Australian-first pilot targets ‘fixated grievance’ linked to family violence homicide and terrorism

An Australian-first research project aims to adapt strategies used to identify and stop crimes, such as lone-actor terror attacks, for the prevention of family and intimate partner homicide.

The Fixated Grievance Perpetrator Intervention Pilot (FGPIP), funded by the Australian Government and led by Swinburne University of Technology, will bring together leading experts in forensic psychology and psychiatry, criminology, policing, courts, victim support and perpetrator intervention.

The project will focus on identifying and responding to people who have an intense and excessive preoccupation with a perceived injustice.

This behaviour, known as ‘fixated grievance’, has been observed among those who carry out lone-actor violent attacks, such as school shootings or mass killings.

Chief Investigator and Swinburne Professor of Clinical and Forensic Psychology, Professor Troy McEwan, says similar fixated grievances may contribute to some cases of domestic and family violence, driving stalking, controlling behaviour and, in rare cases, lethal violence.

“These people really feel they have been wronged, and that they are owed something by their partner or ex, and potentially by the wider community or society,” Professor McEwan says.

“When this sense of grievance is attached to an abnormally intense fixation, it can combine with other factors to become a catalyst for extreme violence.”

Professor McEwan says it is unclear how common such fixated grievances are among those perpetrating family violence, and one goal of the project is to better understand the size of the issue.

“One of the challenges with this group is that they are poorly identified. We only seem to recognise them after a homicide, but it’s very possible that these kinds of fixated grievances are actually quite common in people using family or intimate partner violence.”

The overall goal of the project is to develop a model for a multi-agency threat assessment response that can help identify such cases earlier.

“The goal is to be able to link them in with prevention strategies, heading off severe violence before it happens,” Professor McEwan says.

The pilot will be led by Swinburn’s Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science and the Australian National University’s Centre for Social Policy Research, along with specialists from the University of Adelaide and practice experts.