This is a factual analysis of the decision to dismantle Queensland’s specialist domestic and family violence policing unit. It is not a reflective piece, not a blog, and not written for comfort. It draws on available Australian data, policy material, and research literature to examine the implications of this decision for victim-survivors, justice processes, and institutional accountability. The focus is on structural impacts rather than individual intent.

The content addresses domestic and family violence, including homicide, police responses, and systemic failures. It includes discussion of violence against women and children, justice outcomes, and institutional power. Readers should be aware that this material may be distressing, particularly for those with lived experience of violence or trauma.

If this topic is affecting you or someone you care about, support is available. In Australia, you can contact 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

What Happened: Scrapping the QPS DFV Unit

In late January 2026, major outlets reported that the Queensland Police Service has disbanded its specialist Domestic and Family Violence operational support unit, which provided statewide coordination and expertise for DFV matters. Officers are being reassigned to local commands, with QPS claiming the move streamlines operations and embeds expertise across districts rather than isolating it in a single branch.

Critics’ central concerns:

• The dedicated unit was a core resource for information sharing, specialised risk assessment, and victim protection planning.

• Without it, frontline officers, who may lack specialist training, could respond inconsistently, especially in regional and remote areas.

• Community advocates and survivor families fear this move comes at a time of rising DFV rates and may dilute specialist focus.

This decision sits against a backdrop of long-standing critique of police culture in handling DFV, including past inquiries that found unchecked misogyny, sexism, and racism affecting responses to victim-survivors - issues that some stakeholders argue remain inadequately addressed.

DFV in Australia: Prevalence, Gender, and State Variation

National Prevalence

• Conservative numbers report that 1 in 4 women in Australia have experienced violence from a current or former partner since age 15; approximately 2.2 million Australians have experienced such violence overall.

• Intimate partner violence is significantly gendered: about 27% of women and 12% of men experience FDV since age 15.

Domestic Homicide

• In 2023–24, there were 97 domestic and family violence homicides in Australia, with 58 female victims and 38 male victims in the ABS homicide data.

• National homicide tracking also shows that one woman is killed by an intimate partner every ~8 days, versus every ~41 days for men.

State/Territory Variation

State-level police data (e.g., Queensland, NSW, Victoria, WA) consistently show rising DFV incident reports and variations in offense types, though comparability across jurisdictions is limited by differing reporting frameworks.

In Queensland specifically:

• Police reported 199,830 DFV occurrences in the 2023–24 financial year - roughly 500 calls per day, or one in eight police calls, reflecting a sharp upward trend.

• Queensland courts lodged tens of thousands of DFV related charges in recent years, showing rising case volumes requiring justice responses.

Note: Standardised, up-to-date state-by-state prevalence by gender is limited in public sources and often reported by state agencies or police, making direct number tracing challenging. However, ABS and BOCSAR surveys show that NSW and other jurisdictions reflect similar gendered patterns of violence.

Victim-Survivor Perspectives & Systemic Challenges

Experiences with Police

Many victims and advocates argue that general policing responses lack the trauma-informed, specialist expertise essential for safety, risk assessment, and follow-up. Specialist DFV units were intended to centralise that expertise.

There is also academic and community concern about police culture:

• Research on DFV by police officers themselves highlights abuse of power and accountability gaps when law enforcement personnel are involved in DFV as alleged perpetrators.

• Media reporting also points to historical complaints where disciplinary systems did not adequately address police officers accused of DFV, and sometimes conflicts of interest within police chains of command.

Survivor frustrations often include:

• Not being believed or taken seriously on first contact.

• Feeling retraumatised by repeated recounting of incidents to multiple agencies.

• Having to navigate complex, multi-agency processes (police, courts, DFV services, child protection, housing, health, etc.) with little systemic coordination.

• Difficulty with executive functioning during trauma - making tasks like applying for protection orders, attending court, or securing housing disproportionately heavy and distressing.

Courts, Reporting, and Convictions

Reporting and Justice Outcomes

• Many DFV incidents never reach police - estimated 79% of women experiencing partner violence do not report it.

• Of cases reported to police, only a small fraction lead to charges and even fewer to protective orders or convictions.

Court Data

ABS Criminal Courts data for 2023-24 reveals:

• ~99,800 defendants were finalised for DFV-related offences nationally.

• About 77% of DFV defendants were found guilty; outcomes vary by state.

• Most common offenses include breach of violence orders and acts intended to cause injury.

• Sentences range from fines to community penalties to custodial sentences.

However, conviction rates remain low relative to prevalence, reflecting evidence challenges, witness withdrawal (often due to safety fears), and systemic barriers to prosecution and sentencing. Taken together, justice outcomes are best characterised not by resolution but by attrition: cases drop away, risk is managed rather than removed, and responsibility for safety remains largely with those experiencing the violence.

Service System Complexity & Retraumatisation

Multi-Agency Navigation

Survivors frequently interact with:

• Police patrols and DFV specialists

• Emergency shelters or housing services

• Health and mental health services

• Legal aid and court support services

• Child protection and family services

This labyrinth of services can:

• Strengthen safety and recovery when coordinated

• But also retraumatise survivors through repeated disclosures and bureaucratic processes

Executive Functioning Burden

Trauma impacts cognitive capacities like memory, planning, and emotional regulation. The demand to complete forms, manage court dates, and liaise with agencies without centralised support can be overwhelming.

