DoctorJess Woolley

Dr Jess Woolley (she/her) is a Lecturer in Police Studies. 

Dr Woolley's research is focussed on legal and policing responses to family violence. Her work draws on feminist legal theories, and conceptual frameworks including coercive control and systems abuse. Through her work, Dr Woolley aims to identify ways which systems, communities, and organisations can improve responses to family violence. 

Completed in 2025, Jess' PhD examined how technology-facilitated family violence is responded to via protection orders in Victoria, Australia. She drew from the perspectives of police officers to highlight the challenges in responding to non-physical violence and coercive control, alongside hurdles surrounding evidence collection and documentation of abuse. Overall, she illustrated conceptualisations of risk in relation to technology-facilitated family violence, and how police apply these in practice. Dr Woolley has also contributed to a range of projects throughout her career, including developing family violence training for Victoria Police, examining the use of CCTV for victim-survivors of family violence, and exploring legal protections for the counselling records of survivors of sexual violence.

Dr Woolley's growing research agenda focusses on suicide and family violence. Her article published in Policing and Society in 2024 won the Australia and New Zealand Society of Criminology PhD Candidate Award, and prompted her appearance at the Inquiry into the relationship between domestic, family and sexual violence and suicide. 

Dr Woolley is the Early Career Representative on the Australia and New Zealand Society of Criminology Committee of Management.