25 June 2024 

No to Violence’s submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry into capturing data on people using family violence in Victoria highlights that developing a deeper understanding of family violence perpetration is crucial if we are to ensure effective, appropriate responses are available to reduce and end family violence. 

The Parliamentary Inquiry is exploring what can be done to help achieve a more complete understanding of who uses violence, how they use it, and how many people use it. 

NTV’s submission called for data collection practices to address racial profiling and biases against marginalised people. Not doing so risks reinforcing a skewed understanding of family violence perpetration as a problem of men who most often engage with the service system. 

Our submission also called for information sharing processes to be improved to support more informed service responses to people using family violence. Enabling all specialist family violence services to directly access Central Information Point (CIP) reports would enable this.  

This initiative must be supported by an effective and fast mechanism to rectify misidentification of the predominant aggressor across relevant data systems. 

To develop a deeper understanding of family violence perpetration, we need to explore pathways into, and out of, using family violence. Investment is needed to analyse behaviour patterns of people using family violence across service engagement, and build knowledge of men using family violence who never come into contact with the service system. 

Developing an Outcome Measurement Framework and prioritising outcome measurements as opposed to output measurements will provide deeper insights into the impact of service provision and build understanding of what works to stop men using family violence. 

There must also be increased ongoing investment in a broad suite of interventions to address the diverse and complex motivating factors, life experiences and support needs of men using family violence. 

We look forward to working with the Legislative Assembly Legal and Social Issues Committee through the next stages of this Inquiry to achieve meaningful outcomes. The Committee is expected to report its findings no later than 26 November 2024. 

Read our full submission here.