Message from Chief Commissioner Shane Patton

Safe from Harm continues to implement the vision of Keeping You Safe and sets out our direction to consistently deliver high quality responses to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse within a sector-wide approach.

Victoria Police is committed to delivering best practice responses to family violence, sexual offences, and child abuse, and we have continuously evolved and grown our capability over the past 20 years.

Since the launch of our last strategy in 2018, there have been sector-wide efforts to address this offending, resulting in significant changes across legislation, training, technology, policy, and practice that have shaped and improved our frontline and specialist responses.

This strategy builds on our progress and continues to uplift our practice and partnership approach in responding to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse so that all victim survivors who seek our help feel seen, heard, and safe.

Victoria Police’s core role is to protect victim survivors from harm by putting in place safety mechanisms, investigating crime and apprehending offenders. This strategy confirms our commitment to hold perpetrators to account.

Victoria Police sees first-hand the scale of harm experienced by children and young people as a result of these crimes.

This strategy supports our workforce by enhancing their capability to keep our most vulnerable victim survivors safe.

We acknowledge our people and the work they do every day to respond to family violence, sexual offences, and child abuse.

Victoria Police will maintain a strong focus through this strategy and continue to build, train, and equip our people to work professionally and competently in their response to these crime themes.

As Chief Commissioner I am proud to affirm Victoria Police’s strong commitment to addressing family violence, sexual offences and child abuse as per our previous strategies and strong reform agenda, and to lead our organisation through the next phase of reform.

Shane Patton APM
Chief Commissioner

Victoria Police is at the frontline of responding to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.

We play a critical role in increasing the safety of victim survivors and holding perpetrators to account.

We are committed to serving the Victorian community by consistently delivering high-quality responses to all victim survivors.

Victoria Police is not doing this work alone. Safe from Harm is aligned to key national, Victorian and Victoria Police policy frameworks and we are working closely with our government and sector partners in an effort to prevent and reduce these crimes across our communities, state and country.

National, Victorian and Victoria Police policy frameworks

National

• The National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children 2022–2032
• National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse 2021–2030.

Victoria

• Ending Family Violence: Victoria’s Plan for Change
• Strong foundations: Building on Victoria’s work to end family violence
• Dhelk Dja: Safe Our Way.

Victoria Police

• Keeping You Safe: Victoria Police Strategy 2023–2028
• Equal, Safe and Strong: Victoria Police Gender Equality Strategy 2020–2030.

A new focus on outcomes

Over many years of sustained effort through structures, training, policy and programs, we have transformed how Victoria Police understands and responds to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.

Building on this foundation, our next set of reforms will be guided by a stronger focus on the outcomes generated by our efforts and the impact we have on the community.

Safe from Harm is underpinned by a new Victoria Police Family Violence, Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Outcomes Framework (Outcomes Framework). The Outcomes Framework establishes a structured and evidence-based approach to continuous improvement that will allow us to measure the quality of our responses. Safe from Harm sets out our five-year plan to progress the goals and outcomes established in our Outcomes Framework.

What do we know about the current state of family violence, sexual offences and child abuse?

Family violence, sexual offences and child abuse are prevalent in the Victorian community.

One in four women and one in 17 men in Australia have experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner since the age of 15.¹

One in five women and one in 16 men in Australia having experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.²

Sexual offending also impacts children, with 11% of Australian women and 3.6% of men having experienced childhood sexual abuse. Most of these victim survivors experienced more than one incident.³

Family violence, sexual offences and child abuse are gendered crimes because they disproportionately impact women and girls. Gendered violence occurs in a context of gender inequality and is driven by deeply held attitudes, beliefs and gender stereotypes. Stalking is also a gendered crime, with the perpetrator most often a male known to a female victim survivor.

In 2023, Victoria Police responded to 94,170 family violence incidents; this is one incident around every six minutes. Family violence incidents have increased 38% over the past ten years.

In 2023, police also recorded 14,446 sexual offences. These crimes are most often perpetrated by someone known to the victim survivor.

In this time, police also recorded 6,082 victim reports of physical assaults and 3,631 victim reports of sexual offending against children and young people (aged 17 years or under).

^{1 Personal Safety, Australia, 2021–22 financial year, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2023, Canberra, Australia}

^{2 Personal Safety, Australia, 2021–22 financial year, ABS 2023, Canberra, Australia}

^{3 Personal Safety, Australia, 2021–22 financial year, ABS 2023, Canberra, Australia.}

We have built upon lessons learned from the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence and the national Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse alongside other significant reviews and inquiries. This has included the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s reports into Stalking and Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences.

