Implementing Victoria Police's Code of Practice for the
Investigation of Family Violence
1.1 Introduction
Family violence has serious physical, emotional and financial
consequences for individuals, families and the community. Men are
the main instigators of violence against women, children and other
vulnerable people. Family violence is common in all sections of the
community, with estimates that it affects one in three Australian
women. It is the main cause of preventable death, disability and
illness in Victorian women aged 15–44 years, and costs Victoria
about
$2 billion annually.
1.1.1 Background
In 2002 the government released the Women’s Safety
Strategy and set up the Statewide Steering Committee to Reduce
Family Violence. In 2005 the committee recommended integrating
services through a multi-agency system, rather than using shared
information
and processes to coordinate information across agencies.
The ‘integrated response’ to family violence incorporates
Victoria Police, the Department of Justice, the Magistrates’ Court
of Victoria, the Department of Human Services and the Department of
Planning and Community Development.
In 2004 Victoria Police introduced its Code of Practice for the
Investigation of Family Violence (the Code), which is an important
part of Victoria’s family violence reform strategy—the
Integrated Family Violence Strategy.
The Code enforces a mandatory police response to family violence
reports and introduced new practices, including compulsory risk
assessment and management procedures for all family violence
incidents. The new practices required police to take greater action
when responding to incidents, assessing immediate and future risks
to the victim and responding appropriately using one or more of the
three options prescribed in the Code.
Within police, the central Family Violence Unit is responsible
for coordinating police participation in the integrated approach;
while the operational discharge of the Code is undertaken by police
at the regional level. Under the Code, police provide the first
official response to a family violence incident, and act to secure
the victim’s immediate safety and refer them to support services
and interventions as appropriate.
1.2 Audit scope and objectives
The objective of the audit was to determine whether Victoria
Police provides safety and support services to victims and
perpetrators of family violence and reduces the impact of family
violence in the community.
The audit reviewed police compliance with the operational,
investigatory and administrative requirements of the Code. Detail
about how police manage these responsibilities is given in Part 4
of this report. The audit also examined whether using the Code has
safeguarded victims of family violence and resulted in better
outcomes for them and perpetrators. The findings are detailed in
Part 5. Governance arrangements for managing family violence are
reviewed in Part 6.
Specifically, we examined whether:
- police family violence functions comply
with the Code’s requirements
- there is evidence of improved outcomes for
victims and perpetrators as a result of the police’s approach to
family violence
- the Family Violence Unit develops and
applies strategies that improve police responses to family violence
incidents
- police work effectively with government
and non-government agencies and the community in providing and
referring people to family violence services.
The audit included:
- a review of police policy documents and
operational guidelines
- interviews with senior police, command and
operational police
- a review of data collection, evaluation
and reporting of family violence statistics.
The audit was conducted at police headquarters, regional police
offices and a number of metropolitan, regional and rural police
stations.
1.3 Conclusions
Compliance with the Code
Introducing major change is challenging for any organisation,
particularly a big one that is spread over a large area. Victoria
Police has more than 11 000 sworn officers in 339 police stations
across the state, so making changes to policy and procedure under
the Code was a
significant challenge.
Police are responding to all family violence reports as
specified under the Code. However, police are not always complying
with the Code’s requirement of using a referral option, as it was
used in only 78 per cent of incidents attended by police.
The introduction of the Code has been supported through suitable
training. Within 18 months of its introduction, Victoria Police had
trained 6 500 operational police and employed 10 regional family
violence advisors and a designated family violence liaison officer
for every 24 hour
police station.
Activity
Since its introduction there has been a marked increase in
police response activity, including a 14.5 per cent increase in the
number of family violence incidents attended between 2003–04
and 2007–08.
Police spent much more time attending family violence incidents
in 2007–08,
107.3 minutes, compared with an average of 35.5 minutes in
2004–05, before the Code was introduced. This represents an
increase of 202.3 per cent. On this basis the cost of police
attendance for reported incidents in 2004–05 was $2 504 878 and $9
935 811 in 2007–08, an increase of 296.7 per cent.
The number of intervention orders that police applied for has
almost trebled since the introduction of the Code, indicating a
more proactive approach to securing the safety of victims.
Outcomes achieved
Although activity data that Victoria Police collect indicates
that it is complying with Code requirements, the information does
not show how effective this has been, particularly in terms of
improving outcomes for victims of family violence or breaking the
cycle of violence.
