Handbook on Sexual Violence (67 page)

...I said to my friend, I says, would you say I was a violent person? [He looked] shocked straight away, because like, in the situations we were in, I would be the one that would try and diffuse it, say to someone, look, things aren’t that bad, you know, then try and diffuse the situation . . . I says well tell that to my fiance´e.

(interview with ‘Grant’, cited in Hester
et al
. 2006: 6)

Similarly, ‘Brendan’, who hospitalised his wife, told of his friends’ reactions to finding out he was a domestic violence perpetrator:

They find it funny that I’m doing this [perpetrator programme]. Even my

doctor says I’m a very placid person.

(interview with ‘Brendan’, cited in Hester
et al
. 2006: 6)

The most frequent response to domestic violence perpetrators who are seeking to change their behaviour is assessment for suitability onto a domestic violence perpetrator programme. These tend to take a feminist-inspired, cognitive behavioural approach and consist of weekly group work sessions which aim to educate men about gender equality within relationships and how to eliminate their use of violent, abusive and controlling behaviour. For example, the aims of the Probation Service’s Integrated Domestic Abuse Programme (IDAP) are: to:

provide known victims and current partners of men undertaking IDAP with information to inform safety planning;

help men undertaking IDAP understand why they use violence and abuse

against partners and ex partners, and the effects of this behaviour on their partners, children, others and themselves;

encourage men to take responsibility for their violence in their

relationships;

motivate men to take specific positive steps to change their behaviours in their relationships;

encourage men to learn how to use non-controlling behaviour strategies in their relationships in order to prevent future violence and abuse.

Such programmes are now widespread within the criminal justice field (through prison and probation for court-mandated perpetrators) but there are very few community programmes (for non-court-mandated perpetrators). Fewer than one in ten local authorities (n=37) in Britain has a voluntary sector domestic violence perpetrator programme (Coy
et al
. 2009). Of those that do exist, over half (n=19) are located in just three regions – in London, the north- east and the north-west (Coy
et al
. 2009). Although the criminal justice programmes are more widespread, even they are not able to keep up with the number of offenders sentenced for domestic violence related offences – there are not enough places on programmes for all offenders and waiting lists can be long (Bullock
et al
. 2010).

It is argued that the stilted development of community domestic violence

perpetrator programmes in the UK is, in part, due to a lack of evidence in terms of whether programmes ‘work’ (Westmarland
et al
. 2010). There has been a lack of clarity about what ‘works’ means in this context, with many of the early studies using only police reports of physical violence, and/or only using convicted offenders. The largest UK study was undertaken by Dobash
et al
(2000) in Scotland, who compared two groups of men convicted for domestic violence related offences. The first group were sentenced to attend a domestic violence perpetrator programme, and the second received an alternative criminal justice sentence. They found that those attending the perpetrator programme were less likely to be using violence in a relationship after 12 months than those receiving alternative sentences. In the US, Gondolf (2002) included both court- and non-court-mandated men in his multi-site

evaluation of 600 men who had attended well-established perpetrator programmes. He compared those who completed the programme with those who dropped out of the programme in the early stages. Gondolf found that men who completed the programme were far more likely to stop using violence than men who dropped out, and that the majority of men who completed the programme were no longer using violence within a relationship at the four-year follow-up point.

Narrow understandings of ‘success’ are also argued to have contributed to the stilted development. When a range of different stakeholders (men on programmes, female ex/partners, practitioners, funders/commissioners) are asked what success means from their perspective, it is clear that success is wider than the cessation of physical violence. Westmarland
et al
. (2010) argue that when these different stakeholders are asked about what success means to them, their responses, and thus the notion of the ‘success’, can be broken down into six key criteria (which apply whether the partners stay together or decide to separate):

1. an improved relationship between men on programmes and their partners/ ex-partners which is underpinned by respect and effective communication;
   

2. for partners/ex-partners to have an expanded ‘space for action’ which
   

   empowers through restoring their voice and ability to make choices, while improving their well-being;
   

3. safety and freedom from violence and abuse for women and children;
   

4. safe, positive and shared parenting;
   

5. enhanced awareness of self and others for men on programmes, including an understanding of the impact that domestic violence had on their partner and children;
   

6. for children, safer, healthier childhoods in which they feel heard and cared
   

about.

The policy context

When Kelly was writing
Surviving Sexual Violence
in the 1980s, there was no central government leadership on domestic violence. This has changed significantly, and there are now a range of policy documents and nationally led interventions, including specialist domestic violence courts, independent domestic violence advisers/advocates, and the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy. There has also been a range of new legislation, including the 2004 Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act and the 1997 Protection from Harassment Act. These are part of key shifts that have occurred over the 20 years since the publication of
Surviving Sexual Violence
. These shifts, which are detailed in depth in the following, have impacted upon current societal and governmental approaches to domestic violence.

