Domestic Violence Working Group/Development

Assertions
Please place all of your policy assertions here. An assertion is a simple statement that you believe to be fact. Subpoints may reinforce or refute the accuracy of the assertion.

Each working group meeting will review each assertion based on the evidence provided, and vote to either agree or disagree with the assertion. This is an iterative process, meaning it will repeat as many times as necessary for creating the policy.

Assertions that are agreed to will become the basis of the policy direction as our understanding of the problem space evolves. Ensure your assertions fit within the boundaries of the Terms of Reference.

'''Note: do not waste time trying to refute a subpoint that someone has provided. Each will be considered on their merit during the next working group meeting.'''

Prevalence of domestic violence

 * 17.8% of people will experience domestic violence in a relationship (physical and/or emotionally abusive relationships); 22.9% of victims are female, 12.1% of victims are male.
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 545. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * 75.9% of victims will experience domestic violence as a non-isolated incident.
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 545. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * Prevalence of domestic child abuse is highest amongst single parent families. Combined with the numbers of household types from ABS data, the rates of "substantiated child protection notifications" per household type are about 3 times higher for single-father households and 7 times higher for single-mother households.
 * Child protection Australia report by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Canberra, 2010-2011 --AndrewD (talk) 20:45, 31 May 2015 (AEST)
 * Refer to the table on Page 56 "Table A1.9: Substantiations of notifications received during 2010–11, by type of family in which the child was residing, states and territories"
 * 3236.0 - Household and Family Projections, Australia, 2011 to 2036 -- AndrewD (talk) 20:45, 31 May 2015 (AEST)


 * Incidents of "Domestic Assault" as recorded by the NSW police peaked in 2002 and have been relatively flat ever since.
 * NSW Crime Tool. -- AndrewD (talk) 20:45, 31 May 2015 (AEST)
 * Interactive charting on web page. Select "Domestic Violence" category on left, "Number of years" as 20 on top/left and Choose the "Graphs" tab, top right.
 * Chart shows a stable annual variation of between 26 and 37 per 100,000 continuously since 2002, with peaks in December every year.
 * This suggests that no NSW government policy has had any effect in either reducing or increasing serious domestic violence in NSW.

Changes to Prevalence of Domestic Violence

 * Rates of "Domestic Assault" as recorded by the NSW police, show strong concentrations in poorer urban regions and even stronger in remote rural regions.
 * NSW Crime Tool. -- AndrewD (talk) 20:45, 31 May 2015 (AEST)
 * Interactive charting on web page. Select "Domestic Violence" category on left. Pan around Sydney area. Zoom out to view wider state regions.
 * Worst rates around Sydney Metro area are 300-600 per 100,000 people, while areas like the Hills District are down around 147 per 100,000 people.
 * Inner country regions are stable but much higher. e.g. Bourke region at 4096 per 100,000 people. Walgett region at 2456 per 100,000 people.

Victim attributes (including injuries)

 * Victims are significantly more likely to be from low-income households, be unemployed, experience fair to poor health, and suffer from substance abuses and mental health issues.
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 545. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * Women are almost twice as likely to experience physical hurt in the context of domestic violence than men (44.9% compared to 23.8%).
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 545. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * Female victims are only slightly, but not insignificantly, more likely to experience physical injury (91.1% compared to 84.8%).
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 547. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * Rates of low-level injury (bruising) and medium-level injury (cuts, scratches and burns) are approximately the same for men and women (89.6% for men compared to 91.1% for women and 36.1% for men compared to 36.8% for women respectively), but more severe injuries (broken bones and fractures) are experienced significantly more by female victims (19.9% compared to 0.8%).
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 547. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * Approximately one in five victims (19.9%) use prescribed medication to cope with domestic violence, but women are significantly more likely to do so than men (25.4% compared to 7.1%), while 15.1% of victims use alcohol or non-prescribed drugs to cope, with men being more likely to do so than women (19.2% compared to 13.3%).
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 547. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * A significant majority of victims will not contact the police (82%), with men being less likely to do so than women (91.9% compared to 77.4%).
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 547. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * A significant majority of victims will not contact non-health services (72.4%), with men being less likely to do so than women (81.6% compared to 68.5%).
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 547. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * A significant majority of victims will not contact health services (72.1%), with men and women being equally unlikely to do so (73.9% compared to 71.3%).
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 547. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * The main reasons for not contacting police, non-health or health services are that the victims feel they do not want or need help, the incident was too minor, too much time had elapsed, or lack of awareness of health services.
 * Eleanor Dal Grande et al, 'Domestic violence in South Australia: a population survey of males and females' (2003) 27(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 543, 547. --Mozart (talk) 11:32, 23 May 2015 (AEST)


