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Unprecedented demand for domestic violence services

By Amanda Copp

Domestic violence services supporting the Queanbeyan region are experiencing unprecedented demand due to a change in police reporting legislation.

Queanbeyan Women’s Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service (WDVCAS) received 189 domestic violence referrals from police in February this year compared to an average of 32 per month before July 2015.

The three months before February 2016 also saw an average of 150 referrals each month.

Queanbeyan WDVCAS staffer Kerry Mobbs said this spike was primarily due to legislation introduced in July 2015 requiring police to record every domestic violence incident they attend into a statewide, centralised computer system which then refers the victim onto local support services.

Manager of the domestic violence team for the NSW police force, Sean McDermott said police had moved to a “seamless” system.

Before July 2015, police officers would arrive at a domestic violence incident and give out a yellow referral card where the victim would indicate their consent to be contacted by support services in the future.

“Now we do it on a non-consent basis, everyone gets referred whether they consent to it or not and everyone will get that contact from support services,” Mr McDermott said.

“When we looked at designing a new system we wanted to make sure everyone got coverage and sometimes consent [from victims] would not be forthcoming if there was fear of any ramifications from an offender.”

Mr McDermott said police have always dealt with high volumes of domestic violence, but now with mandatory referrals, support services are finally seeing the demand that police had all along.

Louisa Domestic Violence Service coordinator Janette Dale said demand for their services had increased by 30 percent in the last three years.

Mr McDermott said police had seen a gradual rise in domestic violence reporting recently.

“In our state you’re looking roughly between seven and ten thousand extra incidences per year, roughly we deal with around 140 000 incidences in the state per year.”

A 2012 Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research study found only half of domestic violence victims report it to police.

http://www.queanbeyanagechronicle.com.au/story/3917324/demand-for-domestic-violence-services-spike/