Family violence cases in which police charge both partners rather than a single aggressor are on the rise.
Cross-intimate partner violence more than tripled from a low base of 0.7 per cent of family violence legal proceedings in 2010-11 to 2.5 per cent in the 12 months to February 2023.
The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) study labelled it a "small, but growing" cohort, with more partners taking out apprehended violence orders against each other.
In more than three-quarters of cross-intimate partner violence cases, both the male and female engaged in aggressive or violent behaviours that led to charges including assault and property damage.
Only the female was charged with assault in 22 per cent of cases, while just the male was charged in 17 per cent of cases.
The bureau released a separate study testing for gender bias when police laid charges in family violence cases, comparing conviction rates in marginal instances to assess whether weaker charges were laid against women.
No statistically significant difference in those conviction rates was found.
The bureau's executive director Jackie Fitzgerald said neither study showed women were mischarged in intimate partner violence situations.
"A critical facet of intimate partner violence is not in dispute: women are far more likely to be victims and men far more likely to be offenders," she said.
"This new research examines those uncommon situations where women are charged with IPV to assess whether these charges are unjustified."
Women who engaged in cross-intimate partner violence were far more likely to have previously been the victim of family violence.
Some 35 per cent of women had previously been a family violence victim, compared with 12 per cent of men.
Ms Fitzgerald said ongoing monitoring and further research were needed to guide accurate policing policies, as the studies captured limited data and instances of misidentification were hard to detect.
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