Five people died in suspected domestic violence attacks across New South Wales this month, including three women and a child killed in just 24 hours last weekend. Police said none of the alleged offenders were known to them. By Thursday, a one-year-old stabbed in the Blue Mountains had died in hospital, bringing the week's toll to five lives lost to a system struggling to identify threats before they turn fatal.
The pattern reveals a devastating gap in protections. Macquarie University criminologist and former police detective Vince Hurley estimates that 75 per cent or more of domestic violence offenders aren't known to police. "This notion that police always know who the offender is, is a bit of a misconception," he said. Information may be recorded by other agencies—hospitals, GPs, mental health services—but privacy regulations prevent sharing it with law enforcement. "It's impossible to police what you don't know," Hurley said.
The Scale of the Problem
More than 38,800 domestic violence-related assaults occurred in the 12 months to June, according to Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research results released three months ago. That's a 3.4 per cent increase over the past decade. Since 2000, Domestic Violence Death Review Team data shows 351 women, 230 men and 137 children have been killed in domestic violence-related homicides in NSW. This year alone, 52 women have been killed, according to Domestic Violence NSW CEO Delia Donovan.
A 2024 report from the NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team, tabled in parliament two years ago, found two in three women killed were killed by an ex-partner or at the point of separating. Three-quarters of the men who killed a female partner had used three or more different types of domestic violence during the relationship—behaviour that's often controlling rather than physical.
Where Early Intervention Fails
Just 3.6 per cent of national domestic violence funding goes to early intervention, according to Chris Lacey, general manager of No to Violence, the national peak body. The system focuses heavily on helping victim survivors but doesn't invest in engaging men earlier. "When someone at a hospital has a man present and they can identify that this man is at risk of committing or being violent, that there is a referral pathway directly from there for that man to get to tap in to services," Lacey said. Those services are very hard to find and very hard to get into. "We need to be filling that massive gap."
Hurley identified three key underlying issues in hundreds of cases he's reviewed: alcohol, drugs and mental health. Untreated mental health conditions can contribute to offending, but services remain out of reach for most people. "Most people who are wealthy might be able to afford to make a psychologist appointment and pay $300 an hour," he said. "But for the bulk of the population, particularly in low socio-economic demographics, that is just not an option to them."
NSW Mental Health Minister Rose Jackson cautioned against conflating antisocial behaviour with mental ill health. "Failing to do so may inadvertently diminish the personal responsibility of those who perpetrate violence. It also risks unfairly stigmatising people living with genuine mental ill health," she said.
New Laws, Limited Impact
Coercive control became a criminal offence in NSW in July 2024. Since then, police have recorded 682 incidents and laid 42 charges, according to the latest data. Nearly half the victims—47 per cent—had a prior history of domestic violence recorded by police, and 31 per cent had previously experienced domestic violence involving the same alleged offender.
Lacey said early warning signs of escalating behaviours can emerge during visits to a GP, hospital or other services. "There are signs around drinking heavily, or going through a major life event, which can put more pressures on them," he said. "That is generally a critical opportunity to identify the risk that exists and try to intervene before it escalates." He said men who recognised those patterns in themselves could act on them. "It's up to us as men to seek that help when we feel we need it, that is really important."
Hurley said families are often the first to notice something's wrong, but noticing isn't the same as being able to fix it. "It's OK for members of the family to look at the nuanced behaviour of members having a mental health episode, but that isn't easily equated into solving the problem," he said.
A Whole-of-Society Failure
Donovan said getting various government departments talking to each other is a key part of the solution. "We need to make sure anyone responding to anyone impacted by domestic violence … really understands the nuance of domestic and family violence and it has to sit within every organisation's work plan," she said. This includes sporting codes, schools, corporate businesses and early childhood centres. "We still don't have a society that really understands domestic and family violence, and we still have a society that victim-blames," she said. "Until we can all look inwardly, government top-down, all the way through to community, we won't change this."
Donovan said that without proper resourcing, "we're not going to touch the sides of it."
Why This Matters:
Five deaths in one week expose the limits of a system that can only respond to offenders already known to police—while three-quarters of perpetrators remain invisible until violence erupts. The funding gap is stark: just 3.6 per cent of domestic violence resources go to early intervention, leaving hospitals, GPs and mental health services unable to refer at-risk men to desperately needed programs. For low-income communities, where a $300 psychologist appointment is impossible, untreated mental health issues and substance abuse can escalate unchecked. Two in three women killed are murdered by ex-partners or during separation, yet coercive control laws introduced two years ago have resulted in only 42 charges despite 682 recorded incidents. Without coordinated information-sharing across government agencies, investment in accessible mental health care, and a properly resourced early intervention system, the pattern will continue: women and children bearing the cost of a society that waits for violence instead of preventing it.