ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the criminal justice system's response to domestic violence, and in particular it examines possible criminal charges in family violence matters, including contravention of civil protection orders, assault and stalking. From the victim's perspective domestic violence is insidious and unpredictable. The result of the 'mismatch' between the victims' reality of violence in the home and the view of the criminal justice system can be tragic. Legislation to protect victims of family violence, some enacted over the past two decades, is of negligible value if arrests, prosecutions and convictions do not take place. In Australia, anti-stalking laws were introduced in an attempt to bridge the gap between civil domestic violence orders and the criminal law. The chapter analyses the indeterminacy of the relevant laws and their ambivalent application by police, prosecutors and judicial officers, and argues for the creation of a specific domestic violence offence. In Tasmania, a spouse is compellable in domestic violence cases.