Shift from confidentiality and single-agency responses to multi-agency working and information sharing

In the early and mid 1980s there was very little information sharing between agencies, particularly between the statutory and voluntary sectors. This began to change in the late 1980s when the first experimental multi-agency projects were established in response to widespread criticism about the adequacy of services for domestic violence victims (Hague 2000). In the 1990s domestic violence forums began to be rolled out across many parts of the country. These forums placed an emphasis upon partnership working, a strategy inspired by the co-ordinated community responses developed in the USA. A model known as the ‘Duluth approach’ was and continues to be particularly influential. Its name is taken from the first city in Minnesota to establish a co-ordinated community response to domestic violence (see Shepard and Pence 1999). By the turn of the new century it was widely acknowledged in the UK that a multi-agency approach to tackling domestic violence was the way forward (Hague 2000; Humphreys
et al
. 2001), with at least 200 local domestic violence fora in existence (Hague 2000). Similar multi-agency approaches were also beginning to take form in relation to some other crimes, as required under the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, which required some organisations to form partnerships to tackle crime and disorder.

In 2004, the Home Office issued guidance stressing the importance of safe sharing of personal data in domestic violence cases (Douglas
et al
. 2004). This guidance was issued because of confusion from professionals about what they could and could not share and under which circumstances (Douglas
et al
. 2004). It also followed a number of high-profile cases where information had not been shared – most notably the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman
1
– but also a number of domestic violence cases. For example:

In 1999, Mark Goddard was convicted of the murder of his wife Patricia after he stabbed her four times in the chest and abdomen. Patricia’s post- mortem examination revealed 38 areas of previous injury and two areas of deep bruising to her scalp. In the five months before her death, her employer and six different agencies were aware of her problems and the abuse she was suffering including health, housing and police services. These agencies had never informed anyone else about their concerns. We cannot know if Patricia’s life could have been saved but we do know that a far more comprehensive risk assessment could have been carried out if information had been disclosed to other agencies.

(Douglas
et al
. 2004: Box 3)

The Home Office guidance also listed a range of benefits of responsible information-sharing. It aimed to help domestic violence victims and their children by enabling:

timely action to be taken to protect clients and children from further abuse;

comprehensive risk identification and safety planning based on a full account of the facts and circumstances of each client’s situation;

the right sort and combination of advice, support and advocacy to be offered at the right time based on a full and accurate account of the client’s needs and history, including other service contact and use;

clients to avoid the added distress of having to repeat details of their history

of experience of domestic violence and other circumstances each time they encounter a different service.

(Douglas
et al
. 2004)

Since then, multi-agency working has become even more entrenched and is now a staple element of responses to domestic violence (see for example the new interventions described below).

The recognition of the incidence, prevalence and costs of domestic violence

Earlier in the chapter there was a discussion about the different ways of measuring domestic violence. This variety of measures has contributed to a necessary acknowledgement that domestic violence is more widespread than previously thought. Male violence against women is now acknowledged by the United Nations to be of pandemic proportions (United Nations 2006). This recognition that domestic violence is not limited to a minority of ‘problem’ households has meant that a wide range of professionals have had to accept that domestic violence impacts on their work. Police officers, GPs, health visitors, housing officers, midwives, solicitors and social workers are among the professions that have been required to acknowledge their role in responding to domestic violence (see for example Department of Health 2005; Stanley
et al
. 2009). This has led to a significant increase in the number of professionals involved in domestic violence cases, and an expectation that a wider range of professionals will have the required knowledge and experience needed. Although feminists had certainly already uncovered the high prevalence of domestic violence and other forms of male violence against women (e.g. Hanmer and Saunders 1984), the fact that the government’s own crime surveys started to show the same meant that the issue could no longer be ignored or dismissed as feminist exaggeration and/or scaremongering.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, acceptance of the incidence and prevalence allowed for the calculation of the financial costs of domestic violence. In a small-scale study, Stanko
et al
. (1997) calculated the cost of domestic violence to be £90 for every household in one London Borough. Using British Crime Survey data, Walby (2004) was able to calculate this at a national level. The figures were shocking, and are still regularly cited at policy- makers’ and managers’ conferences and meetings today. Walby estimated the cost of domestic violence to public services (Criminal Justice System, health care, social services, housing) to be £3.1 billion per annum. The loss to the economy was estimated at £2.7 billion, with an additional £17 billion in human and emotional costs (pain and suffering that is not counted in the cost of services).

