Just across from the Alice Springs courthouse and up two flights of stairs, is an ordinary meeting room.They're everyday-looking, dressed in jeans and sneakers, as they sit in a semicircle in front of twin whiteboards.The ABC has been granted rare access to sit in on sessions like this. Inside the room, the conversations are raw and unfiltered. Some of them are hard to listen to."Everybody here wants to change, that's why we're here," the Arrernte man says.
There are stories of harassment, intimidation and graphic violence, as the men slowly begin to accept responsibility for how they've behaved. The men work on recognising their triggers. Common themes that come up are alcohol use and jealousy. Progress can take weeks, months, or even years. Some men are resistant to change.
"We're just one part of a whole solution to this … We've got to work with the courts, with the police, with everyone, around supporting women and children's safety and working with men to support them to make the changes that they actually need."What Nigel learns in the group is having an ongoing impact — he's now been out of prison for 13 months.
Vivian has also been attending the men's behaviour change program for domestic violence. He encourages other men to come along.Vivian wears an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle. He too has been in and out of prison on charges relating to domestic violence. He's new to the program but says it's already having a positive impact.
"I was trying to be 'the man', do my own stuff and not listen to anyone … That's it. That's how you get mixed up. And when your partner tells you, in a good way, not to drink or something like that, there's a good chance to change," Vivian says.For a long time, Nigel was convinced that life behind the razor-wire prison fence was his future.
"I was working in the kitchen. He came back just to see me. He came back and shook my hand, gave me a hug. We had a cup of tea and that, and he left.Nigel's wife, Cassandra, was often the target of his abuse, but over the years she continued to make the trip each weekend to Alice Springs Correctional Centre to visit him.
More than 60 per cent of people in prison in the Northern Territory are there on charges relating to domestic and family violence.You're seven times more likely to be killed by your partner here than anywhere else in the country. And if you're an Indigenous woman in the NT, you're 10 times more likely to be killed by your partner than if you're a non-Indigenous woman.Speak to Cassandra and you hear about a man once full of anger, who'd go out drinking and then get violent.
Brooke Fryer Domestic Violence Alice Springs Tangentyere Council Behaviour Change Rehabilitation Reform Prison Violence Against Women
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