Calgary's police chief says officers respond to more than 16,000 domestic related calls every year and admits that sometimes the systems fails.

Chief Rick Hanson spoke to the media on Monday afternoon about family violence and touched on the death of 20-year-old Lacey Jones-McKnight.

"I wish we could talk in more detail about that. The reality is we have an on-going investigation. We have a case that's in front of the courts. We have to be incredibly diligent in what we say and what we do cause we do not want to jeopardize an investigation by saying or doing anything that could influence or cause that case to be put at risk," said Chief Hanson.

Chief Hanson says there is a process and that officers attend every call and submit a risk assessment. The Domestic Conflict unit then looks at the highest risk cases.

"We are always looking at new ways and better ways to do business. Because DCRT was a pilot project, we are quite happy with the results of that, we will be expanding that, what was part of our three year business plan, and we will be expanding that in 2013 and 2014, "said Chief Hanson.

HomeFront released a statement on Monday in response to Jones-McKnight's death.

"Last week's homicide is tragic, and one which we hope to learn from," said Kevin McNichol, Executive Director, HomeFront. "Calgary Police Service did what they could with the resources they had available to them, and it is my belief that a pilot program called the Domestic Conflict Response Team (DCRT) might have stopped this tragedy from occurring."

Homefront says that since the DCRT began, there has been a 75 percent reduction in repeat calls to police.

Lacey Jones-McKnight's mother is critical of how police handled her daughter's complaints leading up to her death and says they didn't do enough to protect her.

Shelly Jones says she and her daughter phoned police five times in the last three weeks with complaints.

Chief Hanson says the system fails every time there is a homicide.

"Any time there's a homicide, the system has broken down somewhere. I don't care if it's a gang homicide, domestic homicide, if it's a child that's been killed and you know we've had some of those, the reality is, in a perfect world we'd love to be able to prevent all homicides," said the chief.

The chief says they still have a long way to go to change the process that addresses the issue of domestic violence.