Suseonline the part that scares me more in that scenario is insufficient evidence to jail B. B is still upset because of the close call with a long jail sentence but no safe time for V .

Then we get the pressure to further reduce the burden of proof and give into it then V gets sent to jail because B is a psychopath and quite a convincing liar.

I suspect it will if anything make it more difficult for V's to report actual violence by B's. Family situations tend to have quite different dynamics to general crime.

I do agree with the point Julian makes though about the frustration with a legal system that seems to let some seriously dangerous people off with very light sentences.

R0bert

I totally agree with your post RObert.
I feel sad about the fact there will probably never be any real answers to stop domestic violence, and more people will die.

Re RObert, Suseonline and Poirot

I agree about the risk if a complaint against a basher fails to lead to a conviction and the enraged basher is free to take it out on the victim. I would suggest fallback AVOs with the very low level of proof (since they’re not criminal convictions) that they have now, but breach of the AVO conditions leading to automatic extremely long term imprisonment. It's one of the many issues involved in stopping the violence by stopping the violent, and requires attention of expert planning groups arising from a Royal Commission.

Unfortunately there is NO way the violence can be stopped by measures which fall short of reliably walling off the bashers. Thank you Poirot for wishing me luck in seeing some serious reform take place in that direction but I'm not the one who needs the good luck, it's the unfortunate victims living on constant tenterhooks because some bullying piece of filth may erupt into violence at any time without warning.

One thing history has taught us for millennia: appeasement leads inevitably to disastrous failure.

Suseonline "I feel sad about the fact there will probably never be any real answers to stop domestic violence, and more people will die." - agreed. A whole range of crimes have been outlawed throughout most of human history and are still with us. I do think though that we can reduce the incidence of those crimes including DV even if we can't eliminate them.

I tend to an assumption that a significant proportion of the worst abusers are going to be narcissists, psychopaths or similar.

People who are often very good at playing the system and people to get their own way so anything we do needs to be considered in the light of handing them yet another weapon. It's always a juggling act between protecting victims from actual abusers and ensuring that the state is not actually aiding the abuser with tools. I also run with an assumption that the government rarely does intervention well.

AVO's with minimal proof may play a role as long as corresponding steps are taken to ensure they don't become a weapon in the hands of an abuser and that they don't in any way penalise the person they are taken out against.

TBC

R0bert

Some bullet points to illustrate the problem of AVO's taken out with very low levels of proof).

- How do we find a balance between protecting children from an abuser subject to an AVO and stopping an AVO taken out with a very low standard of proof being used to isolate an innocent parent from their children?
- Who is responsible for finding and funding suitable accommodation for the subject of an AVO (taken out with a very low level of proof)?
- Will both parties still have access to joint bank accounts and if so how do we stop one party taking actions to place the other at a serious disadvantage? It can take a while to rearrange finances especially if loans and periodic payments are involved.
- Will the AVO impact on future family law matters (child residency, property settlement etc)?
- Would we still expect/demand that people in certain occupations be stood down/sacked on the basis of an AVO being taken out against them?
- What can we do to ensure that subject of the AVO still has access to material for their hobbies or other interests remembering that the AVO is given with a very low standard of proof and may stand for some time. Some stuff can't be abandoned for months and adding the loss of access to loved recreation to what's already a very stressful time is not good for mental health.

R0bert

The evidence suggests that there is no one type of offender as 'informed' by feminist thought bubbles - ie that boys and men and all somewhere on a continuum of discrimination and violence against girls and women.

Bluntly, the prevailing feminist mantras driving government policy are deeply flawed. That wastes resources, frustrating competent risk analysis and measured, robust treatments of those risks.

That the problem is presented as being black and white, that it is men dominating, controlling and killing women, reduced to men being at fault for all that is bad and harmful in the world, is the powerful Hegelian Paradigm at work.

Political parties know that, but they over-use the same psychological tool to manipulate opinion.

There are no statesmen in the federal parliament, just more and more career politicians, yes men and women, who are putting their own futures first.

Returning to the 'solution' of AVOs, the reason why some here doubt that AVOs might ever be successful in deterring violent offenders is obvious. However that requires that we put the person NOT gender first when considering the motivation and the crime. Of course there are people who are NOT put off by laws, AVOs and gaol.

While populist politicians pretend they always have 'remedies' and those remedies are always more redundant laws and limitations on freedom generally, they know and the public should realise that these offenders are determined and not put off by laws.

There is something fundamentally deficient, plain wrong, with how the debate about 'domestic violence' has been and is being framed. Nothing will progress, there will be no lasting improvement for indigenous and other severely affected groups until the Hegelian Paradigm that serves the power and pecuniary interests of vested interests, the bureaucrats, professionals and NGOs with such a stake in the present failed system, is challenged and dispelled. That in turn will only be possible where competent and ethical researchers and scientists finally speak up against sloppy and in some cases outright fraudulent research.

It is obviously foolish to believe that 'DV' offenders are a homogenous group, so why buy it?