The increasing incidence and use of the Code’s civil and
criminal options shows that police are looking after the safety of
victims of family violence. They are applying for high numbers of
intervention orders under the civil option; and under the criminal
option they have laid record numbers of criminal charges against
perpetrators.
It is difficult to determine how much high levels of police
activity have improved victim safety. Police analysis of court data
indicates the proportion of police-initiated intervention orders
granted. However, this analysis does not show intervention order
trends. Court data also reveals that breaches of intervention
orders continue to increase.
The number of family violence-related charges for crimes against
the person, including assaults, has increased during this period at
a rate significantly higher than the annual growth rate in reported
family violence incidents. This shows that police have been
actively prosecuting offenders, and reflects the more thorough
level of investigation applied under the Code resulting in the
identification of crimes associated with family violence that were
previously not reported.
Also the number of repeat attendances at family violence
incidents has remained at around
32 per cent.
Police need to do more detailed research and analysis about how
they respond to family violence incidents to find out whether the
actions they take through the civil and criminal options of the
Code improve the safety of the victims of family violence.
Police monitoring and analysis of referral data was
insufficient. Given service agencies cooperation is variable and
police’s primary focus is on the crisis response to incidents, the
analysis of referral data can determine whether appropriate
referrals for the victims and perpetrators of family violence were
made. Given that making referrals is the most common option under
the Code, this is a serious gap in police information and
analysis.
Without this information the Victoria Police cannot identify
patterns in the type of referrals made, or assess the effectiveness
of specific referrals to agencies; and, therefore, cannot evaluate
whether the referrals improve outcomes for victims of family
violence or break the cycle
of violence.
Ongoing public investment in family violence strategies requires
a rationalisation for every initiative and their effects that are
supported by valid explanations and indications of the medium and
long-term impacts. This data is not available.
Governance and management
The central Family Violence Unit is responsible for developing
and maintaining best practice and procedure for police responses to
family violence. Although the audit found many examples of local
initiatives and process improvements at the divisional and regional
levels, there wasn’t a system-wide approach to continuous
improvement for targeting good practice across Victoria Police. The
unit should be more proactive in monitoring the police response to
family violence, including developing performance measures and
evaluating the Code’s achievements.
Family violence advisors and liaison officers play an important
role in applying the Code and informing police of major
developments and trends in family violence. Given the specialist
knowledge that the full-time advisors develop, there is increasing
demand for them to be actively involved in training police and
liaison officers.
There is a growing expectation that liaison officers should be
involved in analysing family violence data and planning local
initiatives; in addition to their role as a source of information
and knowledge for their operational colleagues. Accordingly,
liaison officer positions should be strengthened by making their
positions subject to competitive applications.
1.4 Recommendations
Victoria Police should:
- introduce spot checks across all police
regions to determine compliance with the Code’s completion and
quality assurance requirements for the Family Violence Risk
Assessment and Management Report (the L17 form)
- establish benchmarks for timely and
accurate completion of the L17 form to use for comparative purposes
across and between regions
- set up and monitor benchmarks for the
costs and time taken to manage the operational and administrative
functions associated with the investigation of family violence
incidents (Recommendation 4.1).
- routinely measure and report the rate at
which police-initiated applications for intervention orders are
granted by the court
- include questions in the survey of family
violence victims to judge whether police actions and intervention
orders secured their safety
- work closely with the courts’
administration and share data that illustrates the success rate of
police applications for intervention orders
(Recommendation 5.1).
- in conjunction with courts’
administration, develop a system that identifies and collects the
findings of criminal prosecutions related to family violence
(Recommendation 5.2).
- establish protocols with service agencies
to monitor formal referrals and track access to services,
particularly among repeat offenders
(Recommendation 5.3).
- review family violence data collection and
identify data gaps that stop effective performance measurement,
including outcomes specified in the Code
- establish baseline measures and targets
that align with family violence objectives and strategies aimed at
breaking the cycle of family violence
(Recommendation 5.4).
The Family Violence Unit should:
- determine whether the Code is effective
and is creating better outcomes for the victims and perpetrators of
family violence. (Recommendation 6.1)
- develop a continuous improvement framework
that identifies and encourages good practice for police responses
to and management of family violence matters.
(Recommendation 6.2)
Victoria Police should review its regional structure for family
violence and the roles of family violence advisors and liaison
officers to:
- enable advisors to play a bigger role in
promoting good practice and
training police
- make liaison officer positions subject to
a competitive application process.
(Recommendation 6.3)