‘To halve violence against women and girls by a decade’ forms a critical part of the fifth and final mission of this Labour government, coined by the rather austere objective: ‘Take back our streets’. Not only does this depend on a second term to be realised, but it is a target that perhaps relies too greatly on its Blairite ‘tough on crime’ evocations rather than providing a comprehensive policy strategy.
However, the government is right not to bury its head in the sand. Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG); recently labelled a universal ‘epidemic’ by the UN, painfully encompassed in recent weeks with the horrific magnitude of the Giséle Pelicot case in France, has had its own homecoming in the UK. Cases have increased sharply with reported incidents, cases dropped, and rates of prosecution all going in the wrong direction. Victims describe a protracted, complex, and alienating experience navigating the police and courts system, leaving many unaware of whether their charges are even being processed. Adding fuel to the fire is the rise in online manifestations of violence against women, a factor which lacks understanding let alone resources to tackle.
The challenge of getting the right approach is a tricky one. With the public purse stretched to its limits, pumping money into frontline public services simply isn’t an option. As Jess Phillips highlighted in Citizen Advice: Spotlight on Gender event, almost every single system that victims rely on for improvements and changes in VAWG are so broken that they require sustained and long-term government interventions to improve.
The first layer of this long-term strategy should mirror Blair’s ‘tough on causes’ policy, focussing on prevention to uproot misogyny from all corners of society. Most victims do not interact directly with the Home Office (the Department that principally deals with VAWG) but primarily through state services like education, mental or physical health, child or social care which offer critical touchpoints for preventing further violence. To successfully adopt a preventative VAWG strategy therefore, the government must prioritise coordinating an interdepartmental response to VAWG that runs as wide a remit from Health and Social Care to Education. In practice, this means having the Cabinet Office scrutinise each departments’ action in relation to VAWG, learning lessons from the coordinated responses of the Modern Slavery Action Plan of 2014, which offers models of implementation.
Another complexity is the trend that those committing and experiencing VAWG are disproportionately from the ages of 16-19 and increasingly this violence incorporates physical and online aspects. Institutions such as police and schools must be equally as flexible and diligent to consider patterns of abuse that cross from physical to online forms. Moreover, where Women Refuges have traditionally provided important safeguards to those most at risk from VAWG, new approaches that target young women and girls in educational institutions such as schools and universities are necessary to tackle abuse early.
The second layer must be about improving the policing of VAWG offences, specifically to restore broken trust between victims and the police. There have been successive high profile horrific examples of the endemic misogyny and institutional failings of police including the killing and raping of Sarah Everard and Met Police Officer David Carrick pleading guilty to more than 80 sexual offences. These events have exemplified the immediate need for institutional reform whilst also doing untold damage to trust between women and police.
A significant part of repairing this relationship will focus on training police and first responders to spot where VAWG might be at play. Labour have brought forward plans to place domestic abuse specialists in 999 control centres, and place at least one VAWG specialist within all forces trained at the centralised policing hub, the National Centre for Public Protection in the College of Policing. This will form part of larger broad-sweeping reforms to local police forces across the country. The milestone of recruiting 13,000 more police officers, special constables and PCSOs in neighbourhood roles, established in Labour’s Renewal agenda, will no doubt play a central political and practical role in improving capacity of police to handle VAWG offences.
Mandated policy, however haphazard it may appear, is an important mechanism to set a minimum standard across all police forces. For too long conservative governments relied on issuing guidance for local police forces, which in turn was instituted by some forces and ignored by others. The Labour government’s adoption of legal mandates will reduce the geographic variation of service provision and ensure that women across the UK can rely on a consistent police force.
Finally, the last layer and perhaps the most troublesome for the government will be improving prosecution rates for VAWG offences. Chronic underfunding has grown the backlog of cases awaiting trial in criminal courts. This Labour government has championed proposals including allowing Magistrate Courts to hand out prison sentences of up to a year, transferring caseload from criminal courts contexts and creating specialist rape courts to fast-track rape cases.
Nonetheless, there is a significant gap which criminal and civil courts presently do not have capacity to manage. Phillips rightly noted that most domestic abuse victims are likely to be in civil court contexts rather than criminal courts, it is important that civil courts cases can translate into adequate protections for women and children at the hands of this abuse.
Another key consideration will be how to balance prosecution and punishment against the practical issue of prison capacity. The Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood recently highlighted that even with plans to expand prison spaces by 14,000, prisons are projected to reach full capacity within 18 months. Certainly, the drive to improve prosecutions for Violence Against Women and Girls seems misaligned with the early release prisoner scheme. Looking to expand pre-existing victim protection schemes such as the Domestic Violence Order could be a good place to start.
The government must be tough on those committing VAWG offences whilst also incorporating ‘softer’ and more culturally responsive approaches such as targeting education in schools, training police officers and offering legal guidance and support for victims. This will produce a two-pronged strategy which not only seeks to clamp down on those who commit VAWG offences but challenge the underlying lack of response and institutional paralysis which has beleaguered progress in reporting, prosecuting, and preventing VAWG offences.
If you enjoyed this piece, click here to read a previous piece on the Government’s VAWG strategy.
