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Associate Professor Danielle Tyson

Associate Professor Danielle Tyson is Associate Professor in Criminology in the School of Social Sciences at Deakin University and a graduate of La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia (BA, Hons in Legal Studies) and the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (PhD in Criminology).  Prior to Deakin, she taught at Criminology at Monash University (2007 – 2016), the University of Brighton, England (2002-2003), and the University of Melbourne (2004 – 2006) and La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia (2007). She has published and presented papers at conferences nationally and overseas on the intersection of gender based violence and the legal system; domestic homicide; homicide law reform; and filicide (the killing of children by a parent or caregiver). In 2010, she was a visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence (#csslrv) at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada (go to: www.violenceresearch.ca).

Danielle's research interests include gendered violence; domestic homicide; defences to homicide; criminal law reform; social context/family violence evidence; filicide; feminist theory and qualitative research methods. Her approach to research is both victim-survivor-centred and interdisciplinary. Her research develops and builds collaborations with key stakeholders, experts and community advocates in the field to deliver a sound evidence base that can both inform and improve social and legal policy responses and findings that are relevant and have impact.

Dr Tyson is Co-Director of the Monash Deakin Universities Filicide Research Hub and Co-Founder and Member of the Deakin Network Against Gendered Violence. She is also Co-Facilitator of the bi-annual international conference series Addressing Filicide (previously held at the Monash Prato Centre, Italy, in 2013, 2015, 2017 and in 2019, the Addressing Filicide conference was held at Deakin University Downtown in the heart of Melbourne, Australia for the first time. Click here to access the conference website.

Current projects:

  • Successful Strategies for Improving Access to Justice for Women Who Kill Their Abusers, with Professor Bronwyn Naylor OAM (Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT) and Associate Professor Stella Tarrant (School of Law, University of Western Australia). In February 2023, the research team received funding from the 2023 Academy of Social Sciences Australia (ASSA) to host an international workshop at Deakin Downtown (and online). The workshop drew together practitioners (practising lawyers, family violence experts, psychologists and psychiatrists) and researchers from a range of disciplines nationally and internationally including criminology, law, socio-legal studies, gender studies, Māori health and Indigenous studies and education, in order to identify a diverse range of strategies aimed at improving access to justice for women who use fatal force against their abusive partners. 
  • Improving Legal Responses to Intimate Partner Homicide, 2005 – 2023, with Professor Bronwyn Naylor OAM (Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT). This research examines the use of family violence evidence / social framework evidence in the prosecutions of men and women who kill an intimate partner in Australia.
  • Filicide: An exploration of the vulnerability of victims, risk factors and the circumstances of child deaths in Victoria, 2009 – 2020,  The Monash-Deakin Filicide Research Hub (Professor Thea Brown, Dr Paula Fernandez Arias, Social Work, Monash University and Associate Professor Danielle Tyson, Deakin University), in collaboration with Lauren Bedggood, Phoebe Marshall and Heba Nassar from the Victorian Systemic Review of Family Violence Deaths (VSRFVD) at the Coroners Court of Victoria, has commenced a new study on filicide in Victoria. The study will examine issues of victim vulnerability, risk factors associated with perpetrators and the role of helping services and their relationship to perpetrators and victims’ families and in developing strategies for intervention and prevention. 

Completed funded projects:

