“Among men and women who have experienced violence from their partner, three quarters never went to the police. This is a critical result when, as a society, we consider what kinds of services will be attractive to those who could either repair or escape from violent relationships if they accessed services,” writes HUGH SELBY.

When the hyperbole dies down, when there is sufficient quiet to reflect about the extent of domestic violence around our nation, that reflection will be helped by the work of the Australian Bureau of Statistics that is the focus of this article.

Meanwhile, the ABC reported over this past weekend that: “Federal Minister for Women… says states and territories have only filled 30 frontline gendered violence roles ahead of a target to fill 352”.  

That’s less than 10 per cent  of the target. That was set last year as,“169 million over four years to fund 500 new frontline workers to assist people who had experienced family, domestic or sexual violence [DFSV]”.

This week marks one year since the announcement of the funding of “a range of new initiatives” to support a 10-year national plan to end violence against women and children.

Among those initiatives (most of which are service delivery) is: “$8.5 million over four years from 2023-24 for initiatives, aimed at early intervention to prevent DFSV, including by developing a perpetrator risk assessment framework for frontline service providers… and developing a national perpetrator referral database of services to improve uptake of intervention services.”

Tellingly,  the ABC’s weekend article reports that: “Experts noted an absence of announcements surrounding perpetrator data, alcohol and gambling measures.”

However, there is useful data that focuses upon victims and it’s reliable. It needs to be better publicised, understood and used. The aims of this article are to share some key information with you, and to incite you to share the article with others.

There is likely also to be useful data about substance abuse, gambling, and the outcomes of preventive and treatment programs. If so, I plan to share that with you in future articles.

ABS Report on our personal safety

In March 2023 the ABS released a Personal Safety, Australia report. This survey study (PSS) “collected information from persons aged 18 years and over about the nature and extent of their experiences of violence, including detailed information about experiences of:

• physical violence; and,
• violence, emotional abuse, and economic abuse by a cohabiting partner.

Importantly, the PSS also collected a standard set of information about respondents. This included:

• Demographic information including age, sex, sexual orientation, country of birth, ancestry, main language spoken, and marital status;
• Socio-economic information including labour force status, current study and educational attainment, financial stress, and personal and partner income;
• Household information including household composition, tenure type, landlord type, number of bedrooms, and household income;
• Language, education, and employment of current partner; and,
• General health and wellbeing, including life satisfaction, self-assessed health status, disability, social connectedness, and general safety.

Using that range of data it is possible to develop informed policies to address the national problem.

The PSS was previously conducted by the ABS in 2016, 2012 and 2005. The survey was adapted from the 1996 Women’s Safety Survey (WSS). This 2023 PSS includes some data comparisons with results from previous surveys. 

Some data that was previously collected could not be reported in this PSS. Fortunately, that has no adverse effects for our understanding of the scope and prevalence of a national domestic violence problem.

The ambit of the PSS was influenced by the advice from a Survey Advisory Group as to the priority information to be collected and on some aspects of survey methodology. Members of this group included representatives from governments’ departments, crime research agencies, service providers and academics.

A final response rate of 52.2 per cent  was achieved, with 11,905 people completing the entire questionnaire (both compulsory and voluntary components) nationally – 9832 women and 2073 men. The final data was benchmarked and weighted to be representative of the in-scope population.  

What follows in this article is limited to what is reported about domestic violence. This reflects the current high interest in that topic. Stalking, sexual harassment and child abuse were also studied, but must be discussed on another occasion.

Important concepts

To understand the results we need to know what information was being sought. Here are some key definitions used in the PSS. You can find them, and others, in the glossary to the report:

Physical assault

Any incident that involves the use of physical force, with the intent to harm or frighten a person. An assault may have occurred in conjunction with a robbery, and includes incidents that occurred on the job, where a person was assaulted in their line of work (e.g. assaulted while working as a security guard), at school, or overseas. Physical force includes:

• Pushed, grabbed or shoved;
• Slapped;
• Kicked, bitten or hit with a fist;
• Hit with something else that could hurt;
• Beaten;
• Choked;
• Stabbed with a knife;
• Shot with a gun; and,
• Any other type of physical assault.

Physical assault excludes incidents that occurred during the course of play on a sporting field and incidents of physical assault that occurred before the age of 15 (these are defined as physical abuse).

Physical threat

Any verbal and/or physical intent (or suggestion of intent) to inflict physical harm, which was made face-to-face and which the person targeted believed was able and likely to be carried out. Physical threat includes:

• Threaten or attempt to hit with a fist or anything else that could hurt;
• Threaten or attempt to stab with a knife;
• Threaten or attempt to shoot with a gun; and,
• Threaten or attempt to physically hurt in any other way.

Physical threat excludes any incidents in which the threat was actually carried out (these are counted as assault) and incidents that occurred during the course of play on a sporting field.

Physical violence

The occurrence, attempt or threat of physical assault experienced since the age of 15.

Economic abuse

Economic abuse occurs when a person is subjected to behaviours or actions that are aimed at preventing or controlling their access to economic resources, causing them emotional harm or fear. These behaviours are characterised in nature by their intent to manipulate, control, isolate or intimidate the person they are aimed at, and are generally repeated.

In the PSS, a person was considered to have experienced economic abuse if they reported they had experienced or been subjected to one or more of the following behaviours:

• Controlled or tried to control them from knowing about, having access to, or making decisions about household money;
• Controlled or tried to control them from working or earning money;
• Controlled or tried to control their income or assets;
• Controlled or tried to control them from studying;
• Deprived them of basic needs (e.g. food, shelter, sleep, assistive aids);
• Damaged, destroyed or stole any of their property;
• Forced them to deposit income into their partner’s bank account;
• Prevented them from opening or having their own bank account;
• Manipulated or forced them to cash in, sell or sign over any financial assets they own;
• Pressured or forced them to sign financial documents;
• Accrued significant debt on shared accounts, joint credit cards, or in their name;
• Refused to contribute financially to them or the family, or would not provide enough money to cover living expenses;
• Refused to pay child support payments when required to (previous partner only); and,
• Deliberately delayed property settlement after the relationship ended (previous partner only).

