The South Australian Government's announcement of a new reporting pathway for domestic violence allegedly committed by police officers is being framed as a step forward. A new unit, more personnel, and internal mechanisms are presented as evidence of reform. But this response rests on a fundamental misdiagnosis of the problem. It assumes that what is needed is a better pathway into policing, rather than questioning whether policing itself should be the primary site of response to domestic, family and sexual violence.

For many women, particularly Aboriginal women and those who have been criminalised, the issue is not a lack of access to police. It is the experience of engaging with them.

Members of the National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls have consistently raised that police responses to domestic, family and sexual violence are shaped by suspicion, risk assessment frameworks, and criminalisation logics that position certain women as inherently untrustworthy. These dynamics are not incidental; they are embedded in the way the system operates.

When seeking protection becomes exposure to harm

One Aboriginal woman from our National Network experienced prolonged physical and sexual violence, including strangulation. She went to the police seeking protection after enduring significant harm.

However, once her criminal record was identified, the nature of the interaction shifted. The focus moved away from the violence she had experienced and towards her own history. Her credibility was questioned, and her victimisation was effectively destabilised. She is now being treated as a perpetrator within the system she approached for safety.

This is not an isolated case, nor is it simply a system failure. It reflects a broader pattern in which criminalised women are racially identified as the perpetrator, disbelieved, or reclassified in ways that deny them access to protection and support.

Locked out of "safety" systems

Another Aboriginal woman from the National Network experienced sustained physical, sexual, and coercive violence from her partner. When she sought assistance through the Keeping Women Safe in their Homes program, she was deemed ineligible.

The basis for this decision was not the severity of the violence or the level of risk she faced, but the fact that her partner had previously been her co-accused in a past offence. This prior association effectively excluded her from a program designed to enhance safety for victim-survivors.

Instead of receiving support, she was advised by police to install security cameras upon his release. She followed this advice, incurring the significant financial cost herself, because no agency provided assistance once she had been excluded from the formal support framework. The message conveyed was that her safety was her own responsibility, despite the state's knowledge of the risk.

These examples are not anomalies. They demonstrate how systems that rely on policing as the primary gateway to safety reproduce harm for women who are already marginalised. When access to protection is mediated through institutions that assess women through a lens of criminalisation and racism, many are excluded before their needs are even meaningfully considered.

No safe reporting inside the cage

The limitations of police-centred responses are even more stark in custodial settings. Women in prison who experience sexual violence at the hands of correctional officers have no independent, external avenue through which to report that harm in a way that ensures immediate safety. They are required to report to the same institution that employs the perpetrator and controls the conditions of their confinement. This creates a profound conflict of interest and a significant barrier to disclosure.

In these contexts, reporting is not simply difficult; it is structurally unsafe. Women must weigh the risks of retaliation, disbelief, and further harm against the likelihood that their complaint will be minimised or dismissed. The absence of independent reporting mechanisms means that the system effectively governs itself, even in cases of serious abuse.

Funding the system that harms

Despite these well-documented issues, government responses continue to prioritise increased investment in policing. Additional funding has been allocated to expand police-led domestic violence responses, including the establishment of specialised units and the recruitment of further personnel. At the same time, frontline services, particularly those led by and for criminalised women, remain under-resourced.

The National Network has repeatedly raised this disparity in meetings with ministers, emphasising that services grounded in lived experience of imprisonment are critical to supporting women who are excluded from mainstream systems. These services provide relational, culturally informed, and non-punitive forms of support that are often inaccessible through police-led responses. However, they continue to operate without the level of funding and recognition afforded to policing initiatives.

This imbalance reflects a broader policy orientation that treats policing as the default solution to complex social issues, including domestic, family and sexual violence. It overlooks the ways in which police themselves are experienced as agents of state violence by many women, particularly those who have been criminalised or who belong to communities that have long been subject to over-policing and surveillance.

Reform that refuses to confront the problem

The proposal to create a "separate pathway" for reporting violence by police officers does not address these underlying dynamics. It remains situated within the same institutional framework, relying on the same structures that have already failed to provide safety. While it may offer an additional mechanism for reporting, it does not fundamentally alter the conditions that shape how reports are received, assessed, and acted upon.

Addressing domestic, family and sexual violence requires a shift away from responses that are primarily punitive and enforcement-based. It requires investment in community-led, non-carceral supports that prioritise safety, autonomy, and long-term wellbeing. It also requires recognition that for many women, particularly those who are criminalised, safety cannot be achieved through systems that have historically caused them harm.

What safety actually requires

Without this shift, reforms will continue to operate at the level of process rather than substance. New pathways will be created, but the outcomes for the most marginalised women will remain unchanged.

Safety will not be built through more policing. It will be built by resourcing the women who have been excluded, listening to those who have lived it, and shifting power away from systems that have consistently harmed them.

Tabitha Lean and Debbie Kilroy are co-convenors of the National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls