CEASE
The Coordinated Enforcement and Support to Eliminate (CEASE) Domestic Violence Program
28 months
The CEASE Domestic Violence Program comprises the implementation and evaluation of police-led multi-agency focused deterrence interventions for domestic violence across three local sites in Australia.
The CEASE Program is based on the principles of focused deterrence, modelled on the Intimate Partner Violence Initiative developed by the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College in New York. The program is trialling a focused deterrence-based approach to reducing domestic violence in Australia.
In close partnership with other agencies, the CEASE Program will involve the targeted application of a wide range of innovative tools and tactics by police, to hold perpetrators accountable and discourage them from further offending.
The CEASE Program will prioritise the speed and consistency of responses to domestic violence, and the direct communication of consequences and avenues of support to offenders. Importantly, the CEASE Program will also provide timely and targeted parallel support and protection for victims and survivors.
The CEASE program will involve two stages: implementation and evaluation. The evaluation component will comprise both process and outcome evaluations of the intervention at each site.
Research aim/s
This project has two main aims:
To establish and deliver a pilot of focused deterrence-based interventions to domestic violence across three local sites in Australia; and to evaluate the interventions to build a national evidence base on focused deterrence approaches to domestic violence in an Australian context.
Methods
The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) will work closely with local-level police and other partners to assist in establishing and implementing the focused deterrence-based intervention to domestic violence across three local sites in Australia.
The AIC will employ a mixed methods approach that draws on qualitative and quantitative data from victim-survivors, intervention stakeholders, intervention documentation and administrative databases.
Significance
The CEASE program provides an important opportunity to explore how police, in partnership with other agencies, can better reduce the short-term risk of repeat domestic violence, and protect victims and survivors from further harm. It will lay the foundation of an evidence base on focused deterrence approaches to domestic violence in an Australian context.
Researchers
Project lead
Dr Christopher Dowling, Australian Institute of Criminology