Nonfatal Strangulation During Domestic Violence Events in New South Wales: Prevalence and Characteristics Using Text Mining Study of Police Narratives

Nonfatal strangulation (NFS) is a common form of domestic violence (DV) that frequently leaves no visible signs of injury and can be a portent for future fatality. A validated text mining approach was used to analyze a police dataset of 182,949 DV events for the presence of NFS. Results confirmed NFS within intimate partner relationships is a gendered form of violence. The presence of injury and/or other (non-NFS) forms of physical abuse, emotional/verbal/social abuse, and the perpetrator threatening to kill the victim, were associated with significantly higher odds of NFS perpetration. Police data contain rich information that can be accessed using automated methodologies such as text mining to add to our understanding of this pressing public health issue.

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Prevalence of Mental Illnesses in Domestic Violence Police Records: Text Mining Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.23725 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

George Karystianis ◽

Annabeth Simpson ◽

Armita Adily ◽

Peter Schofield ◽

David Greenberg ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Domestic Violence ◽

Mental Illness ◽

Text Mining ◽

New South ◽

Mental Illnesses ◽

Free Text ◽

South Wales ◽

Police Records ◽

Health Justice ◽

Improve Health

BACKGROUND The New South Wales Police Force (NSWPF) records details of significant numbers of domestic violence (DV) events they attend each year as both structured quantitative data and unstructured free text. Accessing information contained in the free text such as the victim’s and persons of interest (POI's) mental health status could be useful in the better management of DV events attended by the police and thus improve health, justice, and social outcomes. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study is to present the prevalence of extracted mental illness mentions for POIs and victims in police-recorded DV events. METHODS We applied a knowledge-driven text mining method to recognize mental illness mentions for victims and POIs from police-recorded DV events. RESULTS In 416,441 police-recorded DV events with single POIs and single victims, we identified 64,587 events (15.51%) with at least one mental illness mention versus 4295 (1.03%) recorded in the structured fixed fields. Two-thirds (67,582/85,880, 78.69%) of mental illnesses were associated with POIs versus 21.30% (18,298/85,880) with victims; depression was the most common condition in both victims (2822/12,589, 22.42%) and POIs (7496/39,269, 19.01%). Mental illnesses were most common among POIs aged 0-14 years (623/1612, 38.65%) and in victims aged over 65 years (1227/22,873, 5.36%). CONCLUSIONS A wealth of mental illness information exists within police-recorded DV events that can be extracted using text mining. The results showed mood-related illnesses were the most common in both victims and POIs. Further investigation is required to determine the reliability of the mental illness mentions against sources of diagnostic information.

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Automatic Extraction of Mental Health Disorders From Domestic Violence Police Narratives: Text Mining Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.11548 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

George Karystianis ◽

Armita Adily ◽

Peter Schofield ◽

Lee Knight ◽

Clara Galdon ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Domestic Violence ◽

Text Mining ◽

Large Scale ◽

New South ◽

New South Wales ◽

Mental Health Disorders ◽

Free Text ◽

South Wales ◽

Health Disorders

BACKGROUND Vast numbers of domestic violence (DV) incidents are attended by the New South Wales Police Force each year in New South Wales and recorded as both structured quantitative data and unstructured free text in the WebCOPS (Web-based interface for the Computerised Operational Policing System) database regarding the details of the incident, the victim, and person of interest (POI). Although the structured data are used for reporting purposes, the free text remains untapped for DV reporting and surveillance purposes. OBJECTIVE In this paper, we explore whether text mining can automatically identify mental health disorders from this unstructured text. METHODS We used a training set of 200 DV recorded events to design a knowledge-driven approach based on lexical patterns in text suggesting mental health disorders for POIs and victims. RESULTS The precision returned from an evaluation set of 100 DV events was 97.5% and 87.1% for mental health disorders related to POIs and victims, respectively. After applying our approach to a large-scale corpus of almost a half million DV events, we identified 77,995 events (15.83%) that mentioned mental health disorders, with 76.96% (60,032/77,995) of those linked to POIs versus 16.47% (12,852/77,995) for the victims and 6.55% (5111/77,995) for both. Depression was the most common mental health disorder mentioned in both victims (22.30%, 3258) and POIs (18.73%, 8918), followed by alcohol abuse for POIs (12.24%, 5829) and various anxiety disorders (eg, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder) for victims (11.43%, 1671). CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that text mining can automatically extract targeted information from police-recorded DV events to support further public health research into the nexus between mental health disorders and DV.

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Domestic violence events involving autism: a text mining study of police records in New South Wales, 2005-2016

Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders ◽

10.1016/j.rasd.2020.101634 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 78 ◽

pp. 101634

Author(s):

Ye In Hwang ◽

Lidan Zheng ◽

George Karystianis ◽

Vicki Gibbs ◽

Kym Sharp ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Domestic Violence ◽

Text Mining ◽

New South ◽

New South Wales ◽

South Wales ◽

Police Records

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Prevalence of Mental Illnesses in Domestic Violence Police Records: Text Mining Study

Journal of Medical Internet Research ◽

10.2196/23725 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 22 (12) ◽

pp. e23725

Author(s):

George Karystianis ◽

Annabeth Simpson ◽

Armita Adily ◽

Peter Schofield ◽

David Greenberg ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Domestic Violence ◽