  • Police body-worn camera technology in response to domestic and family violence: a national study of victim-survivor perspectives and experiences, with lead CI Dr Mary Iliadis (Deakin University), Dr Bridget Harris (Queensland University of Technology), Associate Professor Asher Flynn (Monash University), Dr Zarina Vakhitova (Monash University) (funded by the Criminology Research Council (CRG 35/20-21, $67,347.75) Australian Institute of Criminology).
  • Filicide in Australia, 2000 – 2012: A National Report (with Professor Thea Brown, Dr Paula Fernandez Arias, Social Work, Monash University; Dr Adam Tomison, Samantha Lyneham, Samantha Bricknell and Willow Bryant, Australian Institute of Criminology). This project was funded by the Criminal Research Council (CRG 52/14-15).
  • (2013-2016) Improving Legal Responses to Intimate Partner Homicide (with Associate Professor Bronwyn Naylor, Faculty of Law, Monash University; Dr Debbie Kirkwood and Mandy McKenzie, Domestic Violence Resource Centre Victoria). This project was funded by the Legal Services Board Victoria (2013-MG019).
  • 2013 Youth, Mobile Technologies and Gender Politics: Young People’s Beliefs About Gender and Ethical Use of Communication Technologies, Monash University Faculty of Arts Research Project Fund Grant Program (Dr Danielle Tyson, Criminology; Dr Amy Dobson, Centre for Women’s Studies and Gender Research and Dr Mary Louise Rasmussen, Faculty of Education).
  • 2012-2013 Blood on Whose Hands II: The Killing of Women and Children in Australia, Victorian Women’s Trust 2010/11 General Grants Program.
  • 2009-2010 Provision of Research into Family Violence Since the 2006 Family Law Reforms, Attorney General’s Department Tender. (Professor T Brown, Dr B Batagol, Dr A Sifris and Dr D Tyson, Monash University. Associate Professor D Bagshaw, Dr S Wendt, Dr E McInness and Dr A Campbell, University of South Australia. Dr B Tinning, James Cook University and Associate Professor C Power, Flinders University). Click here for a summary of the findings of the Final Report.
  • 2009 Mental Health, Filicide and Parental Separation and Divorce, Victoria 1997-2007: The Need for Intervention and a Better Coordinated Approach, Cross-Faculty Funded Project, Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Medicine, Monash University. (Professor Thea Brown, Social Work, Monash University and Dr D Tyson, Criminology, Monash University).
  • 2008: Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth national competitive seed-funding grant for ‘The wellbeing of children following parental separation and divorce’. The project was led by Professor Thea Brown, Department of Social Work, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University – http://www.med.monash.edu.au/childwellbeingrc/

Publications – books:

Publications – journal articles, book chapters and research reports:

