Domestic Violence in Australia - the real statistics :

http://www.lonefathers.org.au/domestic_violence.php

      Monash University (Accident reasearch center)  Australia  Assault on
partner causing hospitalisation, eg through attacks to the head with a
knife:

Women more than men

      NSW Bureau of crime statistics and research  Australia  Homocides
involving victims under 10 years of age :  53 % women  47 % men

      NSW Youth and Community services  Australia  Physical abuse of
children :  55 % women 45 % men

 Slowly but surely, the real "dirty little secret" of domestic violence -
female aggression - is coming out.  Last week, the New York Times and the
Associated Press news service ran stories about the rise in the numbers of
women arrested for domestic assault.

 The statistics are impressive.  Ten years ago, about I in 10 domestic
violence arrests involved women as defendants.  Now, it's I in 5 in Michigan
and Connecticut, I in 4 in Vermont and Colorado, and more than I in 10 in
New Hampshire.  Public officials are mystified because, according to the
Times, the trend "so diverges from the widely accepted estimate that 95
percent of batterers are men." It is interesting logic: First, a dogma
contradicted by virtually all social science research becomes "widely
accepted." Then, when it's disproved by the facts, the response is to ask
what's wrong with the facts.

NAOMI WOLFE wrote a best seller, The Beauty Myth, based on the premise that
150,000 American women die of anorexia nervosa each year. The actual figure
for 1991 was 54, according to the US National Centre for Health Statistics,
These days people will accept even the wildest claims, as long as they make
women out to be victims. Particularly if they also put men in a poor light.

In May 1995 a Queensland academic, Jeanne Madison, was reported as having
stated that 67 per cent of nurses she had surveyed complained of being the
target of sexual harassment. But this included any unwelcome phone calls and
requests for dates. not necessarily persistent ones.

An Australian sociologist. Michael Bitman. Has done a study called Juggling
Time on the number of hours worked, paid and unpaid, by men and women. He
found that, although women do more housework, men put in more hours overall.

In 1987 the Office of the Status of Women ran a campaign which stated that
one in three married women was at risk from domestic violence. This number
is still in wide use and was widely accepted until Melbourne film maker Don
Prahn made a documentary, The Deadly Hurt, on which federal minister for
family services, Senator Rosemary Crowley, was asked about the source of
such claims. "Why are you worried about a little bit of wrong analysis?" was
her answer.

The sources 0SW subsequently gave for its claim were the book Behind Closed
Doors, written by three American social researchers, Straus, Gelles and
Steinmetz in 1980, and the Canadian Juristat study. Behind Closed Doors
actually states that one in three households would experience some degree of
domestic violence but in more than half the cases the woman would be the
perpetrator.

These findings have been repeated in at least 30 studies since then. In fact
male-female violence has decreased while female to male has increased. The
Juristat study had a figure of problems in 30 per cent of households but
half of these involved mild sexual harassment, not violence. Juristat was
criticised by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as many of the questions
were leading and would have resulted in biased answers.

In late 1994 the Office of the Status of Women approached the Australian
Bureau of Statistics to do a survey titled Male Violence Against Women. The
survey will cost $1.3 million with some money coming from the department of
human services and health.

Leaked ABS documents show considerable anger from some staff that no men
will be allowed to participate in operational aspects of the survey, and
about the nature of the survey. Some professionals have dubbed it "advocacy
research", designed to come to a predetermined conclusion (see box page 63).
Normally the involvement of participants in ABS surveys is compulsory to
ensure that the respondents reflect the population as a whole, but this one
will be voluntary. In an extreme case, only women who claim to have been
assaulted would bother to respond. It will not look at domestic violence
against men or children and originally 0SW refused to countenance the
inclusion of female-to-female violence, despite the fact that 26 per cent of
assaults against women are by other women. Some professionals believe a
comprehensive survey of domestic violence could be run for the same cost.
Some ABS staff questioned the need for the survey at all as an existing
survey, Crime And Safety In Australia, had shown that only 0.7 per cent of
women had been subject to assault or threat of assault in their own home in
any one year. (a reduction of 25 per cent since 1983). That study showed
that, overall, men are nearly twice as likely to be victims of violence as
are women.

