The NSW police minister has conceded officers are relying on "antiquated" systems for tracking domestic violence incidents amid concerns investigators are not equipped to deal with incoming coercive control laws.
The state's police rely on a decades-old computer system known as COPS to track criminal incident reports, but planned upgrades have been delayed for years.
Police Minister Yasmin Catley says a domestic violence registry used to track high-risk offenders will be integrated into wider systems in the "not-too-distant future".
"The NSW police force is one of the best in the country and it should also have the best IT systems," she told a budget estimates hearing on Tuesday.
"The last thing we need in NSW is antiquated systems".
Greens MP Abigail Boyd said the existing system, which was based on the reporting of individual events, was at odds with the complex and often repeated nature of domestic violence.
"Having a system that has the ability to look up multiple events and for them to be automatically linked is going to be critical to our response to coercive control," she said.
An auditor-general report last year found the single event-oriented system was "cumbersome" and "onerous", and did not automatically link related events and individuals.
Ms Boyd added that crucial delays in updating COPS had put the state behind in tackling the pervasive crime, noting police had scrapped a $177 million contract with the US software company Mark43 to update the system last year.
That decision became the subject of multiple court cases and a confidential settlement, while the upgrade is now in the procurement stage.
Ms Catley said the system was "in the throes of change" and she wanted to make sure police had the "best systems available today".
She also noted that mandatory domestic violence training was being rolled out for officers.
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Malcolm Lanyon said 1200 force employees had undertaken initial training.
But Ms Boyd questioned whether it would be possible for the 21,000-strong police force to undergo in-depth face-to-face training by the time the coercive control legislation comes into force next July.
An independent four-year review by the NSW Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC) identified major gaps in the force's response to domestic and family violence.
The review, published in October, found poor record-keeping practices, inadequate police training and conflicts of interest.
In its response, NSW Police indicated it only formally supported one of the 13 recommendations.
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