The Domestic Violence Protection Order System as Entry to the Criminal Justice System for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People

Heather Douglas,Robin Fitzgerald

doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.v7i3.499

Abstract

The domestic violence protection order (DVO) system is a hybrid system of criminalisation in which the DVO itself is a civil order, but any contravention of that order may result in a criminal charge. Limited attention has been paid to the potential consequences of criminalisation through the hybrid DVO system in the Australian context. We use Queensland as a case study and examine administrative data gathered through Queensland Courts. We show that a disproportionate number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) people are named on DVOs, charged with contraventions of DVOs and significantly more likely than non-Indigenous people to receive a sentence of imprisonment for a contravention of a DVO, compared to non-Indigenous people. We find that ATSI women are particularly overrepresented in this system. We review explanations for these startling figures and emphasize the need for a change in approach.

Highlights

Domestic and family violence (DFV) is an issue of national concern in Australia with approximately one woman killed every week by a current or former intimate partner (Cox 2012)
While ATSI women are at the receiving end of increased frequency and severity of DFV, we demonstrate here that they are significantly overrepresented in the Queensland Wide Interlinked Courts (QWIC) data, compared with non‐Indigenous women, as respondents to domestic violence protection order (DVO), in contravention prosecutions and in sentences of imprisonment for contravention
Coker and Maquoid have made the link between DFV and hyper‐incarceration in the United States (US), noting the biggest increase is among African‐American women (2015: 588)

Summary

Introduction

Domestic and family violence (DFV) is an issue of national concern in Australia with approximately one woman killed every week by a current or former intimate partner (Cox 2012). The most common legal response to DFV in Australia is to obtain a civil domestic violence protection order (DVO) and over 30,000 such applications were made in Queensland in the 2015‐ 2016 year (Magistrates Courts of Queensland 2016: 21). The DVO system is a hybrid system of criminalisation in which the DVO itself is a civil order, but any contravention of that order may result in a criminal charge. Limited attention has been paid to the potential consequences of criminalisation through the hybrid DVO system in the Australian context. Our article makes a number of important findings in the Queensland context It identifies that a disproportionate number of ATSI people are named on DVOs (as both aggrieved and respondent) and subsequently charged with contravention of a DVO, compared to non‐Indigenous people. We consider a range of overlapping and intersecting theories that might help to understand the picture the data present

Gradual shifts in the DVO system

The Queensland data

Women as both victimised and criminalised

Findings

Discussion and conclusion