Criminology Research Council grant ; (29/94-5)
The purpose of this study was to address a number of questions that cannot be currently addressed by examining criminal justice data bases. These questions concern the contact that people involved in domestic violence protection orders (both aggrieved and respondents) have with the criminal justice system. The study was able to identify information about people involved in cross applications (applications which are made by a person who is a respondent in a previous application), males involved in applications for orders, contact both the aggrieved and respondents have with the police in relation to a non-offending matter and offending histories for both respondents and aggrieved.
The study selected a sample of people who were involved in a protection order application in one of four Queensland courts in January 1996. This generated a sample of 1204 people, 602 aggrieved and 602 respondents. These individuals were searched through the court data base for any other protection order applications that they had been involved in either as a respondent or aggrieved. Crime and offending history information on these individuals was then gathered from two police data bases. From this information a statistical profile of the individual's contact with the criminal justice system was developed.
Results are presented concerning the socio-demographics of the sample, the process and outcome of protection order applications, the number and nature of contact these people have with the police and the nature of their criminal histories. The results indicated that as a group of individuals people involved in protection order applications had high levels of contact with both the court system and the police. Since the implementation of the Domestic Violence (Family Protection) Act 1989 (Qld) a third of the sample had been involved in more than one application for a protection order and these applications had generated over 2000 appearances in the Magistrate's Courts. Furthermore, over two-thirds of the sample had contact with the police either as an offender or a complainant. When contact with the police was examined by the gender of the individual, whether or not the person was an aggrieved respondent or involved in a cross application it was found that 65% of male respondents had a criminal history and 25% of female aggrieved had a criminal history. Female aggrieved was more likely to come into contact with the police as complainants rather than as offenders. As a group people involved in cross applications had the highest level of contact with the police.
The data collection generated a unique database which could be interrogated to answer a number of questions concerning protection orders that have not previously been addressed. The implications of the methodology and the results for integrated criminal justice data bases are discussed in the report along with a number of recommendations for future research. A number of suggestions for future research were generated in the report, some of which have been addressed in a recent paper by Anna Stewart. This paper has been submitted for publication in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology entitled "Statistical profiles of individuals involved in single and multiple applications for domestic violence protection orders".