  • Iliadis, M., Harris, B., Vakhitova, Z., Flynn, A. and Tyson, D. (2023) Police body-worn cameras as a response to domestic and family violence: Practitioner insights into the consequences for victim-survivors, Violence Against Womenhttps://doi.org/10.1177/10778012231185541 
  • Iliadis, M., Vakhitova, Z., Harris, B., Tyson, D. and Flynn, A. (2022) The merits and risks of body-worn camera footage in domestic and family violence incidents and legal proceedings: a study of police perceptions and experiences, Policing and Society, 33(2), 170-186, http://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2022.2082421   
  • Iliadis, M., Vakhitova, Z., Harris, B., Tyson, D. and Flynn, A. (2022) Police body-worn cameras in response to domestic and family violence: a study of police perceptions and experiences, 417-439, The Palgrave Handbook of Gendered Violence and Technology, London, England
  • Russell, E. K., Carlton, B., and Tyson, D. (2021). ‘It’s a Gendered Issue, 100 Per Cent’: How Tough Bail Laws Entrench Gender and Racial Inequality and Social Disadvantage. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy10(3), 107-121. https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.1882
  • Russell, E., Carlton, B. and Tyson, D. (2022) ‘Carceral Churn: A Sensorial Ethnography of the Bail and Remand Court’, Punishment & Society, 24(2), 151-169 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1462474520967566 (Online first 28/10/2020)
  • Brown, T., Tyson, D. and Fernandez Arias, P. (2020) ‘Filicide: The Australian Story’, Children Australia, Vol.45, Special Issue 4: Special Issue: Poverty and Child Abuse , December 2020 , 279 – 28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/cha.2020.47
  • Tyson, D. (2020) ‘Coercive Control and Intimate Partner Homicide’ in Marilyn McMahon and Paul McGorrery (Eds.) Criminalising Coercive Control: Family Violence and the Criminal Law, Springer Singapore, 73-90.
  • Ulbrick, M., Flynn, A. and Tyson, D. (2019) ‘An Argument for Diminished Culpability Manslaughter: Responding to Gaps in Australian Homicide Law’, Monash University Law Review, Vol. 45(1), 201-231 (Online first 12/11/2019)
  • Brown, T., Lyneham, S., Bryant, W., Bricknell, S., Tomison, A., Tyson D. and Fernandez Arias, P. (2019) Filicide in Australia, 2000-2012: A National Report, Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.
  • Brown, T., Bricknell, S., Bryant, W., Lyneham, S., Tyson D. and Fernandez Arias, P. (2019) Filicide Offenders Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice No. 568. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology.
  • Tyson, D. and Naylor, B. (2019) ‘Reforming Defences to Murder: An Australian case study’ in Howe, A. (Ed.), Alaattinoğlu, D. (Ed.). Contesting Femicide: Feminism and the Power of Law Revisited. London: Routledge, 27-39.
  • Brown, T., Tyson, D. and Fernandez Arias, P. (2018) ‘Filicide in Australia’ in Thea Brown, Danielle Tyson and Paula Fernandez Arias (Eds.) When Parents Kill Children: Understanding Filicide, Palgrave MacMillan, 145-167.
  • Bruton, C. and Tyson, D. (2018) ‘Leaving violent men: A study of women’s experiences of separation in Victoria, Australia’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, Vol. Vol. 51, 339-354.
  • Naylor, B. and Tyson, D. (2017) ‘Reforming defences to homicide in Victoria: Another attempt to address the gender question’, International Journal of Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, Vol. 6(3), 72-87.
  • Tyson, D., Kirkwood, D., McKenzie, M. and Naylor, B. (2017) ‘New research: family violence not always recognised in intimate partner homicides’, Law Institute Journalhttps://www.liv.asn.au/Staying-Informed/LIJ/LIJ/May-2017/Intimate-partner-homicides
  • Little , J. and Tyson, D. (online May 2017) “Filicide in Australian Media and Culture.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Crime and Criminal Justice; Crime, Media, and Popular Culture. Michelle Brown. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Hunter, R. and Tyson, D. (2017) ‘Justice Betty King: A Study of Feminist Judging in Action’, University of New South Wales Law JournalThemed Issue: The Individual Judge, Vol. 40(2), pp. 778-805.
