New research underscores need to improve justice and support services for victim‑survivors
The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC)’s study called “Technology-facilitated coercive control” looks into the use of technology to enable controlling, monitoring, stalking, and emotionally abusive behaviours by intimate partners in domestic and family violence contexts.
The new research emphasises the importance of further improving justice and support services to safeguard victim‑survivors from coercive control, according to a media release by Mark Dreyfus, Australia’s attorney general.
For its research, the AIC interviewed victim‑survivors and domestic and family violence frontline workers. These interviewees reported gaps such as a lack of understanding of technology-facilitated coercive control among frontline workers, police, the broader community, and even the victim‑survivors themselves, who did not always recognise what was happening as violence.
The research revealed that police officers often viewed victim-survivor reports as isolated incidents and not as patterns of behaviour. It also found insufficient funding for specialist suppliers to conduct technology safety scans, which left domestic and family violence services to rely on local telecommunications stores or students to check devices.
The AIC found, in an additional paper, a rise of reports of technology-facilitated coercive control during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as reports of heavier workloads and working condition pressures on domestic and family violence workers and other support workers.
Government response
In September 2023, an agreement by the Standing Council of Attorneys-General endorsed National Principles to Address Coercive Control in Family and Domestic Violence. This created a shared national understanding of coercive control for the first time, noted the media release of Australia’s attorney general.
Coercive control is a pattern of physical or non-physical abusive behaviour by a person intending to exert power and dominance over another, the media release explained. Such control, which nearly always underpins family and domestic violence, instils fear and deprives a person of freedom and independence.
It is important to understand and identify these dynamics to respond effectively to the problem of family and domestic violence, Dreyfus stressed in the media release.
The Attorney-General’s Department has been working to improve the responses to family, domestic, and sexual violence, including through resources seeking to help more people recognise coercive control and to urge victim-survivors to ask for help, the media release said.
The government has also invested $4.1m in training and education to improve police responses to family, domestic, and sexual violence and to increase awareness and recognition of coercive control and technology-facilitated abuse, the media release added.