Proposals to widen the study were ridiculed in a Letter to The Canberra
Times (Feb 9) by Kathleen Townsend, head of 0SW. "To suggest that any
planned research on women's experience of violence should look at women as
perpetrators is about as logical as the proposition that a child abuse
survey should include data on child bullies," she wrote.

In Australia, a 1995 study in four Victorian hospitals by Virginia Routley
and Jenny Sherrard using data from the Victorian injury surveillance system
(VISS) showed surprisingly high levels of admissions for men who were
victims of domestic violence. Indeed, the original published findings showed
40 per cent of all domestic violence victims who required hospital admission
were men who had been assaulted by their partners. This figure was later
reduced to 28 per cent by the authors. The authors used three categories:
confirmed, probable and suggestive. If the methodology had been applied
consistently to both genders there may have been more male victims than
female because women who had injuries they claimed were due to other causes
could be classed as "probables". A refusal to be reinterviewed could be
enough for a woman to be included as a victim. The same methodology was not
used for men even though they are less likely to report being beaten by a
spouse. The authors of the study state that previous studies defined
"probable" as "those cases where the injuries were not sustained in a street
assault, mugging or robbery". If applied to the VISS population as a whole
this would mean that males heavily outweigh females as "probable" victims of
domestic violence.

An existing survey had shown that only 0.7 per cent of women had been
subject to assault or threat of assault in their own home in any one year.

On 26 April, federal health minister Carmen Lawrence launched a media
release for "National Stop Violence Against Women Day." That statement said,
in part:

We also know that domestic violence comprises one of the largest areas of
police work - some 70 per cent according to New South Wales figures ...

Victorian police report that they received more than 14,000 calls involving
domestic violence in 1992 ...

There are no national statistics on the nature and extent of violence
against women but we do know that on any night in Australia, approximately
5,000 women and children seek accommodation in refuges - most of whom are
escaping violence ...

And in Queensland, a 1992 study showed that one in five women admitted to
the Royal Brisbane Hospital’s emergency department was a victim of domestic
violence.

I have looked at the source for each of these extraordinary claims. The
officials responsible told me the 70 per cent of police work figure came
from an ACT community law reform paper, Research Paper No.1, (Australian
Institute of Criminology, Canberra 1993). The actual figure in that report
for the percentage of police call-outs to all domestic incidents is 3.5 per
cent, of which only one in five involved an assault]I. (including male on
male). This is 0.7 per cent, not 70.

Victorian police crime statistics for 1993-94 show 13,485 call-outs to
family incidents. Only 13.7 per cent definitely involved violence against
the person, which would amount to one-tenth of 1 per cent of households in
Victoria. Fewer than half of these resulted in charges being laid. In 18 per
cent of the total incidents the complainant was male and 17 per cent
involved parents and children. Victorian police operating procedures now
include "threatening to damage property" and "behaving in an offensive
manner" as "violence."

0SW originally claimed that the figure of 5,000 for the number of women and
children seeking refuge came from the national census, which actually shows
the number in accommodation, not seeking it. The official figure is for
"Hostels For The Homeless, Night Shelters And Refuges". There were 6,607
people in this category - l,614 children, 1,271 women and 3,722 men. In
other words, men outnumbered women and children put together. There was no
indication if any of these people had been subjected to violence.
Subsequently, 0SW claimed the figure came from statistics compiled by the
supported accommodation assistance program (SAAP) and from a paper by the
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. In fact the SAAP figures show
that on each night about 280 women claiming that they are the victims of
domestic violence seek accommodation at a refuge. The AIHW paper suggests a
lower figure.

The figure for Queensland is claimed to come from a study done in 1990 by
Gwen Roberts, of the department of psychiatry at the University of
Queensland. In fact the study was done in 1991 and the only publication so
far occurred in the Medical Journal of Australia 1993. That study actually
concluded that "one in 100 emergency department attendances is as a result
of domestic violence". The 20 per cent figure refers to women attendees who
claimed to have been victims of "domestic violence" at some time in their
adult lives. That included being pushed or verbally abused. There is no
evidence that any were actually admitted to hospital.

Almost all restraining orders are now granted in a closed court from an ex
parte` application. This is were the applicant (alleged victim) stands
before a magistrate, and the case is decided without the presence or even
the knowledge of the respondent (the accused).

The restraining order will already have be granted before the accused knows
about it.

