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Domestic violence is a serious and pernicious problem, affecting one in four women, and a significant number of men. Despite this, in general, legal responses to domestic violence have not been as effective as they could be. Professor Mandy Burton has carried out wide-ranging research for UK government departments and public bodies, including the Home Office, Ministry of Justice (MOJ), Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Legal Services Commission (LSC) specifically designed to inform legal and policy change on domestic violence. Her work informed the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act in 2004, and was important in helping to develop more than 100 Specialist Domestic Violence Courts across the country.
National and international policy on domestic violence has been strongly influenced since 2008 by a series of studies on domestic violence conducted at the University of Bristol, resulting for example in the piloting of a national disclosure scheme. The studies have also had a positive impact on the practical ways in which agencies such as the police respond to domestic violence as well as influencing the development of a European Police handbook on domestic violence. The criminal justice system, practitioners and victims have benefited from the studies' insights into the `attrition' that can occur between the reporting of an act of domestic violence to the police and the final outcome in court. They have also gained from Bristol's work on the profiles of perpetrators and the behavioural differences between male and female perpetrators.
Stanley's national study of police and children's services responses to children and families experiencing domestic violence has contributed to: a practice shift towards including perpetrators in interventions; piloting in England and Wales of protection orders and relaxing time restrictions on social work assessment as recommended by the Munro Review.
Associated studies include research informing a social marketing campaign for perpetrators of domestic violence and an evaluation of the service developed from that campaign; this initiative was disseminated by the Department of Health. Stanley's research review on children experiencing domestic violence informed the redesign and commissioning of local authority children's services.
The impact of the research has been firstly, in informing the creation of a new kind of domestic violence court and secondly, in alerting domestic and European policy-makers to the problem of women rough sleepers which was previously effectively "invisible."
Short summary of the case study
The case study emerged from research conducted by the Central Institute for the Study of Public Protection and its predecessors (Policy Research Institute and Regional Research Institute). It informed the development of specialist domestic violence courts in the UK and brought to the attention of European and domestic policy-makers the plight of victims of domestic violence many of whom find themselves compelled to sleep rough, but do so in ways that result in them remaining invisible to the authorities.
Research on combating interpersonal violence carried out by Dr Erica Bowen (Reader in the Psychology of Intimate Partner Violence) has resulted in:
Some 77% of victims wait until they have had more than 100 incidents of unwanted behaviour before they tell anyone about it. More than 1.2 million women and 900,000 men are stalked in the UK every year (British Crime Survey.) The research investigated the characteristics of stalkers and has: (i) changed police practice in UK police forces in investigating cases of alleged stalking offences through supporting the adoption of the Domestic Abuse, Stalking, and Harassment (DASH) threat assessment checklist within every police station in England and Wales; (ii) informed public policy debate and the introduction of anti-stalking legislation and raising public awareness of the nature and dangers of stalking behaviour.
Since 2000 the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Centre (CWASU) has produced a body of research that has had significant impact for victim-survivors of violence against women (VAW) at policy and practice levels. We have evaluated new and emerging forms of support provision (Sexual Assault Referral Centres), tracked attrition in criminal justice responses to rape in England, Wales and Europe, mapped the `postcode lottery' of specialist services across Great Britain, and developed minimum standards for specialist services across Europe. Our research highlighted promising practices that led to a national rollout of specific forms of provision and central government funding for specialist services. We were among the first researchers in the UK to draw on human rights principles to illuminate the responsibilities of states to provide services, principles further elaborated in the 2011 Council of Europe Convention. Evidence here demonstrates that responses to victim-survivors across a number of arenas — criminal justice, specialist NGOs, and statutory health agencies — have been enhanced at an unprecedented level because of our work. More widely, our research has rekindled scholarship on sexual violence.
CWASU's role as independent academics... is crucial for both the voluntary and community sector and for statutory bodies like the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime. They understand the issues on the ground from the perspectives of women and girls and... have developed cutting edge research and responses to complex problems to provide a robust evidence base for the sector to use in their advocacy work (Policy and Delivery Officer, Violence against women and gangs, Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime).
The ... evaluations of models of service delivery are invaluable in providing us with the information and tools to undertake the work that we do, both nationally and locally. The knowledge that we gain from CWASU informs and shapes our work as we continue to strive for improved responses to violence against women (Manager, Women's Aid, England).
This case study concerns the research of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies relating to both individual and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) victims of fraud. It highlights how the underpinning research has influenced major national policy changes, such as the formation of Action Fraud and the services they and other bodies, such as the National Fraud Authority (NFA), Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and Office of Fair Trading (OFT), provide to support victims. It also demonstrates how the research has informed policy-makers of the significant impact of fraud on victims, stimulating changes in the services offered; with the Sentencing Council conducting a review of sentencing for fraud related offences.
Impacts of this case study are national, regional and local in government departments and providers of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) services and in lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) specialist services. They include evidencing DVA in same sex relationships as a considerable social problem; identifying and improving understanding about specific vulnerabilities, abusive behaviours and help-seeking behaviours; the development of training across mainstream, DVA and LGBT sectors; the development of existing risk assessment tools to better reflect the experiences of victim/survivors in same sex relationships; and in raising awareness of DVA in same sex relationships in LGBT communities.
Research from the Violence and Society Research Group at Cardiff University has led directly to the development of a pioneering multi-agency data-sharing model for violence prevention that uses hospital Emergency Unit data. Results from implementation of the data-sharing model demonstrate decreases in violence. This success has encouraged international adoption in addition to the UK coalition government national commitment to implement the approach UK-wide.