The timeline at the end of this Strategy outlines significant Victoria Police reform initiatives in family violence, sexual offences and child abuse since the Royal Commission into Family Violence in 2016. Each reform has provided opportunities to improve frontline and specialist police responses.

Victoria Police now has in place an extensive network of generalist and specialist functions that respond to these crimes.

Frontline police are often the first responders to incidents, playing a critical role in managing risks to safety, supporting victim survivors and investigating offences. Our police lawyers and prosecutors are responsible for prosecuting intervention order applications and criminal offences. These critical roles are complemented by a range of specialist teams and roles across Victoria Police.

An overview of some of these specialist functions is also outlined at the end of this Strategy.

How are we going to get there?

Safe from Harm reflects our commitment to:

The initiatives that we will progress under Safe from Harm are aligned to these core pillars across four domains:

1. Victim survivors
2. Perpetrators
3. Children and young people
4. Our people.

The specific actions we undertake will be driven by our Outcomes Framework, a best practice approach that directs our efforts towards improving outcomes in the short, medium and long term.

We will undertake yearly planning to map our activities and initiatives, ensuring we are progressing the right actions to work towards our goal. These actions will be driven by emerging evidence, insights and community need.

The flagship initiatives outlined under each domain provides a snapshot of some of the actions we are committed to progressing under Safe from Harm.

Domains

1. Victim survivors
2. Perpetrators
3. Children and young people
4. Our people.

Outcomes

Short-term

• Greater community trust in the quality of police responses to these themes
• Victim survivors from priority communities have increased trust in police
• Police consistently operationalise improved processes and procedures
• Police responses are enhanced through improved collaboration
• Leaders value and consistently demonstrate support for the effective policing of these themes
• Capability to respond to these crimes is strengthened across the organisation
• Enhanced capacity to provide a quality response.

Medium-term

• Reporting rates of family violence, sexual offences and child abuse better reflect prevalence rates
• Police responses are informed by evidence, innovation, and trauma-aware policing approaches
• Police are better equipped to identify and respond to risks to children
• Sector-wide systems and processes enable an integrated response
• Leaders prioritise and resource high quality responses to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.

Long-term

Victim survivors

All victims survivors feel confident in the police response to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.

Perpetrators

Perpetrators are consistently held to account through effective prevention, detection and disruption.

Children and young people

Police provide a consistent and effective response to child safety within a sector-wide approach.

Our people

All police have the capacity and capability to effectively respond to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.

Outcome

With a strong reputation for providing a trauma-aware response, victim survivors will trust that when they report family violence, sexual offences or child abuse to Victoria Police, they will be heard and supported.

Our approach will be strengthened by collaborating with our sector partners, victim survivors and advocates from priority communities.

We will continue to work with all victim survivors and those that are particularly vulnerable, including children and young people, Aboriginal people, people from LGBTIQA+ communities, people from multicultural and multifaith communities, seniors, and people with disability or living with mental illness.

Achieved through

We will achieve this outcome as we:

Implement reforms to our family violence, sexual offence and child abuse policies and procedures

Victoria Police will be at the forefront of innovation and continuous improvement to best serve the Victorian community.

Tailor partnerships with priority communities

Victoria Police will earn the trust of our diverse communities by building cultural understanding and capability in our response to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse. We acknowledge that under reporting can occur in diverse communities and will continue to focus on building confidence to report.

Develop a strategic framework for stakeholder partnerships

Victoria Police will continue to work in partnership across government, services and communities, recognising our unique roles and common purpose in delivering safety for victim survivors and holding perpetrators to account.

Initiatives

Flagship initiatives under this domain:

Partner to improve responses to victim survivors from priority communities

We will build clear pathways for people with lived experience and advocates to inform our responses to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.

Engagement with priority communities, as well as victim survivor feedback, will provide a deeper understanding of the quality of our responses and highlight areas for improvement.

We will continue to collaborate in the Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum and Police and Aboriginal Community Protocols Against Family Violence groups to learn from our Aboriginal communities.

Engagement in representative advisory groups, consultation with sector partners, lived experience and community expertise will drive our response models, policies, practice and training.

Strengthen police identification of the predominant aggressor

Victoria Police will continue to deliver our program of work to reduce and rectify misidentification of the predominant aggressor in family violence cases.

This includes developing further guidance to support our police to accurately identify the predominant aggressor, strengthening how we work with other agencies when misidentification is raised, and establishing and clarifying rectification actions when misidentification is determined.

