Why some people are more likely to experience violent behaviour

ABS analysis of 2016 personal safety survey data found women living with disability were more likely to have experienced physical violence, partner violence, emotional abuse, sexual harassment and stalking over a 12-month period.

"The greatest disparity in risk was found for partner violence, with results showing that women living with disability were nearly twice as likely as women without disability to have experienced violence by a partner over a 12-month period (2.5 per cent compared with 1.3 per cent)," ABS Director of the National Centre for Crime and Justice Statistics, Will Milne, said.

The analysis also found the risk of violence was higher among people with disability for those aged between 18 and 24 years, while having an intellectual/psychological disability increased the vulnerability of violence for both men and women.

"Women with an intellectual/psychological disability were nearly three times more likely than women with a physical disability to experience violence (15 per cent compared with 5.2 per cent).

"For men the figure was over double (12 percent compared with 5.8 per cent)," Mr Milne said.

Further, while three in four (74 per cent) of women with a disability experienced anxiety or fear for their personal safety following their most recent incident of physical assault by a male, fewer than one in three reported the incident to police.

Accessing support

But experts agree that records of women living with disability and experiencing violence, whether from support services or police, are much lower than the reality.

Often, administration systems do not capture disability or the type of disability, though this is changing.

Principal Strategic Adviser for the Central Highlands Integrated Family Violence Committee, Dr Jess Cadwallader, has been working in this space for many years and is passionate about improving accessibility to support for victim-survivors.

She said there were many reasons why the data about people with disability experiencing violence showed such low numbers.

There are many reasons why people might avoid identifying their disability.

"That really has to do with whether services are fully factoring in what women with disability need and whether they are a safe space for them to go to."

Aside from choosing not to disclose their disability, many people have not been diagnosed before disclosing their experience.

According to a study completed by Brain Injury Australia in 2018, 40 percent of victim-survivors who attended Victorian hospitals over a 10-year period were found to have an acquired brain injury.

"That's not necessarily something that they know at the time because it may be acquired through the family violence they've been experiencing," Dr Cadwallader explained.

Violence against people with disability can be perpetrated in private households as well as group homes, where there is the same level of inescapability seen in a family setting, as well as by support workers.

Dr Cadwallader said family violence often looked different to when it is perpetrated against people without disability - such as withholding medication or the need to move a person into a wheelchair so they are mobile.

She said the difference between reports of physical, psychological and intellectual disability could be due to people being reluctant to come forward due to a fear their disability would mean they would not be believed by either family members, support workers or police.

Perpetrators know this and it is something they take advantage of, Dr Cadwallader said, adding this made them more vulnerable to violence.

The issue is present in Ballarat, where there is a significant number of people living with disabilities.

"Often people do tend to underestimate violence against people with disability, both in terms of how often it happens and its impact. That is part of a larger issue around justice for people with disability."

In recent years questions have been raised about how disability services recognise the signs and if they know how to facilitate access to support services for the victim-survivor.

A Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability is currently being conducted.

While there are advocates for people with disability in the Central Highlands who can facilitate access to services, it is a small program.

Dr Cadwallader said all services needed to cater to people with disabilities to ensure they were safe.

Noting that increasing third party reporting was important, she said there were key opportunities being missed.

This includes the state government's Family Violence Multi-Agency Risk Assessment and Management (MARAM) Framework, which stipulates the responsibilities of workforces in identifying, assessing and managing family violence risk across the service system to enable coordinated practice.

But disability services have not been included, meaning they will not be offered the training and tools.

"I'd be keen to see disability services come on board in Victoria to close the loop in that space," Dr Cadwallader said.

"Disability support workers aren't trained in family violence but if they know who to call about something that doesn't seem right or to facilitate a person with disability engaging with a service, it could be really valuable."

But supporting people with disability to report themselves is also vital, she said.

"It is important to recognise the agency of all victim survivors, including those with disability, because often they've had that agency taken away from them and part of their healing is to have people supporting them to do the things they want to do rather than having them done for them," Dr Cadwallader said.

Dr Cadwallader said the disability and family violence sectors needed to work more closely together to address violence against people with disability.

"I think there is a bit of neglect of this particular intersection and we do need to be building the capacity of both service systems to be providing a response to family violence against people with disability," Dr Cadwallader said, adding that police engagement in the space could also be improved.

What's happening in Ballarat?

Dr Cadwallader said family violence services were committed to increasing their accessibility to women with disability. WRISC has developed a family violence disability action plan and a working group for its implementation, while the Orange Door is working on capturing data around disability, including on entry forms.

It is also equipped with trained counsellors who can manage and support victim-survivors living with disabilities.

CHIFVC is working to build the confidence of services in responding to people with disability and ensuring that services have ideas about how to become accessible to people with disability - whether physically, to ensure they can access a building, or that they understand the process.

"I don't think we will ever see the data fully reflect the rates of violence against women with disability until it's really safe for them to disclose that they have disability," she said.

A disability forum is being planned by CHIFVC and the care and family services alliance in recognition that this is a subject which requires collaboration.

"The rates of violence are awfully alarming and the fact that police aren't seeing reports comes through demonstrates that we need to make sure our services are places people with disability can come and get the support that everyone else gets access to."

Police perspective

Victoria Police's Central Highlands Family Violence Investigation Unit (CHFVIU) triages family violence incidents with a risk rating, including if either party is from a priority community. Intellectual disability is one of these and means the risk associated with the case is raised, as is the support.

Detective Senior Sergeant Tony Coxall said this does not mean the level of violence increases but that the options for reporting and understanding family violence intervention orders may require further explanation.

He noted the ABS statistics were from 2016, at a time when the family violence response was very different to what is provided today by both police and support services.

While unable to source more up-to-date statistics, anecdotally he noted that the majority of family violence inflicted on people with intellectual disabilities was at the hands of carers and could involve violence, neglect, financial abuse, power and control.

"It is still fair to say that I would expect under-reporting of [family violence] incidents involving persons with intellectual disability," he said.

In regards to seeing more police reports being made, he noted that third party reporting by family members "who feel something is amiss" should make a report via Crime Stoppers.

Reports of family violence are then allocated to a detective or specialist investigator to follow-up.

"Throughout COVID-19 restrictions the Ballarat area saw ongoing increases of third party family violence reporting, which was promising," he said.

"If a neighbour or member of the community feels something is amiss then a report via Crime Stoppers can be made anonymously if necessary by phone or online."

If you or anyone you know is in need of support call the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or Lifeline 131 114.