"If you don't fix both sides then normally it doesn't work so well."
He said police had never been more committed to addressing family violence and were reviewing their processes as part of the additional focus.
The region's Family Safety Team is a joint initiative between the Ministry of Justice, Police, Ministry of Social Development (Child, Youth and Family), and non government agencies.
FST supervisor Sergeant Alan McGlade said family violence is a social dysfunction and there are many things that contribute to problems in families.
"You can't find one thing that cures it all. Plus, you have the added complication of the relationship. So something like a burglary you can secure premises, give them advice on crime prevention. With family violence they're always going to have a relationship. If they have kids they will forever have a relationship whether they are together or not."
Compouding the problem is the low percentage of domestic violence incidents that are reported. Mr McGlade said three major research papers released over the past five years illustrate the same thing.
"They say we are still only getting less than 20 per cent reported. The difficulty for us is, when we see domestic [statistics] going up, is that an increase in the number of domestics happening, or are we just getting into that dark figure that we don't actually know?
"The only way we can try and highlight that is the level of seriousness coming down, which would indicate tolerance levels are dropping and people are readily reporting, which makes it more likely we're biting into that 80 per cent rather than new offending."
Family violence reports taken by police are followed up in a multi-agency review which evaluates the seriousness, assesses the family's background and issues and finds the agency best suited to work with the family.
"High risk [families] identified in those meetings come back to a weekly meeting to to make sure we review them and they don't fall through the gaps," said Mr McGlade. "We'd like to do that with all of them but because of resources we can only do it with the top end."
If a family will not engage with police or the risks are too high or complex, the FST team takes over and responds to each case.
"We won't let families go if they're not interested in working with us, that makes no difference, we just keep pushing away until we finally engage them and get something done to reduce the risk."
Mr McGalde said as part of police's focus on family violence they would "sharpen up" by conducting timely checkups on safety orders and how they are being used as one of the tools to reduce violence in the home.
"[We'll] review how we're using them to make sure we are using them effectively, and the follow up for any breaches to see how effective we are being with breaches."
Mr McGlade said ultimately police's aim was prevention.
"The earlier we intervene the less resources [needed] and the more effect we have on families."
He said police work with some families over a number of years, "chipping away" to create change.
"It is a constant battle between box tickers and number counters, and people who actually want to make a difference to the families. It is easy to look at the figure and say we need to reduce it, but there is a lot of stuff behind that and a lot of work that needs to go on."