Nearly a dozen police investigations have begun into coercive control allegations lodged in the first week since the behaviour was criminalised in NSW.
As Australia grapples with a domestic-violence crisis that has included women and children being killed in shocking incidents, NSW police are battling an overwhelming caseload.
The nation's largest police force receives one domestic violence-related call every four minutes, while the issue accounts for 60 per cent of the demand on rank-and-file officers.
NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb revealed senior executives discussed setting up a specialist family violence command similar to those operating in Victoria and Queensland.
Police have received about 10 reports of coercive control in the first week since laws criminalising the practice were introduced on July 1 in an Australia-first move.
The laws ban patterns of abuse used to hurt, scare, intimidate, threaten or control someone, including controlling movements, withholding money or limiting access to friends, family and other associates.
No charges have been laid yet but the commissioner predicts the cases will require meticulous police work.
“We envisage these cases will take longer, will take more time and require more care,” she told ABC radio on Tuesday.
“It is probably a job detectives will need to be involved in very early on, wherever there may be a corroboration for the pattern or controlling behaviour.”
Coercive control has been identified as a precursor to 97 per cent of intimate partner domestic-violence homicides in NSW between 2000 and 2018.
Ms Webb's comments follow a series of domestic violence incidents, including the deaths of three children in a Sydney house fire.
Their father is accused of setting fire to the family home and trying to prevent rescuers from saving his partner and seven children from the inferno.
The 28-year-old man faces three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder.
Between 2022 and 2023, the Australian Institute of Criminology recorded a 28 per cent rise in the number of women killed by an intimate partner.
It was up to society as a whole to stamp out the scourge of domestic violence, Ms Webb said.
“(Police) are not perfect, but we're certainly working towards improving our response to domestic violence and it's been a priority of mine since I became commissioner,” she said.
“We can't stop making it a priority, but it needs to be a whole-society priority.
"It can't just be police responding after the event, we need to work to try and prevent this in the first place.”
The federal government has pledged to fund 720 safe place projects over the next three years, doubling the number of available emergency accommodation places.
As part of a near-$1 billion support package in May's budget, women escaping violent relationships can also access $5000 in financial support.
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