Mental Illness ◽

Text Mining ◽

New South ◽

Mental Illnesses ◽

Free Text ◽

South Wales ◽

Police Records ◽

Health Justice ◽

Improve Health

Background The New South Wales Police Force (NSWPF) records details of significant numbers of domestic violence (DV) events they attend each year as both structured quantitative data and unstructured free text. Accessing information contained in the free text such as the victim’s and persons of interest (POI's) mental health status could be useful in the better management of DV events attended by the police and thus improve health, justice, and social outcomes. Objective The aim of this study is to present the prevalence of extracted mental illness mentions for POIs and victims in police-recorded DV events. Methods We applied a knowledge-driven text mining method to recognize mental illness mentions for victims and POIs from police-recorded DV events. Results In 416,441 police-recorded DV events with single POIs and single victims, we identified 64,587 events (15.51%) with at least one mental illness mention versus 4295 (1.03%) recorded in the structured fixed fields. Two-thirds (67,582/85,880, 78.69%) of mental illnesses were associated with POIs versus 21.30% (18,298/85,880) with victims; depression was the most common condition in both victims (2822/12,589, 22.42%) and POIs (7496/39,269, 19.01%). Mental illnesses were most common among POIs aged 0-14 years (623/1612, 38.65%) and in victims aged over 65 years (1227/22,873, 5.36%). Conclusions A wealth of mental illness information exists within police-recorded DV events that can be extracted using text mining. The results showed mood-related illnesses were the most common in both victims and POIs. Further investigation is required to determine the reliability of the mental illness mentions against sources of diagnostic information.

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Beyond intimate partner relationships: utilising domestic homicide reviews to prevent adult family domestic homicide

Journal of Gender-Based Violence ◽

10.1332/239868021x16316184865237 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Kelly Bracewell ◽

Cassandra Jones ◽

Alina Haines-Delmont ◽

Elaine Craig ◽

Joy Duxbury ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Domestic Violence ◽

Social Care ◽

Contextual Factors ◽

Intimate Partner ◽

Domestic Homicide ◽

Intimate Partner Relationships ◽

Social Structural ◽

Partner Relationships ◽

Domestic Violence And Abuse

Increasing evidence documents domestic violence and abuse (DVA) and domestic homicide of adults killed by a relative in non-intimate partner relationships. Most literature focuses on intimate partner violence and homicide, yet non-intimate partner homicides form a substantial but neglected minority of domestic homicides. This article addresses this gap by presenting an analysis from 66 domestic homicide reviews (DHRs) in England and Wales where the victim and perpetrator were related, such as parent and adult child. Intimate partner homicides are excluded. These 66 DHRs were a sub-sample drawn from a larger study examining 317 DHRs in England and Wales.The article contributes towards greater understanding of the prevalence, context and characteristics of adult family homicide (AFH). Analysis revealed five interlinked precursors to AFH: mental health and substance/alcohol misuse, criminal history, childhood trauma, economic factors and care dynamics. Findings indicate that, given their contact with both victims and perpetrators, criminal justice agencies, adult social care and health agencies, particularly mental health services, are ideally placed to identify important risk and contextual factors. Understanding of DVA needs to extend to include adult family violence. Risk assessments need to be cognisant of the complex dynamics of AFH and must consider social-structural and relational-contextual factors. Key messages <ol><li>Understanding of domestic violence and abuse needs to include adult family violence.</li> <li>Risks and dynamics of adult family homicide are complex and must consider social-structural and relational-contextual factors.</li> <li>Criminal justice agencies, social care, substance misuse and mental health services provide opportunities for prevention.</li></ol>

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‘A life barely half lived’: domestic abuse and sexual violence practitioners’ experiences and perceptions of providing care to survivors of non-physical abuse within intimate partner relationships

Journal of Gender-Based Violence ◽

10.1332/239868020x16068765721643 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Gemma Halliwell ◽

Jennifer Daw ◽

Susie Hay ◽

Sandi Dheensa ◽

Suzanne Jacob

Keyword(s):

Domestic Violence ◽

Sexual Violence ◽

Physical Abuse ◽

Child Protection ◽

Help Seeking ◽

Intimate Partner ◽

Health And Wellbeing ◽

Intimate Partner Relationships ◽

Partner Relationships ◽

Domestic Violence And Abuse

Non-physically abusive acts (underpinned by coercive control) are more prevalent than physical or sexual violence within intimate partner relationships. Yet, little is known about survivors’ help-seeking journeys or the efficacy of existing services in addressing this need. We present findings from a survey of UK-based domestic violence and abuse (DVA) and sexual violence (SV) practitioners (n = 279) exploring experiences of providing care to women with histories of non-physical abuse. Our findings suggest that survivors often seek help for non-physical abuse from specialist DVA and SV services, but wider professional agencies often overlook the severity of this experience of abuse in the absence of physical or sexual violence. The impacts of non-physical abuse on survivors’ health and wellbeing are severe and there are multiple barriers to support, particularly within the criminal justice system. Our findings highlight the urgent need to increase public and professional awareness of non-physical abuse and its consequences for training of wider agencies (for example, police, child protection, legal services) and for sustainable funding that increases long-term support options for survivors and their children. Key messages <ul><li>Survivors of domestic violence and abuse often seek help for non-physical abuse, but professionals can misidentify the severity of this experience.</li> <li>The impacts of non-physical abuse on survivors’ health and wellbeing are severe, creating barriers to accessing support.</li> <li>There is a need to increase public and professional awareness of non-physical abuse and its consequences.</li></ul>

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