Who uses domestic, family, and sexual violence, how, and why?

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This report has been produced in response to the limited data and knowledge available on the perpetration of domestic, family, and sexual violence. The absence of robust and consistent information on perpetration limits our ability to effectively prevent and reduce this violence.

The report’s implications
Data collection on domestic, family, and sexual violence should include deliberate attention to perpetration – to the prevalence and character of violence perpetration, including its gendered and intersectional dynamics. Little is known about violence perpetration in Australia. National, population-based data on perpetration are a vital tool for violence prevention and reduction. Without consistent, comparable, and regularly captured data on perpetration, we are unable to be guided by evidence, to target interventions effectively to prevent and reduce perpetration, or to benchmark and measure the efficacy of our efforts.

Gathering data on the perpetration of domestic, family, and sexual violence is feasible. There is growing experience and expertise in how to collect robust and valid data on people’s use of violence, including through largescale self-report surveys.

We need more and better data not only on the extent of violence perpetration in Australia, but on the perpetration’s dynamics and drivers. This includes research on the factors that intensify the risks of perpetration or protect against it, perpetration among different populations and settings, and people’s pathways both into and out of perpetration.

Significant proportions of the population have perpetrated domestic, family, or sexual violence. Looking at intimate partner violence, given that about 1.6 million women (17%) and 548,000 men (6.1%) in Australia have experienced physical or sexual violence from a current or previous cohabiting partner since the age of 15,1 then in turn, large numbers of people are the perpetrators of this violence. Looking at sexual violence, studies in countries similar to Australia find that anywhere from one fifth to one quarter of young men have perpetrated sexual violence. Most perpetration happens without ever coming to the attention of police or legal systems.

Police and legal system responses must be safe for all victim-survivors, and there must be accountability for perpetrators. However, the focus and investment of efforts to reduce and prevent perpetration, hold perpetrators accountable, and provide justice for victimsurvivors must fall outside these systems to have lasting effects.

Domestic, family, and sexual violence have their roots in factors at multiple levels of society, including social and gender inequalities, social norms and the character of settings such as neighbourhoods, workplaces, and informal social networks. 

Individuals use violence because, for example, they have learnt that behaving in coercive or abusive ways is normal or acceptable; they believe that such behaviour is expected in their social circles and settings; they have become invested in domination, control, and entitlement over their intimate partners or others; they have experienced violence themselves as children with impacts on their emotional and social development and attitudes; they have grown up in communities and contexts that normalise their use of coercion and abuse as part of sexuality or relationships; they are enabled by wider gender inequalities and other social inequalities; and/or, they expect to face few, if any, negative consequences for their actions.