Once the respondent has been served with the restraining order, they must
notify of their intent to contest the restraining order. Of those that are
contested at the Joondalup Family Violence Court, 91% are dismissed. This is
a shocking abuse of process and breach of procedural fairness.

Moves are now under way by the WA Attorney General, the Hon Mr Jim McGinty
to remedy this situation by changing the Restraining Order Act 1997 and the
WA Criminal Code, allowing hearsay as proof of an offense, to solve the
issue of so many dismissals.

Many other changes are also planned which include:

  a.. moves to apply a media black out on all court proceedings, removing
media scrutiny;

  b.. making it compulsory for all court proceedings to be closed, barring
all public witness, despite the court already having this discretion;

  c.. making police investigation and reporting compulsory, removing all
police discretion and ability to make judgments on the severity and/or
necessity for intervention;

  d.. removing all police liability for their actions during investigations
into complaints. This is in response to the fact that the single largest
cause of complaint to police in regards to restraining orders is allegations
of police brutality;

  e.. removing, consent as a defense for a breach. This is the main cause of
breaches that respondents tell us when seeking advice. Being invited over to
talk and resolve issues and then having the police called and being
arrested;

  f.. removing the right of unrepresented respondents to cross examining the
applicant. The Domestic Violence Legal Unit will only represent woman. The
Joondalup Family Violence Unit also has a policy of only helping women and
Legal Aid has a publicly stated policy of only representing applicants.
Removing the rights of unrepresented respondents without guaranteeing
representation is bound to lead to discrimination and breaches of due
procedural fairness, particularly considering the higher percentage of
victims and perpetrators within the lower economic social groups;

Considering the high level of dismissals, the lack of any built in
protection for children to continue contact with both parents is in
desparate need of attention, however, this is noticeably lacking from the
proposed changes.

British Crime Survey reported in 1996 that an equal proportion of men and
women, 4.2%, had said they had been physically assaulted by a current or
former spouse or lover in the past year. Only 41% were injured, and although
more women than men were hurt, the difference was not that great: 47% of
women injured compared with 31% of men.
The 1996 report found male victims of domestic violence were particularly
unhappy about the level of support offered by agencies, especially the
police. One police officer conceded how even when the police were called to
a domestic fight and saw the man bleeding and the woman unscathed, it was
the man who was commonly arrested.

One man, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his children, said his
former wife set fire to his bedspread while he was asleep and twice attacked
him with a kitchen knife, once in the throat. "I didn't go to the police
because it was my home and my family and I didn't want anyone else
involved," he said. "I couldn't walk out because she was being violent to
the children. But in the end I slept in a locked room with a shotgun."

He defended himself aggressively and she accused him of violence. After
their divorce, one of her boyfriends told him that she intended to return
and kill her former husband. In fact, she killed another boyfriend and is
now in jail for his murder.

Another man I spoke to, a former airline worker, married his second wife
when she fell pregnant. But he claims that from the start of the marriage,
she was violent. "She repeatedly punched me in the face and threw chairs at
me, and punched holes in the doors." He never responded with violence, he
said, but he would leave the house and return when things calmed down.

One night he left with a bloody face and was stopped by a policeman who
advised him to report the attack. But at the police station the desk officer
said "these things happen" and took no further action. The husband initiated
divorce proceedings, only to find his wife was accusing him of violence. The
courts believed her and promptly awarded their house to her.

Of course, such stories may well have another side to them. However, family
lawyers say it is common for women to make false allegations of domestic
violence in divorce cases. Mark Bowman, a lawyer with London solicitors
Alistair Meldrum, said this had got a great deal worse recently after
several court rulings and guidance from the lord chancellor laid down that
if the courts thought domestic violence had occurred, they may conclude that
it was better for a child not to see its father.

"In the last few months, the atmosphere has been poisoned by these rulings,"
said Bowman. "They mean that fathers now have to fight every allegation of
domestic violence otherwise they will lose contact with their children." Yet
it's hard to defend themselves as the women don't have to prove their
allegations beyond reasonable doubt, only on a balance of probabilities. And
the courts tend to believe them.

"Women have an incentive to exaggerate claims of violence," said Bowman, "as
they can use them to get the man ousted from the family home." Moreover, he
said, the legal aid rules required women who made such allegations to report
them to the police as a condition for assistance. So on this basis alone,
the police figures are likely to be inflated by these often false claims.