Exploring gender differences in domestic violence reported to the NSW Police Force

Abstract

Whether men and women are equally violent in their intimate relationships has animated considerable debate in the scholarly literature, and increasingly, in policy and law reform processes. This debate about the gendered nature of domestic violence (DV) has re-intensified over the past decade with police data from various countries documenting an increase in women identified as DV offenders. While there has been considerable research exploring the increase in women DV offenders overseas (particularly in the USA) there has been little research in Australia. This article seeks to fill some of these gaps. It reports on a NSW study which explored differences between women and men identified as 'persons of interest' in an incident reported to police in 2010, and then over time (2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012) to see whether that person was the predominant victim or offender. This article focuses on cases in which the police intended to take legal action arising from the 2010 incident; this is important, as one would anticipate greater similarity between men's and women's use of violence in cases warranting the attention of the law. The article highlights the limitations of an incident focus when examining a patterned form of behaviour such as DV.