NSW Auditor-General report recommends changes to police’s handling of domestic violence

Police receive a call for help every four minutes about a devastating crime mainly perpetrated by men, a new report says.

The NSW police force has ramped up its response to domestic violence, but has a limited understanding of how effective their work is, a new report says.

An audit report released on Monday found the force had little idea of whether there are enough resources to meet the demand, and whether victim-survivors feel the response is good enough.

The response across the state was patchy, despite a big increase in the number of officers specialising in responding to domestic violence, NSW Auditor-General Margaret Crawford said.

“The NSW Police Force has dedicated additional resources to improve the levels of monitoring of police compliance with domestic and family violence policing procedures,” she said.

The NSW Auditor-General recommended police looks over its response to domestic violence. Picture: Monique Harmer

“However, rates of compliance checking of domestic violence events vary across local commands, and there is a lack of system-level policy or oversight to guide this activity.”

Domestic violence is one of the few crimes on the rise in NSW. Police officers receive more than 140,000 calls per year, or one call every four minutes.

The crime is mainly perpetrated by men in intimate partner relationships, the report said. Aboriginal women and children are particularly vulnerable to domestic and family violence.

Ms Crawford applauded police for nearly doubling the number of domestic violence specialist officers in the past five years, but said the force needed to monitor workload volumes across the board to make sure resources are being deployed where they’re needed.

Ms Crawford recommended police improve their IT systems so that events and individuals are automatically connected.

Police officers receive more than 140,000 domestic violence calls per year.

She also said police should collect and analyse feedback from victim-survivors to make sure the response is satisfactory.

“The NSW Police Force does not have regular or consistent methods for seeking feedback from service users,” Ms Crawford said.

“As a result, it has a limited understanding of its service quality from the perspective of victim-survivors of domestic and family violence.

“Performance reporting on domestic and family violence is limited, with most measures focused on activity counts rather than service quality or outcomes.”

Labor’s domestic violence prevention spokeswoman, Jodie Harrison, said the report made clear there was much work still to be done.

“Domestic violence and sexual assault are the only major offences that have seen an increase over the past 5 years; we cannot effectively address the issue if we don’t have a clear picture of what is happening,” she said in a statement.

“NSW Police needs to make significant improvements in data monitoring and reviewing, and training and victim-survivor support. There must be a stronger focus on ensuring all officers receive proper training in how to identify and properly support victims of domestic and family violence.

“These recommendations must be addressed to improve police response, prevent domestic and family violence and better support victim-survivors.”

The NSW Ministers for Police and Domestic Violence Prevention were contacted for comment.

Originally published as NSW Auditor-General report recommends changes to police’s handling of domestic violence