Page 677 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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The following points for the ACT are particularly deserving of implementation and I urge the Government to put these into action as soon as possible. First, in applications for custody and access following a protection order the impact of violence witnessed by the children ought to be considered. Links have been established between witnessing violence as a child and perpetrating or being the victim of violence in adult relationships. In fact, the probability rate that the witness of repeated violence in the home will become a perpetrator in the future has been given as 80 per cent; hence the cycle goes on. It makes a great deal of sense for intervention programs to stop this cycle at appropriate times; programs that actually deal with the impact of this violence on the children so that the cycle is not continued.
I am not suggesting that custody or access be denied to the perpetrator if the parents concerned are separated, either by protection orders or of their own volition, but that the impact of continued violence be taken into account when making protection orders in court. Children can often suffer as much trauma by being denied access to the parent who is the perpetrator as they do from being a witness. An order that access be supervised may be one example of offering children adequate protection from violence, if the violence has been directed towards them, or from witnessing violence.
Secondly, I fully support the notion raised in the report for a centralised training program for professionals in the ACT involved in domestic violence - this has come up again and again in dealing with this issue - and that an ACT committee such as that convened in New South Wales be instituted to decide on the target groups for training, the content of the training, how the training should be funded, and how the training should take place.
Thirdly, the formation of a specialist domestic violence unit in the police force is another suggestion worthy of implementation in the ACT. It has proved particularly successful interstate and, budgets notwithstanding, perhaps deployment is the answer here, given that 30 per cent of police calls, as Mr Kaine mentioned, are to do with domestic violence. A specialist domestic violence unit could be established along the lines of the sexual assault unit. If this is not possible, then at least the instigation of domestic violence liaison officers could be considered. Such a unit could also employ, or have attached to it, a number of researchers and officers involved in collecting data so as to obtain a more accurate and coordinated picture of the incidence of domestic violence, to evaluate those strategies deployed, and to make ongoing suggestions to combat this destructive crime.
Fourthly, the arguments for and against mandatory arrest are well presented in this report, and I again commend the Community Law Reform Committee for tackling the issue with courage and in depth. As the Duluth project has demonstrated its worth as a successful perpetrator program, providing education and counselling whilst being firmly based in the criminal justice response to domestic violence, I suggest that the ACT model its program on this one. Counselling and education alone gives a very dangerous message to society, that message being that domestic violence is not a serious crime. That, of course, is to be avoided.
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