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Domestic Violence New Zealand Case Study

Decent Essays

III New Zealand response to domestic violence

The current legal response to domestic violence in New Zealand is the protection order under the Domestic Violence Act 1995 which, coupled by the non-violence programme for the respondent and the safety programme for protected person under the Domestic Violence (Amendment) Act 2013. However, the primary focus of this paper is the non-violence programme and only to refer to the protection order and safety programme when necessary.

The court may make a protection order if it is satisfied that the applicant or their child has been a victim of domestic violence and they need protection. The protection order ensures that the respondent must not abuse, threat, intimidate or harass the protected …show more content…

First, the “one size fits all” approach is inappropriate and ineffective as it does not necessary gather for multiple causes and dynamic nature of domestic violence problems. As Justice Susan Glazebrook points out given that there are a myriad of factors behind family violence, any treatment efforts must get to the roots of the problem. We have identified above that the roots of the domestic violence largely contribute to a variety of cultural, social, economic and psychological factors. It is fundamental for the success of the non-violence programme to differentiate among the types of family violence, allow for the development of more appropriate risk assessing instruments that would more accurately describe the central dynamics of the family violence, its context, and consequences. As Judge Boshier says, in order to have better decision making, appropriate sanctions and more effective treatment programmes must be tailored to the different characteristics of family violence. Otherwise, the programmes would not address the nature of violence that has occurred, therefore, in essence, one size does not fit all.

Similarly, a tendency to deter and separate families rather than to repair the harms and restore the relationships. An example of the problem of one size fits all approach is the case of Lotu v

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