Vic courts tougher on family violence

OFFENDERS violating family violence orders are facing harsher punishment in Victorian courts, a report says.

The report by Victoria's Sentencing Advisory Council has found a move away from punishing offenders with fines and an increased use of prison sentences, particularly for repeat offenders.

The report, which looks at the punishment handed to people who breach family violence intervention orders between 2009-2010 and 2011-2012, found that the use of fines had declined by 30.5 per cent.

For repeat offenders the use of fines almost halved and as a result custodial sentences increased to become the most common sentences imposed.

Sentencing Advisory Council chair Professor Arie Freiberg welcomed the move by courts away from fines for dealing with family violence.

"We (have) said they were not particularly effective in terms of behaviour change and we were concerned that fines tended to undervalue the severity of the offences," he said.

He credits a marked cultural shift in attitudes towards family violence by police and in the courts.

He said this cultural change had led to more people reporting family violence to police, which could be behind the statistic that showed the reporting of those incidents had increased by 72.8 per cent since 2004-2005.

"What that shows is that police are no longer saying 'it's only domestic'," he said.

"They are saying 'we're going to take action' and that's a really dramatic change."

These developments are heartening, but Prof Freiberg said the ultimate aim - reducing family violence - was much more difficult to measure.

"The ultimate aim is to reduce family violence, not to increase sentencing, so when you say effectiveness the jury's still out."

Detective Superintendent Rob Jouning of the sexual and family violence directorate agrees and suggests changing offender attitudes is the next challenge for police and the public.

"To me it's going to have more impact if the person before he does something actually thinks 'oh hang on if I do that my mates are going to think I'm an idiot'," he said.

"If they know what they are going to do is wrong amongst their mates that's probably going to have more of an impact than worrying what sentence they are going to get."

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