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Report: Just ticking the box: Victim-survivor insights into the uses and abuses of stopping-violence programmes in Aotearoa New Zealand

  • The Backbone Collective Auckland New Zealand (map)

May 2026 - the State’s expectations and uses of stopping-violence programmes (SVPs) are currently not making many abusers less dangerous and are putting victim-survivors (including children) at risk of ongoing and intensifying violence and abuse.

That is the overall finding from our August/September 2025 anonymous online survey of 471 women and non-binary victim-survivors throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, including 172 responses from victim-survivors who had an abuser who attended an SVP.

SVPs are also known as anger management or non-violence programmes. They usually consist of weekly group education sessions of a couple of hours each, over 8 to 20 weeks, and the state orders thousands of abusers to attend these programmes every year.

There’s a general sense that stopping-violence programmes will do what their name suggests and stop violence.

But the state does not gather victim-survivor voice safely as a matter of course as part of its quality control of SVPs. So it does not know whether or not SVPs are making victim-survivors safer or not, putting them at greater risk of violence and abuse.

Backbone Collective gave women victim-survivors a safe and anonymous opportunity to report on the effects of stopping-violence programmes – and what they told us is major cause for concern.

The majority of survey respondents reported the abuser continued to use violence and abuse during and just after they attended a stopping-violence programme. For at least half of the victim-survivors, the abuser’s behaviour actually got worse during or just after the programme.

Therefore:

  • We really cannot assume that stopping-violence programmes will stop violence and abuse.

  • The state needs to increase its protection of victim-survivors rather than expecting an abuser attending a programme is now somehow “all better”. 

Victim-survivors also reported currently the Family Court is exposing some children to increased risk of (further) violence and abuse by ordering them to have contact with or live with a parent who continues to use abuse and violence, in large part because that parent has attended a behaviour change programme.

Over 90% of victim-survivors who reported the abuser received care of and/or access to their children due to attending a programme also reported the abuser was also continuing their abuse. Many abusers after they attended the programme were using worse violence and abuse against the children.

Currently the criminal justice system is also dropping charges and reducing sentences for some abusers who have committed violent offences and who are continuing their violence and abuse – in large part because they have attended a behaviour change programme.

Over 90% of victim-survivors who reported the abuser received a lighter sentence because they had attended a programme also reported the abuser continued the abuse and violence. All 14 of victim survivors who reported police dropped charges against the abuser because they had attended a programme also reported the abuser continued the abuse and violence. The decisions to drop sentences and charges due to SVP attendance, even as the abuser continues their abuse, means the abuser is not held accountable. 

The result is a further power imbalance between abusers (who can now operate with impunity thanks to the lack of system consequences) and victim-survivors (who have no recourse).

Overall, we conclude these victim-survivor insights show the system needs to change in order to:

•prioritise victim-survivor safety as a matter of course (before, during and after SVPs);

• always offer victim-survivors opportunities to report on abuser behaviour, and/or to receive information about the abuser or the SVP;

• ensure consequences for the abuser for non-attendance at mandated SVPs;

• monitor abusers on an ongoing basis;

• immediately stop offering abusers further opportunities to abuse (such as awarding care of children) based on fleeting SVP engagement, regardless of ongoing behaviour. The reliance of courts and state agencies on SVP engagement as a (misleading) proxy measure for behaviour change needs to be replaced with evidence-based assessment of risk and behaviour change, to ensure true accountability.

In addition, survey respondents reported that often the people around the abuser actively collude, enable and minimise violence, so extensive societal attitude campaigns are also needed.