“We had grave concerns for victims so we targeted [the offenders],” Police Commissioner Karen Webb said, per ABC.
“Some of them have been hard to find … avoiding police … which is why we had this big concerted effort.“The results speak for themselves. I’m very pleased.”
Mal Lanyon
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner said the arrests would help avoid attacks on victims in the future.
This issue is an interesting one because on the one hand, there’s much to be said about how women in this country are often murdered by men who have a history of violence. It’s common knowledge that men often get away with harming women with a slap on the wrist, because our justice system is not designed to protect victims.
But it’s exactly this last point that leaves me sceptical of just how much change we’ll see from these mass arrests.
While it might be reassuring to think that there are now less violent men out on the streets (I can imagine victims feel great relief at knowing their abusers are behind bars), it also raises questions on if policing and jail time actually prevent murders in the long run.
The number of people in jails across Australia , yet , which suggests otherwise. Plus, — in fact, they actually make people .
There’s also the fact that arrests of women have increased drastically in recent years (Indigenous women make up a lot of these stats). The ABC reported in 2018 that of women behind bars are actually victims of domestic violence themselves.
It’s why there was so much : if a system unfairly targets marginalised folk, especially Indigenous people and women who are actually victims, then is giving that system more punitive powers a good thing?
It’s complicated because on the one hand, maybe cops arresting a spate of offenders will prevent even one death, and that’ll make it worth it. On the other hand, does this initiative prevent abuse, or introduce a temporary delay before it can be acted on?
And then there’s the fact that .
For any of this to work, be it arresting more domestic violence offenders or criminalising coercive control, there needs to be an active effort to actually dismantle the very ideas that allow domestic violence to take place in the first place.
There needs to be funding of victim support services, educational programs around mental health and acceptable ways of expressing negative emotions, and a real interrogation of what leads to and stops domestic violence from occurring.
Otherwise the moment abusers are free, their victims are in danger again.
“Research tells us that without appropriate police targeting, a person who has been charged with a strangulation or suffocation offence is likely to progress to homicide offending,” Lanyon said.
“When combined with our suite of strategies, Operation Amarok will significantly reduce the risk of harm to current and potential future victims.”
has risen so have domestic violence rates we know prisons don’t actually work in terms of rehabilitation more likely to reoffend 70 per cent backlash from womens’ rights activists when Queensland introduced its coercive control laws cops themselves have a misogyny problemThe post 648 Domestic Violence Offenders Have Been Arrested In 4 Days Across NSW In State-Wide Crackdown appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .