It’s relatively common for domestic abusers to threaten suicide in an attempt to control their victims: 39% of women experiencing coercive control have been threatened with self-harm by their abuser, according to a study by the Australian Institute of Criminology.
Suicide threats may be related to mental health issues, a means of family violence, or both, and as a result victims may feel pressured to stay in an abusive relationship.
Men who murder their partners are 2,000 times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than the general population. For example, the man who murdered Hannah Clarke and her children had threatened to kill himself many times in the lead up to the killings.
This makes it harder for police to respond to these situations: Victoria Police officers involved in a recent study I published expressed concern that prioritising suicide prevention over responding to family violence could leave victim-survivors unprotected.
Read more: Domestic abusers can use suicide threats to control their partners
What is standard police procedure?
The intersection of mental health and domestic violence is a tricky area for both the legal and health care systems, and the laws surrounding both vary widely. These laws also vary by state and locality.
In Victoria, police have two main tools to deal with perpetrators making suicide threats: the Mental Health Act and the Domestic Violence Act.
Under the Mental Health Act, police can place a person in hospital or under the care of medical professionals to prevent them from harming themselves or others.
James Ross/AAP
Suicide threats, on the other hand, can be a form of domestic violence or coercive control. Police can issue a domestic violence safety notice to the perpetrator. The notice sets conditions to prevent domestic violence and protect the victim. For example, standard conditions in a safety notice include not committing domestic violence against the victim or exposing children to domestic violence. If the conditions are breached, police can charge the perpetrator with a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years in prison.
The extent to which perpetrators accept safety notices may deter further abuse of victim-survivors and encourage accountability.
In Victoria, there are no formal procedures guiding police how to respond to domestic violence cases where the perpetrator has threatened suicide, so police must decide how to approach the issue based on their own experience and knowledge.
Queensland is the only state in Australia to publish guidelines for police to respond to perpetrators’ suicide threats. The framework focuses on managing immediate risk and referral pathways.
Unintended consequences
All 10 police officers in my study specialized in domestic violence, and they all noted that suicide threats were a common tactic used in coercive control.
The majority of participants said that if they encountered a domestic violence incident where the perpetrator had threatened suicide, they would likely address the perpetrator’s mental health as a first priority, which would then likely lead to the perpetrator going to hospital for testing and treatment if necessary.
Police cannot issue a domestic violence safety notice to someone who is being treated in hospital. Police can ask the hospital for a discharge notice if they think the person may be a danger to others, but police say this is not always done.
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As a result, perpetrators may be discharged from hospital without a safety notice being issued and therefore may commit certain forms of family violence against victim-survivors with impunity, unless such acts are deemed criminal under other laws.
This puts victims/survivors at increased risk of family violence and may allow perpetrators to avoid responsibility. Several police officers noted that there have been cases where perpetrators have been released into society without orders, posing a real risk to victims/survivors.
Learn to balance risks
Some police departments are developing processes to change how they respond to perpetrators’ suicide threats. One participant suggested that a domestic violence safety notice should be issued first before hospitalizing the perpetrator.
Improved policing can prevent further violence from occurring, and a nuanced approach is needed to train police to balance the mental health needs of perpetrators with the safety of victim-survivors and the community at large.
But the gap in service delivery cannot be solved by police alone.
In some circumstances, there is limited information exchange between hospitals and police. Further communication and cooperation is needed to enable police to issue safety notices when necessary.
Whether or not suicide threats are due to mental health issues, they can be weaponized by perpetrators of domestic violence. Changes need to be made so that victims are protected and perpetrators are held accountable.
It is important that we continue to research and learn more about how family violence and mental health interact for both perpetrators and victims, so that we can make more effective progress towards eliminating family violence.
