What is it about?
It is a major disgrace that evidence-based repeat victimisation strategies to tackle domestic violence, proven to eliminate or at least reduce levels of abuse, have not been implemented by police forces in England and Wales. This paper sets out the key components of such a crime reduction strategy and includes the story of a woman murdered in 1998 in Halifax, England despite numerous agencies being aware of the violence perpetrated by her husband. The story is shared with the permission of her family and is a prime example of a fatal failure to share information.
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Why is it important?
Repeat victimisation strategies of police organisation and deployment to tackle domestic abuse do work. See http://www.popcenter.org/problems/domestic_violence/pdfs/hanmer_etal_1999.pdf for a full explanation of a successful model. Yet, police forces in E&W still do not employ an overall structured approach to the biggest repeat crime of all. This failure to implement what works means that domestic violence is still dealt with at the fringes of police work. Whilst specialist officers do an excellent job, a 'whole-organisation' approach is needed to truly reduce the incidence of domestic violence.
Perspectives
A real life 2005 account of a model that works. Yet, implementation has not followed, probably due to the short term nature of police performance measures which mitigate against a longer term strategic approach. Domestic violence continues to be the biggest repeat crime of all and should be subject to evidence-based repeat victimisation policing strategies.
Mr Maxwell Mclean
University of Huddersfield
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Domestic Violence and Repeat Victimization, International Review of Victimology, January 2005, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/026975800501200104.
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