The expansion of services and development of new interventions

Alongside the recognition of the ubiquitous nature of domestic violence there has been an expansion of services and new interventions. Soon after New Labour came into power in 1997, they launched the Crime Reduction Programme, a large-scale research and evaluation programme aimed at understanding what interventions best reduced different types of crime in the most cost-effective manner. One strand of the Crime Reduction Programme was called the Violence Against Women Initiative. This strand was launched in 2000, and aimed to discover which approaches were most effective at tackling domestic violence, rape and sexual assault (see Hester and Westmarland 2005). The Crime Reduction Programme suffered from a range of problems, including the difficulty of assessing the cost-effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing crimes that are difficult to measure, such as domestic violence and prostitution. However, the lessons learned through the Violence Against Women Initiative have been built upon in subsequent initiatives and evaluations. These include the following.

Multi-agency risk assessment conferences (MARACs)

MARACs aim to: ‘bring local statutory and voluntary agencies together to protect those women at highest risk from repeat victimisation’ (HM Government 2009: 17). First developed in South Wales in 2003, MARACs first came onto the national policy agenda in England and Wales in 2006. Soon after, the Home Office (2008) was arguing that they were the ‘cornerstone’ of their approach to high-risk victims, following nearly two million pounds’ investment in domestic violence interventions including MARACs the previous year. By 2009 there were 225 MARACs across England and Wales (Home Office 2009). In summary, MARACs are said to offer benefits such as: increased, ongoing communication; risk assessment; advocacy; the translation of policy into action; and greater accountability for perpetrators (Robinson and Tregidga 2007).

Evaluations of MARACs show some very positive findings regarding their ability to increase the safety of the highest-risk domestic violence victims. The original South Wales MARAC reduced violence as recorded by reported police incidents and self-report interviews with victim survivors (Robinson 2004). Longitudinal research shows that over four in ten victims reported no further violence one year after the MARAC (Robinson and Tregidga 2007). The ability to share information between agencies has been identified as one of the main benefits of a MARAC. As Robinson and Tregidga (2007: 1132–3) explain:

The communication of information within the meetings serves to fill the gaps in the knowledge of particular cases. Each agency can provide a different and thus crucial perspective. Their differing perspectives enable the jigsaw of individual situations to be pieced together and, therefore, provide a more accurate assessment of risks faced by the women in question.

However, process evaluations have revealed difficulties with MARACs. These difficulties include: the absence of some key agencies, especially health (Howarth
et al
. 2009; Coy and Kelly 2010), poor understandings of the gendered dynamics of domestic violence (Coy and Kelly 2010), an overreliance on independent domestic violence advisers (IDVAs) in terms of knowledge and follow-up actions (Coy and Kelly 2010; Robinson 2009), and concerns about an increased throughput leading to too many cases, inappropriate risk thresholds and the premature closing of cases (Coy
et al
. 2009). These are all issues which could, arguably, be altered and lead to improved MARACs. However, a further critical concern is based deeper at the roots of what a MARAC is about. This is the ‘disregard of victim-survivor consent and respect for their privacy rights’ (Coy and Kelly 2010: 109), whereby victim survivors may not even know that their case is being discussed at a MARAC or that professionals are sharing personal information about them and their children. This means that something told in apparent confidence to one professional may then be shared with many more at a MARAC if the victim is assessed as being high risk. This is the opposite of the empowerment model that feminists have argued for many years should be placed at the centre of any domestic violence interventions.

Independent domestic violence advisers (IDVAs)

IDVAs are ‘trained specialists providing independent advocacy and support to high-risk victims’ (HM Government 2009: 7). The first hundred were trained in 2005/06 and by 2009 there were over 700 across England and Wales (HM Government 2009). The previous government had promised further investment (over £5 million) into IDVAs and MARACs in 2010/11; however, at the time of writing it is unclear whether these interventions will be prioritised by the coalition government.

IDVAs are designed to provide support to ensure a co-ordinated community response to domestic violence. For example, their role within a MARAC is a central one. However, serious concerns have been levelled at the policy of funding IDVAs (and their sister independent sexual violence advisers

– ISVAs). First, it can be argued that they simply duplicate existing voluntary

sector services, meaning that IDVAs are receiving funding in place of long- standing women’s sector organisations that have arguably been doing the work of an IDVA for many years or even decades (since the 1970s in some cases). The term ‘advocacy’ is wide ranging and is often used to mean different things (Kelly and Humphreys 2000), since it draws upon both the legal context and rights-based approaches (Hester and Westmarland 2005). Many have highlighted that although advocacy is a relatively new concept, it is not a new practice, since aspects of it have always been integral to services within the women’s movement (Coy and Kelly 2010). Likewise, Robinson (2009) points out that ‘the label is newer than the type of work’ (p. 11), meaning that while ‘IDVAs’ and ‘advocacy’ have not always been the terms used, the forms of support they offer have long been available. One of the interviewees in Coy and Kelly’s (2010) study of IDVAs in London reported that the only difference between their IDVAs and other workers was whether they had been on a particular training course. One aspect that separates the

