The number of domestic violence cases being referred to the CPS has shrunk, but this is no reason to celebrate
"Crime rate down" is usually a headline that brings cheer. Forgive me then for raining on this particular parade, though, because the news that the police are referring fewer cases of domestic violence to prosecutors is no cause for celebration at all.
Why? Crimes of violence against women are among the most underreported in this country. Evidence from Refuge suggests that two women are killed in domestic violence every week and that one in four women suffer violent abuse. The Stern review on rape reporting suggested that only 11% of rapes even get reported to the police.
Spurred on by these figures – as well as horrific cases of women failed by the system such as Maria Stubbings – police forces and prosecutors have worked hard in recent years to encourage victims to come forward and to change the way they are treated by authorities once they do so. Although the system is still far from perfect, these efforts appear to have resulted in some change. Domestic violence cases reported to the police have increased by nearly 10%. Once those cases are referred to prosecutors, the chances of convictions have also increased. In the year to March, convictions for domestic violence cases rose to 74% – not far behind the average for other violent crime and up from 60% in 2005-6 when such crimes were typically treated as "just a domestic", and therefore too tricky to bother with.
Yet despite the increase in the number of women reporting crimes to the police, the police are referring far fewer cases. Go figure.
Given the kudos he gets when politically controversial conviction rates go up, you would think that the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, would be delighted that fewer cases were being referred to his team, possibly suggesting that they are the cases police consider most likely to succeed. But he isn't.
In an interview in July, he revealed real alarm at early signs from his own service that the number of cases were falling: "There are more domestic violence cases out there than are reported to the police," he said. "I would be slow to accept that the incident rate in this kind of crime has gone down."
Indeed, Starmer, who is to stand down as DPS in October, is to meet police forces this month in a bid to understand the decline in the referred cases of rape, domestic violence and child abuse.
So why are figures going down? Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper and her team, who have gathered the data on domestic violence reports, believe the decline in the number of cases being referred, which started at the end of 2010 and accelerated in the subsequent two years, is due to government cuts.
"The home secretary has cut policing by 20% and now we are seeing the consequences," she says. "And she has failed to set out a strategy to make sure action on domestic violence isn't cut as a result ... The home secretary is hollowing out the police service and victims of crime are suffering as a result."
Labour makes much of the fact that the number of cases of domestic violence referred to the CPS by the police rose 23% between 2007-2010. However, it's fair to point out that this was from a low base. The drop that started at the end of 2010 also came after cuts had started under the outgoing Labour party.
With swingeing cuts across all public services, money is unlikely to be the answer anyway. What is almost more worrying is the sense that attitudes on domestic violence are again shifting with police officers pursuing only certain cases. To all those who argue that this is what police officers do in all crimes, it is worth pointing out that few crimes suffer from so many myths and stereotypes as violence against women, where victims are often treated as complicit in their abuse and somehow culpable. My god, even a 13-year-old girl was described as "predatory" and therefore responsible for the fact that she was sexually active with a 41-year old man, who walked free last month.
We need a national strategy to tackle these sorts of attitudes and a desire to bring about consistency in every police force area. This isn't a story of crime going down. It's a story of police failure. Reported by guardian.co.uk 21 hours ago.
"Crime rate down" is usually a headline that brings cheer. Forgive me then for raining on this particular parade, though, because the news that the police are referring fewer cases of domestic violence to prosecutors is no cause for celebration at all.
Why? Crimes of violence against women are among the most underreported in this country. Evidence from Refuge suggests that two women are killed in domestic violence every week and that one in four women suffer violent abuse. The Stern review on rape reporting suggested that only 11% of rapes even get reported to the police.
Spurred on by these figures – as well as horrific cases of women failed by the system such as Maria Stubbings – police forces and prosecutors have worked hard in recent years to encourage victims to come forward and to change the way they are treated by authorities once they do so. Although the system is still far from perfect, these efforts appear to have resulted in some change. Domestic violence cases reported to the police have increased by nearly 10%. Once those cases are referred to prosecutors, the chances of convictions have also increased. In the year to March, convictions for domestic violence cases rose to 74% – not far behind the average for other violent crime and up from 60% in 2005-6 when such crimes were typically treated as "just a domestic", and therefore too tricky to bother with.
Yet despite the increase in the number of women reporting crimes to the police, the police are referring far fewer cases. Go figure.
Given the kudos he gets when politically controversial conviction rates go up, you would think that the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, would be delighted that fewer cases were being referred to his team, possibly suggesting that they are the cases police consider most likely to succeed. But he isn't.
In an interview in July, he revealed real alarm at early signs from his own service that the number of cases were falling: "There are more domestic violence cases out there than are reported to the police," he said. "I would be slow to accept that the incident rate in this kind of crime has gone down."
Indeed, Starmer, who is to stand down as DPS in October, is to meet police forces this month in a bid to understand the decline in the referred cases of rape, domestic violence and child abuse.
So why are figures going down? Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper and her team, who have gathered the data on domestic violence reports, believe the decline in the number of cases being referred, which started at the end of 2010 and accelerated in the subsequent two years, is due to government cuts.
"The home secretary has cut policing by 20% and now we are seeing the consequences," she says. "And she has failed to set out a strategy to make sure action on domestic violence isn't cut as a result ... The home secretary is hollowing out the police service and victims of crime are suffering as a result."
Labour makes much of the fact that the number of cases of domestic violence referred to the CPS by the police rose 23% between 2007-2010. However, it's fair to point out that this was from a low base. The drop that started at the end of 2010 also came after cuts had started under the outgoing Labour party.
With swingeing cuts across all public services, money is unlikely to be the answer anyway. What is almost more worrying is the sense that attitudes on domestic violence are again shifting with police officers pursuing only certain cases. To all those who argue that this is what police officers do in all crimes, it is worth pointing out that few crimes suffer from so many myths and stereotypes as violence against women, where victims are often treated as complicit in their abuse and somehow culpable. My god, even a 13-year-old girl was described as "predatory" and therefore responsible for the fact that she was sexually active with a 41-year old man, who walked free last month.
We need a national strategy to tackle these sorts of attitudes and a desire to bring about consistency in every police force area. This isn't a story of crime going down. It's a story of police failure. Reported by guardian.co.uk 21 hours ago.