“Risk and abolition: perspectives of front-line domestic violence workers supporting refugee and migrant women on safety and policing”

ABSTRACT

Anti-violence advocates continue to criminalise new gender-based violence offences, despite the evidence of unintended consequences for marginalised groups. Using an intersectional framework of risk, this article aims to understand what drives front-line domestic and family violence workers to engage the law for the protection of the women they support. The data draws from a study examining responses in domestic violence policy and service interventions to refugees in Southeast Queensland, Australia. Thirty-one interviews were conducted with front-line workers supporting refugee women experiencing domestic violence. Two-thirds of the interview participants are from refugee and migrant backgrounds themselves. Interview data analysis shows a combination of governing and managing actuarial risk across three themes: 1) Why a preference for the law? 2) Autonomy or discourses of responsibility? and 3) The mutual constitution of risk and inequalities. Highlighting the differences between those who address domestic and family violence on the front-line, the findings reveal that front-line workers are both constrained by and contribute to various assemblages of risk in the carceral nation state. I suggest key steps towards engaging front-line workers in an abolitionist agenda that centre on knowledge translation and research partnerships.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender-based violence
• abolition
• risk
• carceral feminism
• refugees and migrants
• front-line workers

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my PhD supervisors Dr Jenny Munro and Professor Greg Marston for their direction on theory and feedback that informed ealier iterations of this article. Many thanks go to the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful suggestions that informed and improved the current article. I would also like to thank the participants of this research for their generous time and valuable insights, without which papers such as these would not be possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Professions in front-line organisations might include social work, counselling, psychology and community development.

2. While processes differ by state, the protection order system in Australia has options of both civil and criminal legal proceedings; both can be initiated by either the victim or by police. Australia does not have ‘mandatory arrest’ policies, however police do have powers to take out DVPO’s on the behalf of victims.

3. The HRT was implemented in 2019, and therefore not in operation when most of the interviews were conducted.

4. I focus largely on the DVPO system as this is what arose in the interviews. This focus is possibly due to the crisis-oriented nature of front-line DFV work – workers are often aware of initial interventions by police but might not see processes through to criminal law proceedings.

5. Many workers said that police do not remove police initiated DVPO’s, despite legislation allowing them to. This might be reflective of the particular geographic location of the interviews and the organizations that took part. However, this was also my experience working as a DFV support worker in two different DFV specialist courts in Brisbane in 2019. It was well known amongst lawyers, court staff and support workers that police would not remove DVPO’s, despite women’s wishes or potential harms.

6. ‘Cross orders’ refer to when both parties in a DFV incident take out a protection order. Police can also take out cross orders on both parties when they are unable to discern who is the victim and who is the perpetrator.

7. Legal Aid uses a process called ‘means testing’ to define eligibility, based on income and assets. The threshold is quite low, and varies depending on a number of factors, such as number of children. Women might own a house or business (sometimes with the perpetrator) but still be experiencing financial difficulties, and cannot afford a private lawyer.

8. Breaches of a DVPO can result in criminal charges, bringing other consequences such as immigration detention/deportation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a University of Queensland Research Training Program grant.