Australian police perceptions of women’s police stations

Abstract

Women's police stations that are designed to receive victims of gender-based violence first emerged in Latin America in the 1980s. In Argentina, these stations have unique aspects like multidisciplinary staffing that could guide responses elsewhere. Police responses to domestic and family violence (DFV) in Australia have continually failed victims and require much improvement. Responses combining police and other services are not completely alien to Australia, and are not too dissimilar from women's police stations. We undertook a survey of Australian police (n=78) to assess which aspects of Argentina's stations could inform new approaches to DFV policing. Our survey finds that Australian police support some aspects of this approach to policing DFV, such as multidisciplinary stations (74%). There was significantly less support for stations staffed predominantly by women (19%). Combined with review of evaluations of Australian co-locational responses, research implications for practice suggest a broader trial of co-locational responses in Australia.

Embedding a domestic violence specialist in a police station: Police perspectives and engagement

“…Our evaluation examined how the co-location of the worker at the police station: provided client support and referral between DVAC and QPS; provided case consultation for police and improved their understanding of referral pathways; and undertook risk management and an integrated approach for high-risk cases. The broader study included perspectives of clients and DVAC workers, as well as police (Rodgers et al 2022b(Rodgers et al , 2022c. In this article we focus on police perspectives obtained using a range of measures (Table 1).…”

“…Police recognise that they cannot respond to DFV independently, and they understand the importance of partnering with external organisations (Mundy and Seuffert, 2021;Queensland Police Service, 2021b;The Police Association of Victoria, 2015). In Rodgers et al (2022a), 74% of police surveyed across Australia endorsed a co-located DFV response that involved multidisciplinary teams. Because 'meeting women's basic needs may be a necessary precursor to fostering an effective criminal justice response' (Allen et al, 2004(Allen et al, : 1031, well-integrated multidisciplinary work is critical (Chung et al, 2018;Fine et al, 2000).…”