Prof Mark Henaghan told a group of about 50 people who attended a public health seminar in Dunedin yesterday that New Zealand society tended to focus on punishing people rather than looking at the root causes of violence.
The professor spoke to a paper he and researcher Ruth Ballantyne had published in the University of New South Wales Law Journal last year, titled "Legal Responses to Violence in the Home in New Zealand".
He said New Zealand's family violence, domestic-related homicide and child-abuse records were deplorable.
Violence in the home was really an extreme expression of society's norms.
There were many examples of "might being right" in our society - hierarchies, for instance.
"Unless we try to get back to a more egalitarian society, a society that really does care about each other, we can have all the laws we like, but it's really not going to change the potential for violence."
Even the law at present, including the actions and decisions of some lawyers and judges, often reinforced violence, although there were moves towards change.
These included better protection laws around family violence and who got the care of children, including rigid protection orders and the introduction of police safety orders.
There was also a broad definition of domestic violence, the law emphasised the victim's viewpoint, the punishment for breaching protection orders was stiff, and the legal aid system was good.
However, the lack and inconsistency of enforcement of protection orders was a huge problem, there was a lack of early intervention for children and more focus on incidents rather than the overall wellbeing of a child, and stopping violence programmes were ineffective.
To make society more violence free, lawyers, judges and service providers needed to recognise separation was high-risk factor for violence and ensure maximum protection was put in place during separation.
Increased early intervention and education could reduce the risk of children dying from being shaken or assaulted as a punishment; and campaigns to reduce the prevalence of alcohol and drugs would help, as would more assistance for those with mental illness.
Family violence was also inextricably linked to larger issues of deprivation and class, he said.
He urged continued and more research to show the impact and cost-benefit social forms of intervention could have.