  • Hunter, R. and Tyson, D. (2017) ‘The Implementation of Feminist Reforms: The Case of Post-Provocation Sentencing’, Social & Legal Studies, Vol. 26(2) April 2017, pp. 129-165.
  • Ulbrick, M., Flynn, A. and Tyson, D. (2016) ‘The Abolition of Defensive Homicide: A Step Towards Populist Punitivism at the Expense of Mentally Impaired Offenders’, Melbourne University Law Review, Vol 40(1), pp. 324-370.
  • Tyson, D., Kirkwood, D. and McKenzie, (2016) ‘Family Violence in Domestic Homicides: A Case Study of Women Who Killed Intimate Partners Post-Legislative Reform in Victoria’, Violence Against Women, Vol 23(5), pp. 559-583.
  • Tyson, D., Kirkwood, D., McKenzie, M. and Naylor, B. (2015) ‘The Effects of the 2005 Reforms on Legal Responses to Women Who Kill Intimate Partners’ in K. Fitz-Gibbon and A. Freiberg (Eds.)  Homicide Law Reform in Victoria: Prospect and Retrospect, The Federation Press: Leichhardt, pp. 76-94.
  • Fitz-Gibbon, K., Tyson, D., and McCulloch, J. (2014) ‘R v Middendorp (Justicia J)‘ in Heather Douglas, Francesca Bartlett, Trish Luker and Rosemary Hunter (Eds, 1st edition) The Australian Feminist Judgments Project: Righting and Re-writing Law,  Hart Publishing: Oxford, pp. 329-339.
  • Brown, T., Tyson, D., and Fernandez Arias, P. (2014) Guest Editors: Themed Issue on Filicide, ‘Filicide: Recasting Research and Intervention’, Child Abuse Review, Vol 23(2), pp. 75-78.
  • Brown, T., Tyson, D., and Fernandez Arias, P. (2014) Guest Editors: Themed Issue on Filicide, ‘Filicide and Parental Separation and Divorce’, Child Abuse Review, Vol 23(2), pp. 79-88.
  • Crofts, T., and Tyson, D. (2013) ‘Homicide Law Reform in Australia: Improving Access of Women Who Kill Their Abusers to Defences’, Monash University Law Review, Vol 39(3), pp. 864-893.
  • Brown, T. and Tyson, D. (2012) ‘An Abominable Crime: Filicide in the Context of Parental Separation and Divorce’, Children Australia, Vol 37(4), December, pp. 151-160.
  • Tyson, D. (2011) ‘Victoria’s New Homicide Laws: Provocative Reforms or More Women “Asking For It”?’, Current Issues in Criminal Justice, Vol 23(2), pp. 203-235.
  • Brown, T., Bagshaw, D., Batagol, B., Wendt, S., Campbell, A., McInnes, E., Tinning, B., Sifris, A., Tyson, D., Baker, J., Fernandez Arias, P. (2011) ‘Family Violence: Parents and Children’s Experiences of Violence both Before and After the 2006 Family Law Reforms’, Australian Family Lawyer, Vol 22(1), pp. 11-18.
  • Bagshaw, D., Brown, T., Wendt, S., Campbell, A., McInnes, E., Tinning, B., Batagol, B., Sifris, A., Tyson, D., Baker, J., Fernandez Arias, P. (2010) ‘The Effect of Family Violence on Post-Separation Parenting Arrangements. The Experiences and Views of Children and Adults from Families who Separated Post-1995 and Post-2006′, Family Matters, No.86, pp. 35-47
  • Tyson, D. (2009) ‘Questions of Guilt and Innocence in the Victorian Criminal Trial of Robert Farquharson and the Fact Before Theory Internet Campaign’, Current Issues in Criminal JusticeVol. 21(2), pp. 181-205.
  • Tyson, D. (2007) ‘Rewriting the Event of Murder: Provocation, Automatism and the Law’s Use of a Narrative of Insult, Law/Text/Culture, Vol 11, pp. 286-317.
  • Tyson, D. (2006) ‘The Death of a Defence: Reflections on Provocation’s Afterlife’, Refereed full written paper in proceedings of PASSAGES: law, aesthetics, politics, 13-14 July 2006, Melbourne, Australia.
  • Tyson, D. (2003) (PhD Abstract) ‘Trials of the Voice’, The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law: Forensic Linguistics, Vol 10(1), pp. 163-66.
  • Tyson, D. (1999) ‘Asking For It’: An Anatomy of Provocation’, Australian Feminist Law Journal, Vol 13(2), September, pp. 66-86.
  • Tyson, D. (1997) ‘Angry Men, Feminist Practice and the Role of the Support Worker’, Australian Feminist Law Journal, Vol 9(2), September, pp. 159-71.
  • Tyson, D (1997) ‘Interrogating the Scene of Gang Rape and Murder in the Film Blackrock: A Crime of the Imagination?’, Protocol: Journal of Law and Social Justice, Vol 1(2), October, pp. 35-45.

