New Zealand's high rates of family violence being tackled by police

Friday, 25 May 2018

About 40 per cent of police time is spent at family harm incidents.

New Zealand has the highest rate of family violence in the developed world. The United Nations regularly expresses concerns over our levels of violence against women and children. But the figures remain daunting. Now, police are standing up and taking a different approach, Kirsty Lawrence reports.

Between 2009 and 2015, 92 people in New Zealand were killed by their partners.

In 98 per cent of these cases there was a recorded history of abuse, and women were the victim.

New Zealand's approach to domestic violence isn't working.

But police are ready for a change.

Detective Senior Sergeant Ross Ellwood says a police trial of taking video statements at the scene is having a positive effect in the court room.

* A look into NZ's homegrown family violence epidemic**

And nobody is more pleased to see a fresh approach then acting Superintendent Bronwyn Marshall.

She has been heading the safer whānu transformation for the past few years and knows the difficulties frontline officers have been facing.

'People were concerned they were leaving homes and they felt like they hadn't helped that person long-term because they were going back there,' she says.

Acting Superintendent Bronwyn Marshall is heading the safer whānu transformation.

Forty per cent of police time is spent attending family harm incidents, and about 17 per cent of all priority jobs are family harm.

This has pushed police to devise a new strategy for dealing with what used to be 'domestic' calls. Now they are known as 'family harm investigations'.

Marshall says four projects come under the safer whanaū umbrella: an integrated safety response, the Whangaia Ngā Pā Harakeke Programme, victim video statements, and a change in police practice.

And this change starts at school.

The Royal New Zealand Police College has restructured its training so recruits are more readily being placed in scenarios of family harm incidents.

Training adviser Jude Simpson says recruits used to receive about two-to-four hours training on how to deal with family harm. Now they get 60.

They started the process 3½ years ago to make sure officers are graduating with the skills they need to deal with the turmoil and heartache behind families' front doors.

When Simpson started working with the college, only 13 per cent of police graduates said they felt prepared when leaving. That has now increased to 97 per cent.

'If they are coming from a home without family harm they aren't going to be understanding of how someone would put up with this.'

The new training helps recruits understand that family violence is more than just physical abuse, and more complex than what a single bruise or broken window can betray.

Senior Sergeant Stuart Duncan shows the new police app.

'It creates empathy, which is one of our core values.'

Technology is another major aspect being used to help tackle family violence and the changes are described as 'world leading'.

The FBI has even visited to take note of what New Zealand police are doing, head of mobility Superintendent Rob Cochrane says.

He says technology has come a long way since he first started in police 22 years ago.

'When I worked in Auckland in the 90s all my comms was radio. If I wanted to get information about a car I went through a check channel.'

Police are now using their mobile OnDuty App, which provides instant up-to-date images and data.

Cochrane says they want to put more emphasis on police being out on the street, engaging with the community, and less on office-bound paperwork.

The OnDuty app has been developed with a family harm investigation tool, which can identify risks and provide a safety plan.

Officers can bring up a detailed history about the home they are heading to, which shows how many times police have been called there and what the outcome of those call-outs were.

It means officers can attend incidents with all the information they need, instead of only a snapshot of what they're facing.

Cochrane says the app is being developed further as they receive feedback from frontline staff.

Another technology advancement for helping combat family harm is around video interviews in family harm situations.

Video interviews are done at the home of the victim immediately after the event and lets them say in their own words what has happened to them.

After the officer has recorded the statement on their phone it's uploaded to a secure online website and can then be downloaded to be submitted as evidence in court.

In Counties Manukau, where the technique has been trialled, early guilty pleas increased from 22 per cent to 40 per cent in cases where video interviews were used as evidence.

Detective Senior Sergeant Ross Ellwood says video testimony is powerful for not only the court to see, but also the victims.

'When you go to court and play that back to victims, it's quite powerful.'

Marshall says this is all part of police looking at family harm incidents as episodic events, not one-off incidents.

The Whangaia Ngā Pā Harakeke Programme is another branch of the project, bringing together police, iwi and community groups to work together. It is also being trialled in Counties Manukau.

With the work they are doing, Marshall says they expect to see an increase in calls about family harm, which will actually be a good thing as it means more people are reaching out for help.

However, what they also want to see is a reduction in the harm rates of repeat offenders, to show that what they are doing is making a change.