Chapter 1
'Majority of your shift'
Hot summers and weekends are big days for domestic violence calls to triple-0, police say, with the very worst day of the year being Christmas Day. But every day is a domestic violence day for cops in Logan, this area on the southern outskirts of Brisbane.
"The majority of your shift as an on-road copper is disturbances or domestic violence incidences," says Acting Sergeant Larissa Shaw, domestic and family violence coordinator for Logan.
Her colleague, Acting Superintendent Glenn Allen, confirms the high rates of domestic violence: "That is by far the biggest call for service ... it's core business and we treat it that way."
When Sergeant Shaw gets into work on a Monday, there is usually 40 to 60 new domestic violence cases to coordinate.
There were more than 3,000 domestic violence matters in the Logan district in the most recent 12 months counted. Shaw says that between leaving work on a Friday afternoon and getting back in on a Monday morning, there are usually 40 to 60 new domestic violence incidents logged, all of which she needs to sort through in her role as coordinator.
So far today police in Australia would have dealt with on average
250domestic violence matters
Learn more about these numbers.Share
Queensland Police applied for more than 15,000 domestic violence orders in the same 12-month period - with police handling another 25,000 domestic violence matters state-wide.
"It's tough anyway because you're walking into someone else's home, which they deem is their kingdom," says Shaw. "That's pretty hard and it's always high risk. Every time you go in you think 'anything could happen'."
She says removing children after they have witnessed their parents' violence is the hardest part. "Having to sit them down and try and explain why that's going to happen, why you're taking dad away - because mum's been belted and might be in the ambulance and you're trying to arrange care for the kids."
"Or you've gone there to help a family and it's now reality that you're taking him away," Senior Sergeant Peta Jordan adds. "She now doesn't want him to go so she's now attacking you for taking him away - that kind of scenario."
Police can sometimes be very black and white, but everything in domestic violence is just a shade of grey.
Acting Senior Sergeant Roger O'Malia
An added complexity is that sometimes women will want to show their partner that they are resisting his arrest but when he's actually taken away, they express relief that they are safe and he is gone, the officers say. Eventually, he'll be out of the watch house or prison, and partners can already foresee what would happen at the other end of the cycle if they would seem to be aiding the police in arrest.
These tensions and complexities are big problems for police enforcement of domestic violence, and can frustrate efforts to keep the peace and resolve matters.
Acting Senior Sergeant Roger O'Malia is a specialised domestic and family violence liaison officer for north-west Brisbane. He says police do get frustrated when the victim doesn't press assault charges or support officers in taking out a domestic violence order.
Acting Senior Sergeant Roger O'Malia has intervened in dangerous domestic violence scenes from urban London to outback Queensland.
"Sometimes there's very little other physical evidence to corroborate other than their testimony, which means you're really reliant on what they're going to say ... They're my only witness - the victim - and they don't want to talk. They won't tell the magistrate so it puts us in a very difficult position."
"Police can sometimes be very black and white, but everything in domestic violence is just a shade of grey," O'Malia adds.
"That doesn't really meld with the black and white view of the world and you need those officers because they're the officers who go through some horrible situations and still manage to get the job done."
On the front lines of domestic violence
This is the second article in a three-part series covering the experiences and perspectives of workers on the front line of Australia's fight against domestic violence.
O'Malia says his job is more people-focused than general officers on the beat, and he can spend the time to guide victims through the decision of whether to press charges. Sometimes, he also has to take a long view.
"I promise you if you don't want to get help and you've already taken up my time, I'm actually still here to help, and you know, keep me in mind because there may be a next time."
He says it's hard to make judgements in violent situations, even with his decades of experience in rural and urban Queensland and in the East End of London. On the beat in London, the first thing police would do when entering a domestic violence dispute would be to hide the kitchen knives in the gap behind the washing machine.
All police interviewed say that they firstly separate the couple to calm them down and get each version of events clear.
"Perpetrators in the DV sector, they're a dirty word, they're judged, they're this, they're that, they're every bad name but they're also human beings." Roger O'Malia
"I went to one particular [domestic violence matter] a little while ago now where I spoke to the boy and he gave me a version of events and I thought 'that's terrible', she must be a bad person, she must be the baddie. Then my colleague was speaking to her and he said, 'Rog, you're flat-out wrong. She's the victim and here's what really happened: This guy was sitting on top of her, smashing her head into the floor and she said the only reason he stopped was because he heard your siren. He would have killed her.'"
He and his partner arrested the man involved, but Sergeant O'Malia was "mortified" with his own misjudgement. "I was convinced this guy was the victim and he wasn't."
The police usually only deal with this kind of violence at the pointy end - when someone is at the crisis point - however, more and more intervention is being woven into best-practice for the police.
The local domestic and family violence coordinators try and take the intimidation out of reporting to police or taking out a domestic violence order in the courts.
Part of Sergeant Shaw's job is to ring up victims whose details have been supplied by other support agencies in the community. She says, just by calling up, she can help. A secondary benefit of giving them the call is that they're then not looking at a police officer in uniform, they're talking to a person offering help on the phone. It's these little things that can make the difference.
What helps too, is that Sergeant Shaw has also been a victim.
Acting Sergeant Larissa Shaw is domestic violence coordinator for Logan
"You're not exempt just because you're wearing a uniform," says Larissa Shaw
Shaw escaped her violent partner and says her own experience informs her work with victims
Roger O'Malia is a domestic violence liaison officer for an area that includes some of the wealthiest suburbs in Brisbane.
