Building an integrated perpetrator interventions system is a long-term goal requiring time and sustained commitment, including to prevention and early intervention initiatives which bolster tertiary interventions
The Victorian Government is committed to the development of a system-wide approach to keeping perpetrators accountable, connected and responsible for stopping their violence. These priority reforms will be supported by research that strengthens understandings of perpetrators and people who use violence and helps build the evidence base of effective approaches to perpetrator accountability and behaviour change. When perpetrator accountability is strengthened and they are engaged to change their behaviours, victim survivors are safer.
Research should consider and support the whole of Victorian government work program to strengthen perpetrator accountability included within the 2020-23 Family Violence Reform Rolling Action Plan, including the perpetrator-focused MARAM Practice Guides.
Priority subjects within the research area of perpetrators and people who use violence include:
- strengthening our understanding of the characteristics of perpetrators and people who use violence, including:
- comparisons of factors in internationally recognised perpetrator typologies
- social preconditions and the underpinning intent and choice to use violence, including attitudes, beliefs, needs and circumstances of perpetrators and people who use violence
- prevalence and contribution of current or historical trauma, including from experiencing family violence and child maltreatment
- strengthening our understanding of the dynamics and tactics of coercive control and its impacts on victim survivors
- building a more in-depth knowledge of types of violence and patterns of violent behaviour including:
- technology-facilitated abuse and other emerging methods for facilitating violence and abuse
- forms of violence that are most likely to indicate high risk perpetration
- understanding conditions that are associated with an increase or reduction of violence and the ways these may vary across cohorts and communities, including:
- identifying any risk factors that may correlate to likelihood of change or escalation of risk or recidivism
- identifying protective factors and interventions that may support positive behaviour change or lessen risk
- issues relating to misidentification of the predominant aggressor, particularly in respect to:
- prevalence of misidentification of victim survivors as perpetrators across system settings, including consideration of the identity, circumstances, presentation and experiences of each party
- characteristics, circumstances, narratives and behaviours of people using violence and their use of systems abuse to cause victim survivors to be misidentified as a perpetrator
- effective practices and service responses likely to prevent misidentification of the perpetrator, with consideration of their application to key Victorian reforms such as information sharing and coordinated risk assessment.
- increasing our understanding of access to and effectiveness of approaches to changing perpetrator behaviour including research directed at:
- identifying key settings or circumstances that support early identification and intervention for perpetrators and people who use violence
- identifying gaps and constructing an evidence base of effective interventions for facilitating positive change, with consideration of the perpetrators’ characteristics, attitudes and beliefs, needs and circumstances and the types of violence used
- culturally and cohort-specific responses, including for people from culturally diverse communities, LGBTIQ+ people, people from regional and rural areas, and people with disability, and Aboriginal people who use violence
- identifying core elements within successful interventions, including key practice approaches, responsivity factors, alternative service delivery models, to inform the design of future interventions
- understanding the effective sequencing or staging of interventions, supports and sanctions and their relationship to both short- and long-term behaviour change, with consideration of supports from across the early intervention to crisis response continuum and how this may support a whole of system approach to perpetrator accountability
- understanding how to intervene and respond to high risk perpetrators, including the relatively small proportion of perpetrators who commit a disproportionately large volume of family violence offending
- building the evidence base on best practice approaches to working with victim survivors as part of a perpetrator intervention or response
A range of factors underpin someone’s intent and choice to use violence. Continuing to advance our understanding regarding perpetrator intent and choice, including the types of violence used and patterns and tactics relating to these, is fundamental to keeping victim survivors safe and strengthening perpetrator accountability. Insights about perpetrator behaviour, including tactics of coercive control, are significant when understood in the context of social and cultural environments that may escalate risk or support positive behaviour change.
Research under this priority will support the government and the sector to strengthen risk identification and assessment, the effectiveness of interventions that facilitate or promote behaviour change, and tailor interventions for specific individuals, families and situations. It will also build knowledge on appropriate service system contact points to intervene early.
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