Intimate partner homicide (IPH) remains one of the most visible and devastating forms of gendered violence in Australia. Despite decades of investment in actuarial risk assessment tools, their capacity to predict or prevent lethal violence has been limited. This keynote critically interrogates the dominant reliance on actuarial approaches, arguing that focusing on prediction alone has constrained our ability to meaningfully prevent IPH.
Drawing on recent Australian research, the presentation considers two complementary lenses. First, Boxall explores perpetrator pathways to intimate partner homicide, highlighting the role of relational dynamics, cumulative life-course disadvantage, and points of potential disruption. This perspective challenges linear models of escalation and underscores the importance of understanding desistance, ambivalence, and identity change alongside risk. Second, Fitz-Gibbon examines the service contact histories of victims of IPH, mapping where opportunities for intervention were missed and identifying systemic failures in service design and delivery.

Together, these insights open a conversation about what it would mean to shift from a narrow focus on actuarial prediction to a broader prevention agenda: one that foregrounds perpetrator pathways, victim/survivor help-seeking, and the capacity of services and systems to recognise and respond to risk. The keynote invites participants to critically reflect on what preventing IPH requires in practice—disrupting trajectories, embedding lived experience in system design, and moving beyond tools to transformation.