“Very insidious”: Practitioner and Perpetrator Accounts of Technology-facilitated Domestic Violence

• In Event: Perpetration of Technology-facilitated Abuse: Emerging Frameworks, Methods and Evidence

Abstract

Knowledge about technology-facilitated abuse is growing but, to date, there has been little examination of the perspectives and practices of abusers. Addressing this deficit, this paper draws on interviews with Australian practitioners delivering Men’s Behaviour Change (also known as abuse or batterer intervention programs), and accounts of people who have perpetrated technology-facilitated domestic violence. The data provides insights into strategies to weaponize digital media and devices; forms of abuse and coercive control enacted; motives offered by perpetrators for their behaviour; critique of their narratives to deny, justify, minimise and excuse these practices; and challenges and opportunities to interrupt, disrupt and prevent this harm and domestic violence more broadly. Also outlined is an in-progress project that seeks to incorporate material relating to technology-facilitated abuse into abuse intervention programs and prompt empathy and behaviour change. This includes the creation of innovative activities - such as a ‘story completion model’ that seeks to overcome barriers to disclosing violence perpetration, including shame, normalisation of abuse, and concerns about social and legal repercussions. The potential of harnessing technology - specifically virtual reality - as a means to engage perpetrators and prompt recognition of the impacts of violence is also explored

Author

• Bridget Harris, Monash University