Public Violence Overshadows Domestic Violence

Ms McAlear said she was also disillusioned with the NSW Police Service after their boss, Commissioner Peter Ryan suggested that domestic violence was not a real crime. ``In some parts of the State do you know that we spend 60 per cent of our time doing nothing else but going to domestic disputes between neighbours and families, 60 percent. Instead of crime fighting we're there resolving conflicts,' Mr Ryan told Alan Jones of radio station 2UE late last year. ``We're a Family Court. Instead of fighting crime we are solving other people's personal problems.'

In 1999, the NSW Ombudsman's office received 300 complaints about the way in which domestic violence matters were handled by police. In one case, a woman was told to come back the next day because it would take up to two hours to file a complaint. Another was told no action could be taken because she didn't have any bruises. Another, assaulted by her partner on a main street was asked if she was Aboriginal. When she replied yes, the officer told her to `waddle up to the police station when she was ready.'

``What is real crime?' Ms McAlear said. She argues her point, when she trains health workers, setting up workshops on the atrocities of war and oppression. Participants brainstorm the behavioural tools used by the instigators of Aparteid. Torture, rape, religious persecution, isolation, beatings, threats and enforced poverty all appear on the list. In the next session workers are asked to list the tools of domestic violence - the list is a mirror image. ``There are definite behaviours associated with oppression and definite behaviours with domestic violence. When you template the two they are the same,' she said.

But, convincing people that behavioural patterns of violence in the home is the same as violence on the streets is a difficult issue. ``Change has to come from the grassroots. There has to be community outrage. Perpetrators have to be dealt with by a just system.'

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