Police need hundreds more officers as domestic violence calls skyrocket​on February 17, 2025 at 10:29 am

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The murder of Brisbane woman Hannah Clarke and her three children also instigated a series of inquiries, reports and recommendations that generated widespread attention.

Prior said while Queensland police want to protect every victim possible, “the demand is outstripping the supply right now”, which is why he’s urgently calling for more external resources.

“In our blueprint we have called for the DV sector to be bolstered so they can help us with this scourge of domestic and family violence because it is not a problem that police can police their way out of.”

Police workforce numbers and workloads came under scrutiny in January when a woman in Kingston was allegedly set on fire in an incidence of domestic violence, on a weekend where 100 other domestic violence calls went unaddressed.

After the alleged attack, Premier David Crisafulli said police in Logan were under immense pressure, other stations had similar backlogs of domestic violence jobs, and many police were quitting amid “burnout, fatigue and the sense that they aren’t able to their job”.

A month earlier, Logan police officers had sounded the alarm, telling Nine News they were overworked and overstretched by a backlog of domestic violence complaints, some involving firearms.

In a statement, Queensland Police said a record number of recruits were training at their academies, including 1200 new police officers who would graduate in 2025. It expected 500 new officers would be deployed across Brisbane this year.

To meet DFV demands, QPS said it had established vulnerable persons units (VPUs) in every police district, along with 11 high-risk teams and operations that target high-risk DFV offenders. It said 114 specialised positions were dedicated to the VPUs.

Despite this, the service acknowledged policing was an “inherently challenging career” and identified fatigue and mental health as issues for its frontline workers.

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It also noted that Queenslanders were increasingly calling police with domestic and family violence complaints. In the previous financial year, police said, more than 175,000 calls had involved DFV.

Criminology expert Dr Jacqueline Drew said police officers experienced higher rates of burnout than other vocations, partly due to the nature of the work, but also because of unmanageable workloads.

“On average, the general population across their entire lifetime will experience 1.5 to 2 traumatic events,” Drew said.

“Some research shows that on average, a law enforcement officer will experience almost 200 critical incidents or traumas across their career … in some high-risk areas that could be in a week.”

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Drew agreed that DFV reporting compounds many of the stressors already facing officers: “Those jobs in particular can cause a level of emotional exhaustion for police as well”.

She said while the psychological factors leading to burnout are well known, more is now understood about the impact of organisational and operational pressures, such as shift work, fatigue, unmanageable workloads, community attitudes and police culture.

“Over the years, policing has become a more complex job, and it has more scrutiny than every before,” she said.

“In terms of domestic and family violence, police are part of the solution, but not the entire solution.”

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