Research reports and submissions to government:

Select National and International Conference Papers

  • 2019 ‘Expert evidence of domestic violence in cases of women who kill abusive partners, Victoria, Australia 2005 – 2018’, (with Professor Bronwyn Naylor), Crime in the Intimate Sphere: Issues in Evidence Workshop, Supreme Court of Queensland, Brisbane, 5-6 Dec 2019. 
  • 2019 ‘Post-Provocation Sentencing in Domestic Homicides: The Role of Mental Impairment in Defence Narratives‘ (with Professor Rosemary Hunter), Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand, Southern Cross University, School of Law and Justice, 2-7 Dec 2019.
  • 2018 ‘Feminist Judging or Just ‘Good’ Judging? The Case of Post-Provocation Sentencing’, (with Professor Rosemary Hunter), Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand Conference: Inclusion, Exclusion and Democracy, University of Wollongong, 12-15 Dec 2018.
  • 2018 ‘Filicide in Australia’ (with Professor Thea Brown), Australian Institute of Family Studies Conference, ‘What Matters Most to Families in the 21st Century?, Melbourne Convention Centre, 25-27 July 2-18, Melbourne, Australia.
  • 2017 ‘How Criminological Research Can Have An Impact Outside Academia’, invited paper presented at the Victorian Postgraduate Criminology Conference, Deakin Downtown, 7 June 2017, Melbourne, Australia.
  • 2017 ‘Gender, parenthood and justice: Examining court outcomes for mothers and fathers who kill their children in Australia and Canada’ (with Professor Myrna Dawson, Anna Johnson and Susan Zielin) , paper presented at The Stockholm Criminology Symposium, 19-21 June 2017, Stockholm, Sweden.
  • 2017’Sentencing in Filicide Cases: The Impact of Gender Roles on Judicial Decision-Making’ (with Professor Myrna Dawson, Susan Zielin and Anna Johnson) , paper presented at the Addressing FIlicide: 3rd International Conference, 14-15 June 2017, Monash University Prato Centre, Italy.
  • 2017 ‘Legal Responses to Domestic Homicide in Victoria’, It’s About Saving Lives: Responding to Homicide Forum, Co-hosted by Griffith University (Australia) and University of Guelph (Canada), Thur 27 Aprial 2017, Royal on the Park, Brisbane, Australia.
  • 2015 ‘The Implementation of Feminist Law Reforms: The Case of Post-Provocation Sentencing’ (with Professor Rosemary Hunter) , paper presented at the 28th Annual Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Conference, 25-27 November 2015, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia.
  • 2015 ‘The Implementation of Feminist Law Reforms: The Case of Post-Provocation Sentencing’ (with Professor Rosemary Hunter), paper presented at Fighting Femicide: Cultural and Legal Interventions conference, 5-6 November 2015, Queen Mary University of London, England.
  • 2015 ‘The Impacts of Feminist Law Reforms: An Examination of Intimate Partner Homicide Cases Post-Legislative Reform in Victoria’, paper presented at the 3rd International Crime, Justice and Social Democracy conference, 9-10 July 2015, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
  • 2015 ‘”If a man has murder in his heart … we are not going to be able to prevent those deaths“: An analysis of perpetrator service contact in cases of filicide, Victoria, 2000-2009′, paper presented at the 2nd Addressing Filicide International Conference: Moving to Prevention, 3-4 Jun 2015, Monash Prato Centre, Prato, Tuscany, Italy.
  • 2015 ‘The Implementation of Feminist Law Reforms: The Case of Post-Provocation Sentencing’ (with Professor Rosemary Hunter) , paper presented at the 2015 Socio-Legal Studies Association Conference, 31st Mar-2nd Apr 2015, University of Warwick, Coventry, England.
  • 2014 ‘Homicide Law Reform in Victoria, Australia: A Feminist Success Story or Manifest Failure?’, paper presented to the Annual Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) conference, 10 Apr 2014, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland.
  • 2014 ‘Feminist Activism and Homicide Law Reform in Victoria, Australia’, invited paper presented to Umeå Forum for Studies on Law and Society, April 2 2014, Umeå University, Sweden.
  • 2013’ Youth, mobile technologies and gender politics: young people’s beliefs about gender and ethical use of communication technologies (with Amy Dobson, Danielle Tyson, Adrian Farrugia and Mary Lou Rasmussen), paper presented at The Australian Sociological Association Annual Conference (TASA): ‘Reimagining Sociology’, 26-28 Dec 2013, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia.
  • 2013 ‘Filicide in Australia’ (with Professor Thea Brown) , paper presented at the 2013 Addressing Filicide: Inaugural International Conference for Cross National Dialogue, 30-31 May 2013, Monash Prato Centre, Prato, Tuscany, Italy.
  • 2012 ‘Considering Filicide: Research and Action’ (with Professor Thea Brown), paper presented 26 July 2012 at the 12th Australian Institute of Family Studies conference: Family Transitions and Trajectories, 25-27 July 2012, Melbourne Convention Centre, Melbourne, Australia.
  • 2012 ‘Critical Fictions: Masculinities Theory, Male Violence Against Women and the Law’, paper presented 13 July 2012 at the 2012 Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology conference: Changing the Way We Think About Change: Shifting Boundaries, Changing Lives, 12-13 July 2012, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
  • 2012 ‘Victoria’s New Homicide Laws: Provocative Reforms or More Stories of Women “Asking For It”?’ paper presented 7 June 2012 at the 2012 International Conference on Law and Society: Joint Annual Meetings of the Law and Society Association and the Research Commiittee on Sociology of Law (International Sociological Association), co-sponsored by the Canadian Law and Society Association (CLSA), the Japanese Association of Sociology of Law (JASL), and the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA), UK, 5-8 Ju 2012, Hawaii, USA.
  • 2011 ‘An Abominable Crime: Filicide in the Context of Parental Separation and Divorce’ (with Professor Thea Brown), paper presented at the 24th Annual Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC) conference, Crime and the regions: from the local to the regional, national and international,30 Sep 2011, Geelong, Australia.
  • 2010 ‘Provocative Reforms or Old Wine in New Bottles: A Critical Exploration of Some Emerging Impacts of the Abolition of Provocation, Victoria, Australia’, paper presented 29 September 2010 at the 23rd Annual Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (ANZSOC) conference, Cross-border Domestic and Transnational Crime: Risks and Responses, Alice Springs, Australia.

December 2, 2016

Last modified: July 30, 2023 at 8:37 pm

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