Harmful and discriminatory policing practices in family violence cases are "extremely frequent and widespread" across Victoria, according to a new report.

Harm in the Name of Safety — released by Beyond Survival Project, Flat Out and RMIT University — draws on testimony from 225 frontline workers. It urges the creation of alternative, community-based response pathways for victim-survivors, warning that police responses often cause further harm.

Without prompting, 65 per cent of participants raised concerns about police practices that extend abuse or harm toward people experiencing violence — including by criminalising victim-survivors or colluding with perpetrators.

The report also found police-perpetrated family violence to be a "significant issue", with 51 per cent of respondents encountering it, and nearly a quarter of those seeing it happen five or more times.

"Victoria Police has been made central to the family violence service system in Victoria in recent decades, but in the absence of public reporting about issues and harms related to family violence policing, including significant issues like police 'misidentification' of the predominant aggressor and police-perpetrated family violence, the data concerning harms enacted by police in the context of family violence is often arduous to obtain," the report states.

It also noted "extensive failures by Victoria Police to take family violence seriously, particularly men's family violence against women".

Antoinette Braybrook AM, Chief Executive of family violence prevention service Djirra, said the report "highlights some of the key issues" the organisation has been "advocating to change for decades".

"In particular, we see the devastating impact of the racial targeting of Aboriginal women, often referred to as 'misidentification', on the Aboriginal women we support," Ms Braybrook told National Indigenous Times.

"Misidentification is a significant issue for the Aboriginal women Djirra supports, because of the frequency with which it occurs and the devastating impact it has on our women's lives."

The report described the "patterned problem" of police wrongfully identifying victim-survivors as perpetrators. It documented regular and repeated cases of police inaccurately assessing the victim-survivor as the predominant aggressor, and refusing to correct those errors even when presented with clear evidence.

The Yoorrook Justice Commission heard similar accounts last year, with justice advocates saying Aboriginal women were often wrongly accused of domestic violence and that some police treated family violence call-outs as "roll your eyes" matters.

Aboriginal women are 45 times more likely to experience family violence than non-Aboriginal women, the Commission heard. The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) reported cases — particularly in regional areas — where police labelled Aboriginal households "violent" without reason or evidence.

VALS Principal Managing Lawyer for Aboriginal Families Law, Juergen Kaehne, told the inquiry misidentification was a systemic problem within Victoria Police, with officers relying on a code of practice that encouraged gender bias and stereotypes in identifying "predominant aggressors".

Ms Braybrook said at least a quarter of the women Djirra supports have experienced misidentification.

"When it comes to Aboriginal women's experiences of family violence, this is not misidentification, this is not a mistake, this is racial targeting," she said.

"The findings in this report reinforce the fact that women's experiences of police responses to family violence increased harm. Aboriginal women are not believed, we are punished and criminalised rather than supported for our safety."

Because of the "increasing number of women that we are seeing in our work being targeted, misidentified and criminalised", Djirra has commissioned the Centre for Innovative Justice to research and recommend reforms to prevent this and address its impacts.

"The trauma of misidentification is real — it leads to Aboriginal women being criminalised, incarcerated, separated from their children, and leaves our women with lifelong stigma and harm," Ms Braybrook said.

"It also impacts on our women's ability to access employment, housing, and in some circumstances impacts their ability to keep their children."

Harm in the Name of Safety called for the "urgent decentring of police from family violence response work" by creating alternative first responder models; strengthening and extending community-based support services; and investing in non-carceral violence prevention and accountability initiatives.

Ms Braybrook said Djirra had successfully supported five Aboriginal women who were "racially targeted" and misidentified.

"We supported them to have the Family Violence Intervention applications brought against them by police struck out in court," she said.

"Without our legal advocacy, it is likely that each of these women would have been labelled, punished and criminalised, rather than supported for their safety."

She argued Aboriginal women must have access to specialist organisations such as Djirra for legal representation and "other life-saving holistic supports".

"Aboriginal women deserve better," Ms Braybrook said. "Aboriginal women deserve an advocate."