Advocates say police's intentions to withdraw from family harm callouts will only cause more harm.

In a recent briefing to incoming Police Minister Mark Mitchell, the police department proposed a managed withdrawal from what it considered non-crime social problems.

Police say it has been forced to step in when it comes to family harm, mental health, and child protection calls due to a lack of other social services.

But it says more than half of its family harm investigations do not involve an offence being recorded.

It proposes a change that will involve withdrawal from some of those callouts over time and advocates for that role to be filled by others.

But it is a proposal that has shocked those who advocate for victims.

"People don't invite police around just because they feel like a visit.

"They invite them around because they're scared," says Women's Refuge chief executive Ang Jury.

She can not see any other agency that could step in and take the role of police.

"Police is the only agency in this country that actually has the power and the authority to deal with potentially dangerous situations."

And if offences were not being recorded at family callouts, Ang says that was not necessarily because they did not exist.

She says a prime example was breaches of protection orders.

"Breaches of protection order are an offence. Yet the vast majority of them are never result in a charge," says Ang.

"That doesn't mean to say they shouldn't."

Family lawyer Vicki Currie says she was concerned that cases of family violence would be missed if police did not attend callouts anymore.

She says when they attended a callout, a family violence incident was recorded and then shared with other agencies such as Women's Refugee and Oranga Tamariki.

"If the police aren't attending callouts then it's not coming to the attention of [those] agencies," she says.

"The reality is there is no other agency with the power to arrest and detain people at family harm incidents.

"There is no other agency that has the necessary tools to deal with mental health crisis and child protection and, in my view, it is the responsibility of the New Zealand Police to be at the frontline and dealing with these issues," says Vicki.

Police 'going to triage differently'

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster says its attendance to family harm callouts had increased 80 per cent in 10 years.

That meant police time was being consumed in homes and away from the public places where people wanted to see them, he says.

Andrew says family harm callouts could involve a complex mix of social problems including, drugs, financial issues and mental health.

"Part of the challenge is that there is no one agency that obviously deals with that, and by default police becomes the one that they call.

"We're signalling that we are going to triage differently on these events and we do need to prioritise our response to the things that only police can do,"says Andrew.

"Which for a time potentially will create a gap in terms of who is ... available to respond to some of these situations."

He says there were some community initiatives to help respond to these social issues, and the government had signalled that it would put more funding into those types of responses.

"I'm confident that where a police response is required people are increasingly willing to contact us and they will continue to get a response," says Andrew.

"What we're signalling here is that our policy of mandatory attendance at every family harm event, regardless of whether any violence or criminal activity has been signalled is not sustainable for us."

In its briefing, police also says that to improve the response rates for non-urgent (priority two and below) family harm events and reduce demand on its frontline, Police had conducted a six-month Proof of Concept.

"Ending in June 2023 that trialled a phoned-based triage service to provide timely risk assessment of further harm and help identify the appropriate support required," the briefing says.

"The POC identified benefits in relieving frontline pressure and increasing victim trust in the police response."

Andrew says an expansion of that pilot was being considered.

But Ang is sceptical.

She says over the phone, the caller may not provide all the relevant information.

"Family violence victims, will often underplay what it is that's happening for a variety of reasons and they may not necessarily be providing enough information for that call taker to triage effectively," she says.

She also remains worried about the wider ramifications of police withdrawing.

"We simply cannot go back to the days of someone at the police station picking up a phone and saying 'oh well you know it's just a bit of a domestic, don't really need anyone to come out for it'."

- RNZ/ Krystal Gibbens