We will also review our platforms for opportunities to address misidentification in our records and implement training to improve police understanding.

Outcome

Victoria Police will consistently and proactively identify and disrupt perpetrators to ensure the safety of victim survivors and the Victorian community.

We will continue to enhance approaches to resourcing and capability development across all levels of the organisation to ensure our police can effectively manage risk and hold perpetrators to account.

Achieved through

We will achieve this outcome as we:

Enhance risk identification and management of perpetrators

Victoria Police will rely on validated, evidence-based tools to identify perpetrator risk and develop tailored approaches to prevent and disrupt offending.

Initiatives

Enhance targeting of perpetrators of child sexual exploitation

We will continue to keep Victoria’s most vulnerable children and young people safe through a stronger focus on child sexual exploitation (CSE).

We will achieve this through a whole-of-organisation approach to the disruption of CSE perpetrators.

We will increase our intelligence regarding perpetrators through improved record holdings and new pathways for intelligence sharing with our partners. This will put Victoria Police in a stronger position to identify persons of interest who present the greatest risk of CSE and to integrate their management within divisional resource planning and prioritisation. This will enable police across different areas to maximise opportunities to target perpetrators and to ensure that all our interactions with vulnerable children and young people increase our ability to keep them safe.

Improve identification and management of high-risk family violence perpetrators

We will ensure we keep continued focus on the most serious, complex and high-risk family violence perpetrators through enhancing our Case Prioritisation and Response Model.

Using this model to assess the potential for reoffending and escalation of risk, our Family Violence Investigation Units (FVIUs) identify and prioritise the highest risk cases and tailor risk management approaches to prevent serious harm.

Strengthen our approach to stalking cases

We will continue work to improve how we identify and respond to cases of stalking.

Through evaluation of our Stalking Pilot, we will identify learnings and explore opportunities to build the capability of our workforce to detect and disrupt stalking perpetrators.

Outcome

The safety of children and young people will be at the forefront of all Victoria Police responses to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.

Risks to children and young people will be actively and consistently identified and managed.

We will continue to work with our sector partners to strengthen system-wide approaches to victim survivors who are children and young people, as well as children and young people who use violence.

While children and young people are considered in everything we do, the initiatives under this domain reflect our understanding of the need for a dedicated focus in this area.

Achieved through

We will achieve this outcome as we:

Strengthen identification, management and support of children at risk

Victoria Police will continue to build our understanding of the unique experiences and specific needs of victim survivors of family violence, sexual offences and child abuse who are children and young people, including those who witness or live with violence. This will include improving our identification, response, support and prevention models.

We recognise that the term ‘child’ encompasses multiple age ranges (infant, toddler, child, young person) and understand that experiences may present differently within these stages of childhood.

Initiatives

Flagship initiatives under this domain:

Enhance our child abuse response model

We will build on our existing approach to responding to child abuse by further refining how we prioritise and respond to reports.

We will also strengthen our partnership with Child Protection through improved information sharing. This will support our ability to allocate investigations to people with the right skills and improve the quality of our joint investigations.

Strengthen integration of responses across family violence, sexual offences and child abuse

We will recognise and respond to the complex and often inter-related experiences of children and young people exposed to and/or experiencing violence or abuse. This will include strengthening our identification of all forms of child abuse at family violence incidents.

We will also improve our understanding of the complex drivers of children and young people’s use of violence, ensuring we address any co-occurring victimisation.

We will develop shared capability across Sexual Offence and Child Abuse Investigation Teams (SOCITs), FVIUs and the frontline, and maintain a strong collaborative approach through our Multidisciplinary Centres (MDCs) and other sector partnerships.

Outcome

Enabled by strong leadership with a commitment to continuous improvement, we will consistently utilise the levers that support our police to effectively and efficiently provide a high-quality response to victim survivors of these crimes.

Achieved through

We will achieve this outcome as we:

Enhance organisational capability to effectively police family violence, sexual offences and child abuse

We will grow our skills and capability across all levels of the organisation through our strategic workforce planning. This includes visible and responsive policing of employee-related family violence.

We will continue our efforts towards achieving gender equality and increasing diversity within our organisation so our workforce meets community needs and maintains community trust.

Identify and prioritise opportunities for increased efficiency in operational responses

Victoria Police systems and processes for responding to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse will be streamlined and modernised to maximise the quality of our service to victim survivors.

Initiatives

Flagship initiatives under this domain:

Build our capability to provide trauma-aware responses

We will establish a program of work to enable our police to better understand, recognise and respond to trauma in our service to the Victorian community.

