My PhD thesis is entitled Intimate Partner Violence: the Impact of Discourse on a Coordinated Response. 

The nature of domestic violence service provision has been changing in recent years as a result of the shift towards criminalisation and multi-agency responses. Tasmania introduced criminal justice legislation and an associated policy framework to address intimate partner violence in 2004, which was recognised as best practice. My research explores the implementation of criminalisation by various components of the criminal justice system.      My thesis thus provides an Australian context to contemporary international debate on the criminalisation of intimate partner violence. 

The research demonstrates that professional ideologies and organisational discourses influence the implementation of multi-agency responses to intimate partner violence.  Using a grounded theory approach with semi-structured interviews and field observations, I explored the discourses employed by police, the legal fraternity and victim advocates to identify three major categories.   These are the ‘justice’ discourse; the ‘risk management’ discourse; and the ‘genuine victim’ discourse. 

The research introduces the work of Maarten Hajer into sociology and criminology via an exploration of Hajer's concepts of discourse institutionalisation and discourse coalitions.  One contribution this thesis makes to the family violence literature is the demonstration that discursive and material practices around justice, risk management and victimisation both converge and diverge to a degree between the government agencies involved in a particular discourse coalition; providing insights on the way in which agents construct the cultural conditions that support or countervail an attempt to manifest widespread social change through legislation. I found that while the both the justice discourse and the risk management discourse satisfy the conditions for discourse institutionalisation, the power of the genuine victim discourse is more subtle and rhizomatic and thus achieves significant influence through its insinuation into the other two discourses - effectively providing a gatekeeping mechanism for access to justice. 

In addition to the findings around discourses, the research has also highlighted issues relating to the implementation of the Safe at Home policy in Tasmania.  My results suggest that the risk framework as practiced by police service is not universally accepted by all members of the policy network around intimate partner violence.  Furthermore, the way in which victims are constructed by police and legal professionals in combination with additional ideological discourses around evidence and legal processes, may in fact compromise victim safety.