Novel Partnerships for Tackling Wicked Problems for Corrections - Can a Health-Based Approach be Applied to Reducing Domestic Violence Reoffending (PID284)

1.30pm – 2pm GMT, 27 October 2026 ‐ 30 mins

Room: Meeting Room 2B (Level 3)

Parallel Workshops

Reducing domestic and family violent reoffending are significant challenges for corrections that have proven to be resistant to traditional approaches that rely on the deterrent effects of sentences and cognitive-behavioral interventions. Similarly, community approaches relying on men's behaviour change programs lack evidence of efficacy. Treatment with a common antidepressant (sertraline) was shown to successfully reduce domestic violence reoffending in a sample of men with histories of convictions for violence and who scored highly on an impulsivity screener. Evidence was generated based on a double-blind placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial. The trial took over a decade to complete and involved a multidisciplinary team from the health, corrections, and academic sectors.

Speakers

Tony Butler PhD

Program Head, Justice Health Research Program, University of New South Wales, Australia

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Tony Butler PhD

Program Head, Justice Health Research Program, University of New South Wales, Australia

Over the past 25 years Tony has conducted numerous projects in the justice health area and currently heads the Justice Health Research Program, UNSW, School of Population Health. His work has involved developing two national offender health data collections: the National Prison Entrants Bloodborne Virus Survey, and the Prisoner Health Information Collection. Current research includes examining the link psychosis and offending, the role of traumatic brain injury in offending, a pharmacotherapy-based RCT (ReINVEST) for impulsive-violent offenders, evaluating an intervention (Beyond Violence) for women who use violence, and text mining police domestic violence event narratives. He leads an NHMRC-funded Centre of Research Excellence in Violence Perpetration and convenes two teaching electives at UNSW, “Public Health and Corrections” and “Inside the Criminal Mind”.