This post, authored byBettina Arndt, is republished with permission fromThe Daily Sceptic
Last Christmas, one of Australia’s major suicide prevention groups had a call from a very distressed suicidal man. The counsellor did his best to support him and arranged to keep in touch. But there was no answer to the counsellor’s follow up calls. Following the organisation’s duty of care rules, the counsellor made a call to NSW police, fearing the man was at imminent risk of harm.
The police reaction was shocking. “Is there a female partner who could be at risk? Is he likely to hurt her,” asked the police officer, whose immediate concern was not checking on the man in crisis but rather assessing the risk that the suicidal man could be violent.
Welcome to the latest triumph of feminist policy innovation.
A system that looks at the man standing on the edge of the abyss — the group dying by suicide at three times the rate of women — and decides the most urgent question to ask is not ‘How do we save you?’ but ‘Have you been hurting women?’
It is a policy of breathtaking intellectual dishonesty and moral inversion.
It all started in Victoria but could become official policy across the country The 2021 Victorian GovernmentMARAM Framework Documentis prescribed for over 6,000 organisations and approximately 392,000 professionals in Victoria, including those involved in mental health, drugs and alcohol support, homelessness, family and health services.
The framework is based on the premise that significant numbers of men who commit suicide each year have a history of using family violence. Responding to suicide risk “should consider the risk of the person using violence to themselves, their family and community”, explains the document.
The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) haspusheda similar line, recommending screening male clients for domestic violence perpetration in mental health, alcohol and drug and crisis services – precisely the settings where suicidal men often present.
And what happens if they identify a suicidal perpetrator? When a suicidal man reaches out for help and is identified (or merely suspected) as a potential perpetrator, MARAM recommends “keeping perpetrators in view”.
Source: modernity