What This All Means for Scrapping the QPS Unit

Potential negative consequences:

• Loss of centralised, specialist expertise: Could weaken consistent approaches to risk assessment, especially for high-risk cases.

• Fragmentation of care: Local officers may lack the intensive training and support that specialist teams have.

• Increased burdens on survivors: Without a coordinated DFV unit, survivors may have to explain their situation to multiple officers with varied experience.

Arguments from QPS/Defenders:

• Embedding DFV knowledge in local commands may decentralise expertise.

• QPS claims this move comes after a strategic review and is intended to integrate DFV responses into everyday policing.

Key Risks:

• Rising DFV calls and incidents may outpace the capacity of generalist officers.

• Services that were previously coordinated through the unit may become siloed.

• Survivors may face additional barriers to safety planning and tailored responses.

Policy Context: What’s Working and What’s Failing

Effective elements (per research and policy reviews):

• Risk assessment tools and specialist DFV units improve early intervention
• Coercive control laws enhance recognition of non-physical abuse (but may prove to discriminate against BIPOC)
• Multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARAM) provide shared frameworks
• Community and NGO services provide critical non-police support

Ongoing challenges:

• Underreporting and social stigma around DFV
• Coordination breakdowns between systems
• Inconsistent officer training and attitudes toward survivors
• Limited accountability for offenders and high-risk management
• Insufficient long-term housing and economic support for survivors

Takeaways

• Scrapping the specialist DFV unit raises legitimate concerns about police capacity, safety outcomes, and survivor experience at a time when DFV rates are high.

• Australian DFV statistics demonstrate gendered patterns of victimisation, with women overwhelmingly affected.

• Court and justice data show many cases do not proceed or result in convictions, highlighting systemic gaps in legal responses.

• Survivor experiences reflect complex service intersections and high cognitive-emotional demand that specialist support structures aim to mitigate.

The removal of Queensland’s specialist domestic and family violence unit must be understood within the broader context of rising DFV incidence, high homicide risk, low reporting rates, and inconsistent justice outcomes. At the same time as demand for specialised responses is increasing, institutional expertise is being dispersed rather than strengthened. This creates a structural contradiction: a system facing growing complexity is responding by flattening its most specialised capacity.

For victim-survivors, the implications are not abstract. They are required to navigate police, courts, social services, housing, and child protection systems while managing trauma, fear, and cognitive overload. Fragmentation increases the likelihood of retraumatisation, misidentification of risk, and procedural failure. The burden of coordination is shifted away from institutions and onto those experiencing violence.

The decision also sits uneasily with evidence of domestic violence perpetrated by police officers themselves, a reality that complicates assumptions of neutrality, trust, and safety. In this context, the dismantling of specialist oversight weakens both internal accountability and survivor confidence. A generalist model presumes consistency that the evidence does not support and neutrality that power relations do not guarantee.

When assessed against national prevalence data, homicide trends, reporting patterns, and court outcomes, the loss of a specialist unit represents not administrative reshaping but a material change in how the state manages risk. It does not remove domestic and family violence from policing, but it alters how knowledge, authority, and responsibility are distributed. The consequences of that redistribution are borne most heavily by women and children already navigating systems that frequently doubt, delay, and deflect.

This decision therefore functions not as a neutral organisational reform but as a policy position: one that deprioritises specialist expertise at a moment when violence is neither rare nor decreasing. The data do not support the assumption that dilution of specialisation improves outcomes. What they show instead is a system already struggling to hold perpetrators accountable and to keep victims alive.

References

Andeson, B., Farmer, C., & Tyson, D. (2025). Police-Perpetrated Domestic and Family Violence: A Scoping Review of Australian and International Scholarship. International Journal of Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 14(4), 45–56.

https://www.crimejusticejournal.com/article/view/3582/1536

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2024). Recorded Crime - Victims. ABS.

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/recorded-crime-victims/latest-release.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2019). Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia: continuing the national story 2019. Canberra: AIHW. https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence/family-domestic-sexual-violence-australia-2019/contents/summary

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2024). Domestic homicide in Australia. AIHW.

https://www.aihw.gov.au/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence/responses-and-outcomes/domestic-homicide

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2024). Legal systems and family, domestic, and sexual violence. AIHM.

https://www.aihw.gov.au/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence/responses-and-outcomes/legal-systems

Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. (2026). NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research

https://bocsar.nsw.gov.au/topic-areas/domestic-violence.html

Douglas, H., & Fitzgerald, R. (2018). The Domestic Violence Protection Order System as Entry to the Criminal Justice System for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People. International Journal of Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 7(3), 41–57.

Guardian Australia. (2026, January 31). Queensland police scrap specialist domestic violence unit, raising concerns from advocates.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jan/31/queensland-police-scrap-domestic-violence-unit

Queensland Government. (2024). How common is domestic and family violence?

https://www.qld.gov.au/community/getting-support-health-social-issue/support-victims-abuse/need-to-know/domestic-and-family-violence/how-common-is-domestic-and-family-violence

Royal Commission into Family Violence (Victoria). (2016). Report and recommendations. Victorian Government Printer.

http://rcfv.archive.royalcommission.vic.gov.au/Report-Recommendations.html

World Health Organization. (2021). Violence against women prevalence estimates, 2018.

https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240022256