Men's Behaviour Change Programs — Australia's Evaluated but Contested Response to Domestic Violence Perpetrators

Men's Behaviour Change Programs (MBCPs) are group-based interventions for men who have used domestic, family and sexual violence, used in various forms across Australia since the 1980s. Most participants are referred through courts, community corrections or child protection; programmes are typically hybrid models drawing on the Duluth model, cognitive behavioural therapy and narrative therapy.
A February 2025 evidence brief from Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety (ANROWS) and No to Violence, synthesising peer-reviewed and grey literature, describes the evidence on effectiveness as "mixed": there is no national minimum dataset on participation, and completion is not a reliable indicator of behaviour change. Victoria's Family Violence Reform Implementation Monitor found the state's funded MBCP places — the highest per capita of any Australian jurisdiction — cover only around 10% of the recorded domestic and family violence perpetrator population. Australian evaluations (Taylor et al., 2020; Meyer et al., 2021) reported positive incremental outcomes for communication and reduced physical violence.
An ANROWS-funded social-return-on-investment study (Chung, Upton-Davis et al., 2020) modelled five hypothetical scenarios in Western Australia and found direct government savings from a single successful intervention as high as AUD 2.1 million, and broader savings — including to victims/survivors and employers — as high as AUD 6.7 million (2019 estimates), against the cost of delivering an MBCP. The study found a positive return even in scenarios with a low probability of success, though it stresses MBCPs are only one part of a wider perpetrator-accountability system, not a standalone solution.

Read the full analysis: https://www.anrows.org.au/publication/the-role-of-mens-behaviour-change-programs-dfsv/