Building on 15 years of victim-centric practice through our SOCITs, we will focus on building and equipping other parts of our workforce.

We will support our police so our interactions with the community minimise trauma and re-victimisation.

Streamlining our procedures and processes to improve efficiencies

Building on and complementing our Staff Allocation Model (SAM), we will undertake a comprehensive review of our workforce in FVIUs, SOCITs and targeted family violence support roles, to ensure we effectively direct our resources.

With increased efficiency and consistency, we will strengthen our organisational capacity to respond to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.

Enhance responses to employee-related family violence

In 2021, Victoria Police released the first policy of its kind in Australia aimed at providing our organisation with extensive guidance to respond to and manage family violence involving police employees.

We will build on this foundation, implementing improvements to ensure perpetrators are held to account and victim survivors are supported.

We know that Aboriginal women and children in Victoria are disproportionally impacted by family violence, and that this violence can be perpetrated by men of all cultural backgrounds.⁴

The Victorian Family Violence Protection Act 2008 recognises that, for Aboriginal people, family members include people considered relatives under traditional or social practice.⁵

As signatories to the Dhelk Dja: Safe Our Way agreement, Victoria Police is also committed to working together with Aboriginal communities, Aboriginal services and government to ensure Aboriginal people are stronger, safer, thriving and living free from family violence.⁶

As an organisation we will focus our efforts to support all Aboriginal victim survivors to feel confident in Victoria Police’s response to family violence, sexual offences and child abuse.

Aboriginal communities

We will engage through:

• Yoorook Justice Commission
• Aboriginal Justice Forum
• Dhelk Dja Partnership Forum
• Aboriginal Portfolio Reference Group.

We are committed to:

• Reducing misidentification of Aboriginal women as predominant aggressors and strengthening rectification actions
• Ensuring our tools and processes are culturally-sensitive
• Building our capability to provide trauma-aware responses to Aboriginal people
• Expanding the Police and Aboriginal Community Protocols Against Family Violence sites across Victoria
• Improving responses to Aboriginal children and young people
• Increasing workforce diversity and inclusion
• Listening and learning from Aboriginal victim survivors and advocates
• Embedding Aboriginal Cultural Awareness Training for all Victoria Police employees and refresher training development.
  
  

^{4 Strong foundations: Building on Victoria’s work to end family violence, Department of Fairness, Families and Housing (DFFH), 2023, Melbourne, Australia}

^{5 Family Violence Protection Act (Vic) (2008), State Government of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia}

^{6 Dhelk Dja: Safe Our Way – Strong Culture, Strong Peoples, Strong Families, 2018, Department of Health and Human Services, Melbourne Australia}

The MEL Plan components are:

Monitoring

Outcomes Framework implementation will be monitored through internal reporting to Victoria Police executive and decision-making committees.

Regular reporting on data provides opportunities for learning and strategic planning.

Evaluation

Family Violence Command will evaluate the Outcomes Framework by measuring its implementation:

Effectiveness

To what extent have our outcomes been achieved? Which activities were most successful at delivering these outcomes?

Impact

To what extent have we improved the experiences of victim survivors, including those from priority communities?

Coherence

How has our work in the sector complemented and supported the work of other agencies?

Sustainability

How is resourcing being sustained? What are the gaps, opportunities, and priorities going forward?

Learning

Implementation of the Outcomes Framework is an iterative process, requiring adaptability to new learnings. Impact evaluation measures will be continuously tested and assessed to ensure we are accurately measuring our impact.

Frontline police

Frontline police are the first responders to incidents.

Family violence

• Family Violence Liaison Officers (FVLOs) are supervisors responsible for quality assurance and ensuring a consistent and coordinated police response to family violence. FVLOs are present at 24-hour police stations.
• The Family Violence Command Taskforce is an investigative unit that supports specialist police to manage high-risk family violence, sexual offences and child sexual exploitation cases.
• Family Violence Investigation Units (FVIUs) respond to priority family violence victim survivors and perpetrators, manage high risk cases and provide oversight of frontline investigations. Investigators are supported by intelligence analysts who collect, triage and evaluate intelligence to assist investigations.

Sexual offences and child abuse

• The Sexual Crimes Squad investigates unknown offender rapes and sexual-related crime.
• The Sex Offenders Registry coordinates the registration and reporting process for registrable offenders.
• Sexual Offence and Child Abuse Investigation Teams (SOCITs) are specialist teams that investigate and respond to sexual offences and child abuse by perpetrators known to the victim survivor. The specialist detectives in SOCITs receive dedicated training, with a focus on victim survivor engagement and offender management.

