By: Michelle Kirby

A 2010 law established a pilot program to allow Connecticut courts to order GPS devices (ankle bracelets) to be used to track family violence offenders. Under this law, the Judicial Branch’s Court Support Services Division (CSSD) implemented the Alert Notification/GPS program in the Bridgeport, Danielson, and Hartford judicial districts. CSSD’s preliminary report on the program indicated that it met its objective to (1) enhance monitoring of high-risk family violence offenders and (2) increase victim safety. The December 2011 final summary report concluded that the program was successfully implemented in all three court locations with a high degree of collaboration systemwide.

Hartford: Connecticut General Assembly Office of Legislative Research, 2023. 4p.

Law Enforcement Conduct Commission 

Police officers are the first responders to the majority of domestic and family violence incidents that take place in New South Wales. They play a critical role in keeping victims safe, detaining, or arresting offenders and applying for protection orders. Police attend 180,000 incidents a year – or about 500 every day. This chilling number highlights how important it is for police to be well trained, well equipped and have appropriate systems in place to deal with this sadly all too common crime. The NSW Police Force estimates that 40% of police work involves responding to domestic violence. The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission used data from complaints to look at the effectiveness of NSW Police Force processes and procedures in relation to domestic and family violence incidents. We used data from complaint investigations linked to incidents involving a police officer responding to domestic and family violence incidents between 2017 and 2021. We looked at matters in which police officers were involved in domestic and family violence incidents, as well as matters in which officers were investigated for conducting inadequate investigations into reports of domestic and family violence incidents. We saw that police officers had been involved in domestic and family violence incidents, and at times were charged with domestic violence offences. We saw issues such as poor record keeping practices and police with inadequate training in how to properly investigate domestic violence incidents. The Commission has made 13 recommendations to assist the NSW Police Force to strengthen its procedures and the way it investigates complaints about domestic and family violence. Police officers play a critical role as first responders to domestic and family violence incidents. However, addressing domestic violence issues cannot be solved by the NSW Police Force alone. …As we do our work, we will look at the impact these proposed changes have on the way police respond to these incidents and any complaints made about the way they have dealt with domestic and family violence.    

Sydney: The Commission, 2023. 92p.