Domestic violence advocate says police operation relieves burden on victims

Women Illawarra general manager Michelle Glasgow said policing activities like Operation Amarok III taught domestic violence perpetrators that apprehended domestic violence orders were court orders and could be enforced by the police, not just their victims.

Ms Glasgow said this also alleviated the pressure on victims, who often bore the burden of bringing breaches of these orders to the attention of police.

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"There's a lot of burden on victims not just to report breaches of the AVO, but provide evidence of the breaches," Ms Glasgow said.

Operation Amarok III, which took place last week from July 12 to 15, saw police speak to more than 1000 potential dangerous domestic violence offenders in NSW and conduct over 4000 ADVO checks, resulting in 592 arrests and 1107 charges.

Meanwhile, in the eight days to Saturday, July 15, five women in Australia were killed in alleged domestic violence attacks.

While police operations targeting offenders were helpful, Ms Glasgow said victims needed to know that they would be met with a consistent and trauma-informed response when they reporting incidents of domestic violence.

She said the experience victims had when reporting these crimes were varied: there were sometimes lengthy waits in the police station, an "intimidating and distressing" experience, while some people had to report incidents several times before getting a response.

"There's definitely needs to be more resources and more specially trained domestic violence police who can respond to this particular and quite nuanced crime," she said.

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She named the pilot program that puts a specialist worker in police stations to support domestic violence victims as an example.

A multi-faceted response was needed, Ms Glasgow said, adding that increased visibility of the police response to domestic violence offenders was another factor.

She said police worked hard to address domestic violence but the issue was not taken as seriously by the courts as it could be.

Victims who find it difficult to report to police can access support through such organisations as Women Illawarra and the Illawarra Women's Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service, and the Illawarra Women's Health Centre.

Ms Glasgow said it was important for victims to know that there were still pathways out of domestic violence beyond police and the courts.

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