DEPUTY Premier Troy Grant has seen first hand the effect domestic violence can have on families and communities, so Wednesday's pair of announcements aimed at lowering the rate of attacks in NSW comes as no surprise.
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A new community service campaign aimed at victims titled 'It's not your fault' was launched, as well as a statewide rollout of domestic violence suspect targeting.
Mr Grant spent several years on the front line as a police officer before moving into politics, and in a post on his Facebook page said "I still bare the scars of domestic violence victims who attacked me as I arrested their violent partner, because they felt they had to show their attacker that they - the victim - weren't to blame for their arrest. All I can say is, it's not your fault".
The powerful new video campaign to raise public awareness about the issue of domestic and family violence consists of a 30-second community service announcement for TV, as well as a longer version for cinemas and social media.
In NSW, police respond to more than 140,000 incidents of domestic and family violence per year. This translates to about 380 cases every day.
"Domestic violence is devastating and unacceptable, and we're showing the victims that living in the cycle where they get punched or slapped, or in extreme cases a knife in the back, is not normal," Mr Grant said.
"For some people, unfortunately, they do think they are to blame for it happening but the key message from this new campaign is to show them that isn't the case.
"We also launched the new repeat offender plan as well, and we have seen in other crime areas that it has had a massive impact on lowering the number of incidents. It's a different approach but we have confidence in will work and Pru Goward and Mick Fuller deserve a lot of praise for making it happen."
The launch of the new campaign coincided with the state-wide roll-out of the new process targeting repeat domestic violence offenders.
For more than a decade, NSW Police has used a process called the Suspect Targeting Management Plan (STMP) to deal with high-risk and repeat offenders.
The process has recently been adapted to include high-risk domestic violence offenders, and following successful trials in the Central Metropolitan Region, this refinement is now being introduced statewide.
"The STMP model will ensure the state's most serious domestic violence offenders face the highest level of scrutiny by police, and allow us to intervene before they commit their next offence," NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said.
"This renewed focus on offender accountability is part of our ongoing commitment to providing the utmost level of support to the victims of domestic and family violence."
