Australian governments should apply US-style gun and gang violence responses by authorities to domestic violence perpetrators, that quickly escalate to locking up offenders, researchers says.

The successful US “focused deterrence” approach could include expanding the role of “fixated threat” assessment centres now operated by most states. These have been established to deal with obsessive threats to politicians and media figures, the former head of research at the Australian Institute of Criminology, Hayley Boxall told The Australian Financial Review.