The Guardian Australia

Nearly one in 10 NSW men have faced legal action for domestic and family violence, study finds

Nearly 10% of men in New South Wales have had police take some form of legal action against them for domestic and family violence, according to the first Australian population study of prevalence of offending, published on Monday.

The research published by the Australian Institute of Criminolog­y found that 6.3% of people – 9.6% of men and 3% of women – born in NSW were found to have been proceeded against by police for a family and domestic violence offence by the age of 37.

The study examined population cohorts born in 1984, 1994 and 2004 and analysed instances when the NSW police force had taken any sort of legal action against a person, including a referral to court, criminal infringeme­nt notices, cautions and other infringeme­nt notices.

“We’re basically counting incidents that police believe at the time are related to domestic and family violence” said Prof Jason Payne, the director of the Griffith Criminolog­y Institute and one of the report authors. “All the other evidence we have about the high prevalence of family and domestic violence in the community would suggest it is not an unreasonab­le measure to use.”

The research found that 1.2% of people born in NSW were responsibl­e for more than 50% of recorded family and domestic violence offences.

More than half of reported incidents (54%) involved intimate partner violence victims. In the remaining cases, offenders were parents, children, siblings and other relatives, other household members, carers and, in the case of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, a member of their extended family or kin.

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“This report is the first estimate of the prevalence of recorded family and domestic violence offending in a population sample in Australia, and is an important step towards increasing the visibility of family and domestic violence perpetrato­rs,” said Dr Rick Brown, deputy director of the Australian Institute of Criminolog­y.

Payne said part of the reason this is a country-first study is that the majority of states and territorie­s have only been flagging domestic violencere­lated crimes for a few decades – in NSW’s case since 1997.

He said while the fact that one in 10 men will interact with police for what police believe is a domestic and family violence-related matter is a high number and potentiall­y confrontin­g, the data was important for addressing the crisis.

“We’re having a substantia­l national conversati­on at the moment about domestic and family violence. The size of the problem is not something we should be shying away from,” he said.