Training and development

• The Centre for Family Violence provide contemporary specialist family violence training and education equipping Victoria Police staff with the knowledge, skills and confidence to deliver high quality responses to family violence.
• Family Violence Training Officers (FVTOs) provide family violence training to police across the state. FVTOs deploy a range of teaching methods, from practical one-on-one advice to formal training sessions.
• Family Violence Command delivers strategic reforms on the policing of family violence, sexual offences and child abuse through policy development, projects, intelligence and engagement.

Prosecutions

• Family Violence Court Liaison Officers (FVCLOs) act as a nexus between prosecutors or police lawyers, police informants, legal representatives, victim survivors, perpetrators, court staff and support agencies. This includes ensuring victim survivors are supported and all parties are kept informed of proceedings.
• The Family Violence and Therapeutic Courts Group provides state-wide specialist legal support, training and advice to all areas of Victoria Police relating to family violence, as well as the Assessment and Referral Court, Drug Court and Koori Court.
• The Specialist Sexual Offences Prosecution Unit is a team of experienced prosecutors who appear as advocates in complex sexual offence prosecutions, provide state-wide support to prosecutors and operational police in summary prosecutions, and provide pre-charge legal advice to investigators for both indictable and summary offences.

Professional standards

The Sexual Offences and Family Violence Unit investigates family violence, sexual offences and sexual harassment perpetrated by Victoria Police employees.

Inter-agency responses

• Multidisciplinary Centres (MDCs) co-locate a range of agencies in the one building to provide a victim-centred, integrated and holistic response to victim survivors of sexual offences and child abuse.
• The Inter-Agency Information Sharing Service (IISS) is a centralised information sharing and record keeping service. The IISS manages requests for the release of police information under the Family Violence and Child Information Sharing Schemes, the Reportable Conduct Scheme and Child Safe Standards.
• The Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team (JACET) is a joint initiative between Victoria Police and the Australian Federal Police. JACET identifies and rescues vulnerable children from further harm, targets recidivist offenders who use the internet to groom children and identifies offenders who share child abuse material.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in Victoria have diverse languages and cultures.

The term Aboriginal is used in this strategy when referring to First Nations people from across Australia.

Our use of this term is not intended to deny the right of Aboriginal people to determine the way in which they are referred.

The Victorian Government defines family violence as the use of violence by a current or former intimate partner or family member.⁷ Family violence may be physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, cultural or financial. Family is broadly defined and includes people who share a variety of family and family-like relationships.

Sexual violence is a form of violence in which any sexual act is attempted, or occurs, without consent. This includes both physical acts and non-physical acts (such as image-based sexual abuse). Victoria Police uses the term sexual offences to reflect our primary role in responding to sexual violence as a crime.

Child abuse may be physical, emotional, psychological or sexual, and can include grooming or neglect. Sexual violence and child abuse can be forms of family violence or can occur outside of family relationships.

Gender-based violence refers to violence that is used against someone because of their gender.⁸ While people of all genders can experience gender-based violence, the term is most often used to describe violence against women and girls. Victoria Police refers to this as gendered violence or gendered crime.

While people of any gender can be a perpetrator or victim survivor of family violence, sexual offences, child abuse and stalking, we know that these crimes are predominantly perpetrated by men against women and children.

We acknowledge the Victorian Government’s use of both the term victim survivor and person who has experienced violence. We use the term victim survivor in recognition of the strength and resilience shown by people who experience family violence, sexual offences and child abuse. In engaging with victim survivors, we know that the experience of these crimes does not define a victim survivor.

We note the Victorian Government’s use of the terms perpetrator and person who uses violence interchangeably. Victoria Police primarily describes people who have committed family violence, sexual offences or child abuse as perpetrators. In family violence cases, the term predominant aggressor refers to the person who, through actions within the relationship, is exerting the greatest amount of harm and control over their partner or family member.⁹

We acknowledge that the terms victim survivor and perpetrator will not encompass how some people may choose to identify themselves or others.

^{7 Strong Foundations: Building on Victoria’s work to end family violence, DFFH, 2023, Melbourne, Australia
8 Strong Foundations: Building on Victoria’s work to end family violence, DFFH, 2023, Melbourne, Australia
9 Code of Practice for the Investigation of Family Violence, 4th Edition, Version 2, 2023, Victoria Police, Melbourne Australia}