Emotional abuse

Emotional abuse occurs when a person is subjected to behaviours or actions that are aimed at preventing or controlling their behaviour, causing them emotional harm or fear. These behaviours are characterised in nature by their intent to manipulate, control, isolate or intimidate the person they are aimed at. They are generally repeated behaviours and include psychological, social, economic and verbal abuse.

In the PSS, a person was considered to have experienced emotional abuse if they reported they had been subjected to or experienced one or more of the following behaviours (that were repeated with the intent to prevent or control their behaviour and were intended to cause them emotional harm or fear):

• Controlled or tried to control them from contacting family, friends or community;
• Controlled or tried to control them from using the telephone, internet or family car;
• Controlled or tried to control where they went or who they saw;
• Kept track of where they were and who they were with (e.g. constant phone calls, GPS tracking, monitoring through social media);
• Controlled or tried to control them from knowing, accessing or deciding about household money;
• Controlled or tried to control them from working or earning money;
• Controlled or tried to control their income or assets;
• Controlled or tried to control them from studying;
• Deprived them of basic needs such as food, shelter, sleep or assistive aids;
• Damaged, destroyed or stole any of their property;
• Constantly insulted them to make them feel ashamed, belittled or humiliated (e.g. put-downs);;
• Shouted, yelled or verbally abused them to intimidate them
• Lied to their child/ren with the intent of turning their children against them;
• Lied to other family members or friends with the intent of turning them against them;
• Threatened to take their child/ren away from them;
• Threatened to harm their child/ren;
• Threatened to harm their other family members or friends;
• Threatened to harm any of their pets;
• Harmed any of their pets; and,
• Threatened or attempted suicide.

The definition of emotional abuse excludes:

• Cases of nagging (e.g. about spending too much money, or going out with friends) unless this nagging causes them emotional harm or fear; and,
• Cases where a partner has restricted the person’s access to money, the car, or the internet as a result of the person’s substance abuse, gambling, or compulsive shopping issues, unless the person perceives that these restrictions cause them emotional harm or fear.

Results

The study reported the prevalence of intimate/cohabiting partner and family member violence since the age of 15 as follows:

• 1 in 12 women, and 1 in 17 men, experienced violence by a family member;

• 1 in 6 women, and 1 in 18 men, experienced cohabiting partner violence; 

• 1 in 4 women, and 1 in 7 men, experienced cohabiting partner emotional abuse;

• 1 in 6 women, and 1 in 13 men, experienced cohabiting partner economic abuse; 

• 1 in 4 women, and 1 in 14 men, experienced violence by an intimate partner; and, 

• 1 in 11 women, and 1 in 44 men, experienced violence by a boyfriend, girlfriend, or date.

While it’s alarming, and depressing, that there is so much “violence” in what was once called “The Lucky Country”, it is encouraging that no rates are going up, and some rates are going down, albeit not as quickly as we would all like:

• The 12-month prevalence rate of physical violence remained stable between 2016 and 2021-22 for both men and women.
• For women, the 12-month prevalence rate of cohabiting partner emotional abuse decreased from 4.8 per cent  in 2016 to 3.9 per cent  in 2021-22. For men, the 12-month prevalence rate of cohabiting partner emotional abuse decreased from 4.2 per cent  in 2016 to 2.5 per cent  in 2021-22.
• The 12-month prevalence rate of intimate partner violence decreased from 2.3 per cent  in 2016 to 1.5 per cent  2021-22 for women.

Late last year the ABS released another report on Partner Violence.

This provides more useful information, including the following:

• Women aged 35 to 54 years were more likely to have experienced emotional abuse (7.7 per cent ) and economic abuse (4.5 per cent ) in the last two years than women in other age groups.
• Women aged 18 to 34 years (2.6 per cent ) and those aged 35 to 54 years (2.2 per cent ) were more likely to have experienced partner violence than women aged 55 years and over (0.6 per cent ).

Compared with women in other household types, women living in a one-parent family with children under 15 years of age were the most likely to have experienced:

• violence by a partner (9.3 per cent )
• emotional abuse by a partner (18 per cent )
• economic abuse by a partner (17 per cent )

Women living in households that were unable to raise $2000 within a week for something important were more likely than those in households that could raise the money to have experienced:

• violence by a partner (4.9 per cent  compared with 1.3 per cent )
• emotional abuse by a partner (9.3 per cent  compared with 4.9 per cent )
• economic abuse by a partner (7.7 per cent  compared with 2.5 per cent )

Women living in households that experienced one or more cash flow problems in the last 12 months were more likely than those in households that did not experience cash flow problems to have experienced:

• violence by a partner (6.2 per cent  compared with 1.2 per cent )
• emotional abuse by a partner (13 per cent  compared with 4.3 per cent )
• economic abuse by a partner (9.3 per cent  compared with 2.2 per cent )

Among both men and women who have experienced violence from their partner, three quarters never went to the police. This is a critical result when as a society we consider what kinds of services will be attractive to those who could either repair or escape from violent relationships if they accessed services.

If nothing else we need to fill those service positions for which the funds are already allocated. We also need to ensure that those appointed are appropriately trained and supervised.

Tardiness is not an option if we wish to stop the funerals of some victims and the emergency room treatment of others.

Former barrister Hugh Selby’s free podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.

Why jail time isn’t a lasting deterrent to family violence