Policing family violence: duty failures and accountability

Women experiencing violence rely on the police to keep them safe and ensure that perpetrators are held to account. Our research on women, disability and violence found that women with disability who experienced violence could not rely on police assistance or intervention. Police often failed in their duty, refusing to investigate allegations of violence, and even threatening to charge the victim if she persisted in reporting the violence.

The recent parliamentary inquiry into the external oversight of police corruption and misconduct in Victoria heard similar allegations of police duty failures in the case of violence against women. It also heard that women who were failed by police commonly didn’t complain because they had little faith in a system where most complaints about police are investigated by police.

Policing violence against women

Awareness of violence against women, and family violence as the most common form of such violence, is at an unprecedented high. Victoria’s landmark Royal Commission into Family Violence, and the government’s commitment to implementing its recommendations, has put Victoria at the forefront of preventing family violence. Police are at the front line of keeping women and children safe. Where once police saw family violence as ‘just a domestic’, last year Victoria Police announced that they would respond to family violence perpetrators as seriously as to terrorists and murderers.

Police duty failures

Every week in Australia at least one woman is killed, usually by her (ex)partner. In the first eight months of 2018, it’s estimated that 43 women have been killed nationally. In 2016-17, there were 16 family violence killings in Victoria, representing 28 per cent of the states’ homicides. It’s estimated that police across Australia receive a family violence related call on average every two minutes.

Victoria Police have a code of practice for the investigation of family violence. The code is designed to ensure that police prioritise victim safety.

There is evidence, however, that good policy has not necessarily led to good practice. The failure of police to act in line with the code endangers women’s lives. The Victorian Coroner recently held an inquest into the death of Joy Rowley, who was killed by her estranged male partner. Her children described the police response as, "like Russian roulette, sometimes you get someone who will help. Sometimes, like Mum, you get someone who doesn’t take you seriously.”

In her review of the case, the coroner found:

“Ms Rowley’s case demonstrates a failure by frontline Victoria Police officers to implement policies relevant to family violence which were in existence at the time of the family violence incidents involving Ms Rowley, and at the time of her death.”

Documented shortcomings in police response to family violence are numerous.

In 2014, Kelly Thompson was killed by her intimate (ex)partner. She had called police 38 times in the five weeks before she was murdered. The Victorian coronial inquest into her death documented a number of police failures in responding to her situation and calls for assistance.

The Coroner also considered the police investigation and oversight of the investigation into her death. He found that the perception of lack of independence in that investigation exacerbated the family’s “suspicions concerning possible police involvement in the matter, even where there may have been none, and caused considerable additional grief to the family”.

The whole of the community needs to be involved in change. While police alone can’t stop family violence, they are a critical line of defence for those experiencing such violence.

The State of Victoria is currently being sued for a series of alleged ‘duty failures’ by Victoria Police involving a woman and her three children. Over 10 years, the woman was assaulted, had her property damaged and was forced to leave home while being subjected to a reign of terror by her former partner.

Her case alleges that 18 police officers at two regional police stations systematically failed to respond to secure her safety. Urging the court to strike out the case, police argued that they didn’t have a duty of care to victims of family violence. The Supreme Court disagreed, and the case will now go to a full hearing for decision.

According to Verity Smith, a lawyer with the Flemington and Kensington Community Legal Centre: “The state's assertion that Victoria Police has no duty of care to survivors of family violence has been crushing for women experiencing this violence.”

Police accountability and the parliamentary inquiry

An effective independent police complaints system is a critical component of stopping and effectively responding to violence against women. It’s one of the most pressing social problems Australians face; it impacts every aspect of our society.

The whole of the community needs to be involved in change. While police alone can’t stop family violence, they are a critical line of defence for those experiencing such violence.

The introduction of an independent police complaints system that ensures that police are accountable for ‘duty failures’ in the policing of family violence, and violence against women more generally, is necessary to ensure that good police policy is matched by good practice.

The recent Victorian inquiry provides an important opportunity to reform the police complaints system to ensure that women experiencing family violence no longer have to face the ‘Russian roulette’ of inconsistent police response.

Professors Jude McCulloch and JaneMaree Maher and Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon are part of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre.