Police are treating family violence call outs as "roll your eyes" matters and wrongfully accusing Aboriginal women of being perpetrators of domestic violence, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service told a truth-telling inquiry on Thursday.

Appearing before the Yoorrook Justice Commission, VALS' lawyers said they recognised family violence is a gender crisis, "most frequently and severely suffered by our women".

Chief executive Nerita Waight said since colonisation "Aboriginal people live within a structure of violence. Aboriginal women and children continue to experience a violent culture of misogyny that has existed since colonisation".

"The war continues. It just evolved," she said.

"Aboriginal women are 45 times more likely to experience family violence than non-Aboriginal women...the numbers of Aboriginal women and children experiencing family violence including those who have been murdered continues to escalate."

Yoorrook heard most Aboriginal women in Victoria have non-Indigenous partners, with this number rising to 85 per cent in Narrm.

VALS' acting legal services director, Juergen Kaehne, said the organisation had heard cases - often in regional areas - where police had declared Aboriginal households "violent" for no reason or with no qualification.

"Police are dealing with … family violence call outs as a 'roll your eyes' matter," Mr Kaehne said.

"They come out there, they want to get it done as quickly as possible. They look around, they pick the first set of criteria that fits within their code, and they take that without any further inquiry."

He said misidentification was a systemic problem within Victoria Police, and argued officers often relied on a code of practice, which inevitably invited gender biases and stereotypes to identify "predominant aggressors".

Highlighting one metric police use - how fearful a person is - Mr Kaehne said it was an "easily manipulated thing when the person is clever, articulate, usually white, calm, and the mother is not — she's hysterical".

"Another thing they look at is the historical pattern of violence and in regional households, police just say, 'that's a violent household', so they just pick someone," he said, arguing police assumptions were driven by racism.

"So, the man rings the police with a scratch on his face and says, 'look what she did'... [meanwhile the victim is] hysterical in the background and so the police pick him as the person in need of protection."

Ms Waight argued, rather than "tinkering" with broken systems, "we need to do that work on imagining, what does - and what should - policing look like in this era?"

"Not a police system or institution that is underscored by racism but one that fits with the current values of the Victorian community, and that takes being brave and sort of entering that transformational space and I suggest that Treaty certainly is a vehicle to do that," she said.

VALS' managing lawyer, Emily Yates, said the organisation saw a significant number of women accused of family violence, which often resulted in child protection intervening.

She highlighted the story of a woman stabbing a man in the leg - whilst she defended herself and a relative from his attacks - before fleeing to safety. As a result, she was kept in a months-long criminal court battle, and when she was arrested for an unrelated shoplifting charge, she was kept in custody and away from her children.

"She was not a violent person and was accused of that probably because she's an Aboriginal woman and wasn't believed in the first instance by police, and then also by prosecution," Ms Yates said, noting the stabbing charges were eventually dropped on a self-defence basis.

Ms Waight said a lack of refuges means women often do not report family violence out of a fear of losing their children.

"[it] teaches... you shouldn't report family violence because you risk losing your children to a system that will harm them," she said.

Mr Kaehne agreed, telling the commission: "Campaigns everywhere saying violence is not okay, here is what you can do, put your hand up. Leave. Get help."

"And that's all easy to say for someone with means and ability, and money to get the help to escape...[but] when there's no escape route... that advertising campaign is not so great...it fails Aboriginal women because they fall in that category."

Ms Waight said the "scourge" of family violence couldn't be addressed with punitive responses.

"You need to invest in supports and services that address the underlying reasons for violence... long-term flexible funding, allocated to ACCOs who can provide a specialist response," she said.

Addressing the government, Ms Waight said: "Don't come here [Yoorrook] and cry".

"Come here, tell your truth and then go away and work to change the systems [and] institutions that harm our communities and our women," Ms Waight said.

"Understand that if you do that, you tell society that it is not okay to perpetrate violence against our women because you will no longer do it.... that they recognise them as sacred and important, that you send a message to them that they matter, that they are safe."

The Yoorrook Justice Commission hearings continue Friday with the appearance of deputy premier and education minister Ben Carrol.