Domestic violence assaults have risen 13.5% over the past five years, according to the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (Bocsar), which also found coercive control behaviours were present in more than half of police domestic violence reports.
Using an artificial intelligence model to analyse more than half a million domestic violence police reports made from Janurary 2009 to March 2020, Bocsar researchers found 57% of domestic violence events included at least one coercive control behaviour.
The most common behaviours detected were property damage and theft, followed by intimidation and threats and verbal abuse. Of recorded domestic violence offences, 10% included a reference to threats of harm and 6% included a threat to kill.
The NSW government passed laws to create a standalone offence for coercive control last year. They come into effect in July next year.
Perpetrators use controlling and harassing behaviours including financial limits, repeated communications and restricting social connections to deny their partners’ autonomy and independence.
The Bocsar executive director, Jackie Fitzgerald, said the use of a text-mining computer model meant researchers were able to analyse more reports and better understand the complexities in domestic violence situations.
“[Police reports] are actually quite lengthy documents [that] go into quite a bit of detail about the circumstances of the crime, but the fact that it’s written in text makes it hard to analyse,” she said. “So we’ve applied a text-mining methodology to those narrative descriptions to look for coercive control behaviours.”
Fitzgerald said there were still some instances in which police “describe something that is akin to stalking, intimidation” but do not characterise it as such, and it has then been flagged by the AI model. She expected police to start pinpointing more of these behaviours when the legislation comes into effect next year.
“Police take considerable time to write and document what happens in these offences – this gives a way for it to build on our general understanding of crime,” she said.
Fitzgerald said similar text-mining models could be used to understand the prevalence of other factors, including mental health and drugs, and get a broader picture of the factors around a crime.
The research will be released on Tuesday after it was revealed that domestic violence assault reports were up almost 13.5% over the past five years to June. Sexual assaults were also on the rise.
“They are where we should put our efforts,” Fitzgerald said.
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. If you or someone you know is affected by sexual assault, family or domestic violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit www.1800RESPECT.org.au. In an emergency, call 000. International helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org.