IDVA role from existing responses to domestic violence may be their focus on only those cases that are assessed as high risk. Coy and Kelly (2010) cite many interviewees in their study who were of this opinion. However, this in itself has raised concerns that IDVAs, alongside MARACs, have meant that the government’s core response was not to domestic violence per se, but only to
high-risk
domestic violence victims. As one of the IDVA managers interviewed in Coy and Kelly (2010) highlights:

Funding for advice workers, no one’s interested in funding for that really. All the money’s in high risk. Which is kind of counter- productive ... We’ll wait for them to get high risk and then we can work with you.

(IDVA manager, cited in Coy and Kelly 2010: 32)

A second key concern levelled at IDVAs is their very name. As the ‘I’ in IDVA stands for ‘independent’, there is arguably an assumption made that they will be located within the voluntary and community specialist domestic violence sector. However, this is not always the case, and IDVAs are frequently located within other organisations, including the police. In a national evaluation of IDVAs, Robinson (2009) found that ‘independence’ has been acknowledged as one of the key ingredients of an effective IDVA service. Accordingly, the evaluation concluded that IDVAs should be managed by specialist domestic violence projects. Where this was the case, IDVAs were able to prioritise victim safety and provide essential ‘institutional advocacy’ within a co-ordinated community response whereby they were able to inform and change practice within multi-agency partnerships.

Specialist domestic violence courts (SDVCs)

SDVCs are multi-agency approaches to domestic violence which aim to identify and risk assess domestic violence cases and provide additional support for victims in order to bring more offenders to justice (HMCS, HO and CJS 2008). By the end of 2009, there were 127 specialist domestic violence courts (SDVCs) in England and Wales (HM Government 2009). Rather than being a physically separate building, the term SDVC refers to a ‘whole system’ approach – typically one court within a standard magistrates’ court will be allocated all domestic violence cases on a given day and there will be specially trained magistrates and support workers in attendance. There is now a range of studies which confirm that a key benefit of a SDVC is to increase the likelihood of consistent decision-making and appropriate sentencing following conviction (Westmarland 2009). Additional benefits that have been identified are improvements in a range of areas, including court and support services for victims, advocacy and information sharing, and victim participation and satisfaction (leading to increased public confidence in the criminal justice system) (Cook
et al
. 2004).

Shifting priorities – started with repeat victimisation (volume) then risk (seriousness) – now both

In the 1990s, when policy-makers first began to take domestic violence seriously, attention was placed on the high levels of ‘repeat victimisation’. Repeat victimisation began as a policing term in recognition that a small number of people are exposed to an inordinate amount of criminal offences, where ‘the same person or place suffers from more than one incident over a specified period of time’ (Bridgeman and Hobbs 1997). Domestic violence, by definition being a pattern of incidents over time against the same victim/s, is a prime example of an offence with a high level of repeat victimisation. As most governments’ crime and disorder agendas are to reduce crime, tackling offenders who commit high volumes can make a big difference to official crime statistics. In 1995/96 the Home Office designated the reduction of repeat victimisation as a policing performance indicator, meaning that additional focus was given to domestic violence.

Farrell
et al
. (1993) conducted one of the first British studies into repeat victimisation of domestic violence reported to the police. They found that there exists a ‘heightened risk period’ whereby a household with a domestic violence incident reported to the police has an 80 per cent chance of another domestic violence incident within one year. In the shorter term, after an initial incident, 35 per cent reported a second incident to the police within five weeks. After a second, 45 per cent reported a third incident within a further five week time period. In Sherman’s (1992) US study on domestic violence, cases of this nature were labelled the ‘chronic cases’.

Hanmer
et al
. (1999) published a key study entitled
Arresting Evidence
, in which they evaluated an innovative new approach to repeat victimisation introduced by West Yorkshire police. This approach consisted of a three-tiered graded response to domestic violence incidents reported to the police. The responses placed an equal focus on the victim and the offender, and the response levels were of increasing intensity. It was found that the new approach both reduced repeat victimisation (the proportion of incidents that were one-off increased from 66 per cent to 85 per cent) and increased the time intervals between incidents (the time between attendances increased to over one year for 50 per cent of men).