-survivors were remarkably consistent. 93 per cent thought that criminalisation would improve community awareness of coercive control. Mirroring the wider survey sample, victim-survivors from LGBTQA+ communities, First Nations victim-survivors, and victim survivors living with a disability also consistently identified improved community awareness as the key benefit of criminalisation.
72 per cent of victim-survivors believed that criminalisation of coercive control will achieve greater safety for victim-survivors as a benefit of creating a standalone offence. When examining perceptions of what a coercive control offence will achieve among First Nations survey participants, this drops down to 31 per cent. The lack of faith in the criminalisation of coercive control increasing victim-survivor safety among First Nations populations is likely a reflection of the lived experience of
First Nations victim-survivors of domestic and family violence more broadly.
Victim-survivors, including those who supported the criminalisation of coercive control in principle, recognised the limits of law, the negative impacts of the justice system and the need for whole system approaches. Many victim-survivors were adamant that the objectives of reform would not be achieved without substantive care and investment in implementation. For those Australian state and territory jurisdictions that proceed with the criminalising of coercive control, victim-survivor views
from this national survey highlight in-principle support for criminalisation alongside the importance of:
- Whole of system training which validates and affirms the seriousness of this form of domestic
and family violence. - Close monitoring and consideration of the impact criminalisation will have on First Nations
and other marginalised communities from the outset. Implementation with First Nations
leaders is critical. - Monitoring the initial implementation of the offence, including a focus on identifying initial
trends in misidentification. - Accompanying any move towards criminalisation with the continued development of a suite
of perpetrator interventions that specifically address this form of domestic and family
violence.