8 Mar 2016 | Family Violence Death Review Committee
The Family Violence Death Review Committee (the FVDRC) welcomes comments by Justice Minister Amy Adams supporting efforts to make non-fatal strangulation a specific crime.
In its Fourth Annual Report[1] published in 2014 the FVDRC called for the Government to consider an amendment to the Crimes Act 1961 to include non-fatal strangulation as a separate crime.
"Non-fatal strangulation is extremely dangerous and has a significant physical and psychological impact on victims. There is a fine line between a non-fatal and a fatal strangulation," says the FVDRC’s chair Associate Professor Julia Tolmie.
"A San Diego study[2] found most abusers do not strangle to kill, they strangle to show they can kill. Strangulation is often present in cases we review, either in the history of a victim’s abuse or as part of the death event."
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