Family violence experts say fines are not an effective deterrent after a new study found 53% of people who breached a family violence intervention order in Victoria reoffended within five years.
The study, released by the Sentencing Advisory Council of Victoria on Tuesday, looked at the records of 1,898 people who were sentenced for breaching a family violence intervention order or a family violence safety notice in 2009-10.
It found 58% had been sentenced for another offence in the previous five years and a further 53% reoffended in the following five years.
More than half of the people surveyed received at least one assault conviction in the 11 years covered by the study.
Researchers also found a correlation between the number of times a person had breached a family violence order and the likelihood he or she would commit an assault, which increased from 41% with one breach to 71% with 10 breaches, and a correlation between the number of prior offences for assault and the likelihood the person would reoffend.
The council’s deputy chair, Lisa Ward, said people who breached family violence orders had a higher rate of reoffending than people convicted of other offences.
The reoffending rate was highest among young men, 68% of whom went on to commit another offence. Men also made up 86% of people charged with breaching a family violence order and were more likely to perpetrate family violence on a current or former partner than female offenders, who had a higher rate of violence against parents or siblings.
Ward said that the high rate of reoffending could show that current sanctions were not working. “Our concern really is an over-reliance on fines can undervalue the offences of family violence sanctions because the majority of fines remained unpaid even after three years,” she said.
“Given that a central purpose of sentencing with regard to family violence is to ensure the safety of the victim, we would prefer to see community corrections orders with behavioural change programs enforced.”
Making perpetrators of violence more accountable for their actions and reducing the burden on victims was a key recommendation of the Victorian royal commission into family violence, which emphasised the importance of a detailed risk-assessment process before perpetrators are sentenced.
Fines made up 32% of sentences for people charged with breaching a family violence order, while 37% were ordered to enter into an adjourned undertaking with the court, which is an even lower sentencing order.
Of those sentenced simultaneously for breaching a family violence order and another crime, 18% received a fine. “For that cohort, we are concerned that the use of fines actually is not effective as a preventative,” Ward said.
The chief executive of Domestic Violence Victoria, Fiona McCormack, said breaching a family violence order indicated a person was at higher risk of harming their partner and should attract meaningful punishment.
Family violence orders are designed to restrict access of a perpetrator to the person they have abused and can be breached either by the person physically coming into contact with that person or contacting them electronically outside of the bounds of the order.
“If there’s weak response or late response then the message to men who are using violence is that the broader community doesn’t care, or sometimes it can even be interpreted as the broader community endorses men acting this way,” McCormack said.
She said the study provided valuable information about patterns of perpetrator behaviour. But she said justice data was limited because the court system didn’t distinguish between assault, rape, stalking and other offences that occurred in the context of family violence, and those that did not.
