Stopping Violence Programmes Report – The Backbone Collective

This report is aptly called “Just Ticking the box”, although just a small cohort of victims voices were obtained, they tell a story we continue to hear: New reports on stopping-violence programmes - This report is well worth a read.

I would also like to clearly state that there are some wonderful, effective programmes across the motu, and this post is not intended in anyway to devalue the incredible work some people are doing in the critical space of supporting our predominant aggressors.

I truly believe and say it every day – the sooner we better serve those that perpetrate harm, the sooner we begin to break cycles of family violence. Otherwise we will continue to get primary victims free, and then the predominant aggressor pops up with another partner and new step children – and so the cycle begins again.  If we want to break cycles, we have to stop the abuse from occurring in the first place.

As the Vine website state below:

In May 2026, the Backbone Collective released their report, Just ticking the box: victim-survivor insights into the uses and abuses of stopping-violence programmes in Aotearoa New Zealand. It aims to fill the existing knowledge gap in current evaluations of stopping violence programmes (SVPs) throughout Aotearoa. Existing SVP models largely use recidivism (as identified by the police or courts) and abuser self-reporting as measures of efficacy, despite the unreliable and potentially misleading nature of these measures.

Backbone Collective co-founder Deborah Mackenzie told Stuff that the research revealed an uncomfortable paradox:

“Abusers were actually benefiting from being referred to these programmes far more than victim-survivors were benefiting in terms of their safety.”

Family violence researcher Dr Neville Robertson said that women-centred evaluations of stopping violence programmes were rare:

“And that is the gold standard, as far as I’m concerned.”

The report gathered anonymous online survey responses from 471 women and gender-diverse survivors (22% were Māori) throughout Aotearoa. 172 reported they had an abuser who attended an SVP (the “SVP cohort”). SVP cohort respondents were asked about their experiences of, and insights about, their abusers attending SVPs and the consequences. All respondents were asked about their ideas, hopes and suggestions for behaviour-change/stopping-violence activities.