Victim safety under review

Photo / Thinkstock

An official committee is calling for tighter controls to stop violent offenders going home and killing their partners or children after coming out of jail.

The new Family Violence Death Review Committee, which has conducted pilot reviews of three family homicides to test plans to review all such deaths in future, says the three cases have shown the importance of a systemic focus on victim safety when offenders with a history of family violence are released.

A Corrections Department spokesman confirmed that the department was reviewing its procedures.

Last week the Parole Board refused to release former Air Force sergeant Warwick Keith Bennett, who was convicted of killing his first wife in 1982, on the grounds that he posed a risk to his second wife.

The committee, chaired by Auckland University associate professor Julia Tolmie, found that 186 people died from family violence between 2002 and 2008, an average of 27 people a year. There were 42 family violence deaths in 2009, almost half of the 88 homicides in that year.

Most killers were male. Most of the couple-related victims (76 per cent) were women.

Maori were over-represented among killers (34 per cent) and victims (39 per cent), compared with their share of the population (15 per cent). The most common factors in the couple-related deaths were threatened or recent separation, previous violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and jealousy.

Ms Tolmie said the concern about offenders going home after coming out of jail was a "very preliminary" finding after the first three in-depth reviews.

"The process we are employing is a no-blame process."

This year's business plan for the Corrections Department's rehabilitation and reintegrative services already promises to "review domestic violence interventions to confirm that they reduce reoffending" and to "review reintegrative planning for high-risk offenders".

The review committee said the three pilot reviews also pointed to a need to make screening for family violence "a routine part of maternity care". Nineteen of the 49 children who died from family violence between 2002 and 2008 were under 1.

The committee said police also needed to "continue to address the quality and amount of family violence training offered to new recruits and existing officers" so they could identify risks when called to domestic disputes.

Ms Tolmie said the ethnic imbalance in the statistics pointed to "major structural concerns" in society.

OFFENDERS
Family violence perpetrators, 2002-2008

Couple-related victims
Men 86 per cent
Women 14 per cent

Child victims
Men 60 per cent
Women 40 per cent

All perpetrators
Maori 34 per cent
European 30 per cent
Asian 11 per cent
Pacific 8 per cent
Other 2 per cent
Unknown 15 per cent