National Network of Family Violence Services’ CEO Merran Lawler is calling for nationwide conversations about work with adults who use family violence.

The call comes after Manu Reid gunned down construction workers in Auckland’s CBD in July 2023 and there were subsequent media stories about his family violence history.

Lawler wants informed discussions about interventions, efficacy and government’s role in the big picture.

As well as that, she is keen for media to know exactly what non-violence programmes are and what they can and can’t do.

“It’s upsetting to see important questions occurring as a knee-jerk media response to the tragic event instead of an informed and important conversation we, as a society, need to have,” she said.

“It’s something we feel passionate about.”

Anti-violence specialists are given a maximum of 50 hours over four to five months to completely change men who have entrenched beliefs and behaviours about women and society, she said.

Lawler said the specialists get a couple of hours a week, for around 20 weeks, to create the conditions to change attitudes and beliefs before sending men back into society which “at every turn, reinforces toxic beliefs about their own manhood and the inconsequence of women”.

She said the 20-week court mandated or directed programme is often seen as a magic pill.

Members were working with men who were in their 20s, their 30s, even their 60s.

She said they had entrenched attitudes and beliefs which informed and motivated their violent behaviours.

While many of those men came with a willingness to engage, respond positively and make sustained and safe changes to their underlying beliefs and consequent behaviours, some did not and were resistant to change.

“There is a completely unrealistic expectation we can or should be rehabilitating all referred men who perpetrate violence in the space of a mere 50 hours.

“There is also a tendency to blame programme providers for perceived failures based on isolated, high profile tragic incidents.

“People never acknowledge the successes but highlight outliers to question the efficacy of the programmes.

“Sadly, those outliers were always going to be difficult to motivate towards change – let alone make changes in the space of 50 hours.

She said non-violence programmes had been captured by legislation and were seen as a convenient despatch point for the problem of how to deal with men’s violence towards family members.

“Send them to a programme” becomes the end goal of intervention rather than the starting point for sustained efforts to create changed attitudes and behaviours.

The pressure on courts meant unless there were immediate and identifiable risks, the court’s only interest was that the referred person had attended all 20 weeks, she said.

“Specialist behavioural change practitioners are forced to sign off on men’s completion every day because they completed the programmes – that is, attended all sessions.

“But the non-violence programme, as envisaged by the justice system, is simply part of the courts’ process - rather than being a mechanism to allow the court to be informed about whether change has been achieved, or whether it can or will be sustained.

Lawler said programmes were valuable as one form of intervention but had limited value when all other points of intervention gave a consistently inconsistent message.

She said the message tended to be ‘voluntarily agree to do this programme and you will get a sentence reduction or even avoid conviction’ rather than ‘you need to change your attitudes and behaviours, you are a danger to those around you and you’re being given an opportunity to be a safe and responsible person’.

It needed to be in addition to accepting the legal consequences for whatever charge they were facing in court – an opportunity, not a penalty reduction card.

“Sadly, it is much too easy for media to speculate and point fingers of blame at the lowest common denominator, rather than focusing its interests on the potential failures of the justice system.”

Lawler said the sector, including those working at the coalface, had been asking government for years to invest in sustained interventions that would allowing ongoing support, monitoring, intervention and evaluation.

And evidence the success of all interventions through reliable data as well.

She said new Justice Minister Ginny Andersen wanted to look at re-offending rates.

“We say, ‘good luck with that’.

We’d also like to know the re-offending rates but have been told for years by Justice the data doesn’t exist.”

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