Family violence support agency SHINE says many domestic violence calls to police are going un-answered. Photo: RNZ
A family violence support agency says police are undoing decades of hard work by not attending some domestic violence callouts that are considered mental health related.
Last year, police announced they would pull back on mental health related callouts in a phased approach, while still attending high risk incidents, in a bid to save their time and resources.
But a family violence support agency said that meant many domestic violence calls were going un-answered, leaving victims without the help they needed.
Rachel Williams is a senior adviser for SHINE - an Auckland service provider aimed at addressing family violence.
The agency had seen the results of the police's policy change first-hand.
"We had a incident at our refuge in Auckland where the police were called, but they couldn't intervene because it was deemed mental health."
They had also heard the same thing from victims in the community.
As well as pulling back on mental health related callouts - police have been trialling a new Risk Harm Attendance Framework, aimed at reducing responses to social harm callouts where other agencies could step in.
Williams felt the changes were undoing years of work from the family violence sector in encouraging victims to seek out help.
"The police are the only ones who can go into the home and stop someone who's experiencing harm. So by pulling back on that message we feel like decades of work has been undone."
Between 2009 and 2018, there were 125 deaths from intimate partner violence in New Zealand.
Police said they would still attend incidents where there was an immediate risk to life, but Williams said in a family violence situation it was not always so black and white.
"One form of family violence is that somebody's standing there with a gun to your head and I think the police will probably still respond then.
"But there are lots of other ways that people can harm you... and I don't think the police are responding to all of those."
Women's Refuge chief executive Ang Jury agreed.
She said in a family violence incident police may not get the full picture from the victim over the phone.
"Somebody who's ringing them, may not be giving them that sort of information that they need to even make that judgement."
"Most people don't ring police because they want a cup of tea and to have someone to talk to. They actually are fearful. To me, if a victim or a family member has got to that point you're talking about risk."
Women's Refuge had seen police slowly pulling back from family violence callouts over the last five or so years - and the recent changes made things worse in certain parts of the country, Jury said.
The police mental health pull-back has been happening in different stages across different police districts.
Jury acknowledged police were tight on resources, and it was not realistic for them to attend all family violence incidents.
"In lieu of that, what I would like to see is some really full-on and far more stringent training of their call-takers... to make sure they are identifying the level of risk they claim to be identifying."
In a statement, a police spokesperson said their new Risk Harm Attendance Framework enabled staff to identify clearly, confidently and consistently what required urgent or timely police attendance.
The new framework included a special prioritisation for family violence offences, they said.
Police wanted to reassure the community they would continue to assess risk to ensure people get appropriate help when they needed it.
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