The Pilot Domestic Violence Intervention Court Model (DVICM): Toward Evidence-led Practice in Wagga Wagga in Rural Australia1

“It’s going to be a long process but, yeah, I mean, women have got to take a stand because it’s happening far too many times to women.”3 Like many other patriarchal societies, Australia is marked by entrenched patterns of gendered violence. Central to the New South Wales legislative reforms that commenced in the 1980s with the aim of redressing this was the introduction of civil protection orders that gave police the authority to respond to domestic violence incidents through protection and/or prosecution proceedings. In 2005, following other jurisdictions, the New South Wales Government piloted the integrated Domestic Violence Intervention Court Model (DVICM). The selection of the inland rural town of Wagga Wagga and the metropolitan Campbelltown site provided the opportunity to conduct research comparing the commencement, processes, outcomes and effectiveness of civil and criminal justice interventions across major city and rural locations, through time and for different cultural groups, the focus of this article