 * The Male/Female DV victim ratio of around 1 in 3 (shown in ABS data and Mozart's South Australian reference above), persists up to the severity level of homicide.
 * Australian Bureau of Statistics; 4906.0 - Personal Safety, Australia, 2012 - EXPERIENCE OF PARTNER VIOLENCE
 * Australian Government, Australian Institute of Criminology: Homicide in Australia, 2008–10 report -- AndrewD (talk) 20:45, 31 May 2015 (AEST)
 * Refer to: "Table 10 Type of homicide by sex of victims, 2008–10". Line for "Intimate Partner" - 23% male vs. 73% female.


 * The Male/Female DV victim ratio of around 1 in 3 also applies to Domestic Emotional Abuse (2.8% of 8,226,300 males vs. 4.7% of 8,326,700 females)
 * 4906.0 - Personal Safety, Australia, 2012
 * Refer to Table 32. You will need something to read .XLS spreadsheets.


 * Police Reporting rates are very low, but nearly 4 times higher for women.
 * 4906.0 - Personal Safety, Australia, 2012
 * Refer to Tables 25,26. You will need something to read .XLS spreadsheets.
 * Men are significantly less likely than women to report Domestic Violence against themselves. 5.3% of 119,600 Men vs. 19.8% of 237,100 Women.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victims
EmRob (talk) 23:34, 31 May 2015 (AEST)

Effect on children

 * Children who are exposed to domestic violence experience short-term and long-term adverse effects (including serious physical, psychological, cognitive, behavioural, developmental, emotional and relational problems) that impact their life satisfaction, self-esteem and future relationships and immediate childhood tasks; these resemble the adverse effects experienced by children who have been directly abused by parents or witnessed other traumatic events.
 * Amanda Shea Hart and Dale Bagshaw, 'The idealised post-separation family in Australian family law: A dangerous paradigm in cases of domestic violence' (2008) 14 Journal of Family Studies 291, 292–293. --Mozart (talk) 13:40, 23 May 2015 (AEST)

Sexually Discriminatory Government Processes and Services

 * Some government services explicitly assume DV is entirely Male on Female.
 * Western Australia Domestic Violence Helpline. -- AndrewD (talk) 20:45, 31 May 2015 (AEST)
 * This official government site has a number for women as victims and another number for men as perpetrators, and that's it.
 * Hospital Intervention Policies assume only females can be victims of DV.
 * NSW Emergency Care Procedures -- AndrewD (talk) 20:45, 31 May 2015 (AEST)
 * Has a section "DOMESTIC VIOLENCE - IDENTIFYING AND RESPONDING (PD2006_084)", that is entirely about detecting DV against women and women only.
 * Has a section "DOMESTIC VIOLENCE – MEN’S BEHAVIOUR CHANGE PROGRAMS (IB2014_003)", that is entirely about addressing men as perpetrators of DV.
 * There are no sections at all for the reverse. There is no hospital policy to investigate DV against men.

Racially Discriminatory Government Processes and Services

 * A primarily Aboriginal/Torres Straight Islander DV issue, is that in cases where the children are considered to be in danger, DOCS does try to place the children with other family or relatives, mostly grandmothers or similar. This is a good thing, but the issue is that as compared to placing them in a foster home, the foster home would get paid to take a child on, but the in-culture preferred alternative would not. Basically, the funding model still supports ripping aboriginal kids out of their own culture because they won't pay to support in-culture care.
 * CARING FOR ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER CHILDREN (ATSI) -- AndrewD (talk) 20:45, 31 May 2015 (AEST)
 * Sadly, I can't find a reference for the funding issue. I heard about it from an ABC RN interview with a DOCS representative. Will keep looking.