SPARK Webinar - ​​What happens when you criminalise coercive control?

Coercive control is now a crime in Queensland. But what does it actually mean to criminalise this form of abuse—and what can we learn from others who have gone before us? 

Join us at our next SPARK webinar as we explore the ripple effects of criminalisation through evidence, experience and emerging insights. 

We’ll hear from Professor Sandra Walklate, who, alongside colleagues, analysed a decade of policing data from England and Wales to understand how these laws play out in practice. Closer to home, Jackie Fitzgerald, Executive Director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR), will share new findings from NSW’s first year of implementation—highlighting what’s working, what’s not, and what Queensland might expect. 

Whether you’re on the frontline, shaping policy, or building systems to support safety and accountability—this is a critical opportunity to learn from others, ask tough questions, and prepare for what’s ahead. 

More speakers will be announced soon—register now to stay in the loop. 

Learning Outcomes 

• Gain insights about the implementation of the law that can support you to prepare to support your colleagues and clients.  

Event details

Date: Thursday, 3 July 2025
Time: 1:00pm - 2:30pm AEST
Location: Online

Who should attend

This event is targeted at all levels of the workforce.

About the presenters

Jackie Fitzgerald 

Jackie Fitzgerald is Executive Director at the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research with the NSW Department of Communities and Justice and has worked in the field of criminology for more than twenty-five years.  In recent years her work has focussed on the intractable issue of Aboriginal over-representation in the justice system, long and short-term changes in young people’s participation in crime, the lingering impact of the pandemic on offending behaviour and how the criminal justice system responds to crime and domestic and sexual violence.  

Hayley Dean 

Hayley is a Solicitor Advocate attached to the Parramatta office of Legal Aid NSW and became an Accredited Specialist in Criminal Law in 2013. Hayley joined Legal Aid NSW, after working for both the Commonwealth and State DPP. In nearly 20 years of criminal law practice, Hayley has worked across all levels of Courts in NSW including Coronial, Children’s Court, and the Court of Criminal Appeal.   

 Hayley has a keen interest in matters involving coercive control, having written papers and delivered over 30 CLE’s and CPD’s on the topic including upcoming seminars for The Hatchery and ANROWS. In 2024 Hayley was the host of the Legal Aid NSW 7-part series podcast on Coercive Control. The critically acclaimed Podcast Series was promoted on The Bar Association of NSW Website, the Judicial Commission Website and by the NSW Women’s Safety Commissioner. Hayley was nominated by the Law Society of NSW as a finalist for Government Solicitor of the Year in 2024 for her work in Coercive Control.   

Professor Sandra Walklate 

Sandra Walklate has been working in and around issues of criminal victimisation and its impact since the early 1980s. Within this work has been a consistent focus on gender and violence against women.  These are issues which have persistently perplexed the criminal justice system in terms of creating an appropriate response and during my career I have been actively engaged in training police officers on these issues. 

She currently holds the Eleanor Rathbone Chair of Sociology at the University of Liverpool and from 1st March 2016  was appointed as a conjoint research focused Professorship of Criminology at Monash University, Melbourne, a post which she held until June 2023. 

She has an ongoing adjunct professorial role at QUT in Brisbane and is a Research Associate at the University of West Virginia Center for Violence Research and in September 2022 she was appointed to the Advisory Board of the Observatory Permanent Violence and Crime (OPVC), University Fernando Pessoa (UFP), Porto, Portugal. 

Elected as a Fellow to the Academy of Social Sciences in 2005 she was awarded the British Society of Criminology’s outstanding achievement award in 2014 and from July 2019 until June 2023 was President of the British Society of Criminology. 

  You can find her full pofile here:https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/people/sandra-walklate 

Additional presenter bios will be available soon.