Greenwich response to Domestic Violence - supplementary report

Report: 2
Date: 4 December 2009

List of issues to be addressed

This report has been compiled at the request of the MPA Domestic and Sexual Violence Board to give further information in relation to number of identified issues arising from the meeting on 12th June 2009. The report addresses the following issues:

• Clarity on the victim and suspect data for domestic violence and serious sexual offences. The data provided in the BOCU report on 12th June was confusing and there was no indication on actual numbers of victims. In addition, the percentages were incorrect. The DSVB would like a clearly presented account of sections C1 and C2 as outlined on the original commissioning brief.
• Consideration of the possible causes of the high rate of repeat victims of domestic violence in the borough and how the use of a single point of contact will address this.
• Confirmation that the MPS/CPS ‘surgery’ is back in place.
• Details on the process of support and signposting for victims of sexual and domestic violence, and how success of external support services are monitored to ensure police are signposting effectively
• An exploration of any possible reasons for the disparity around ethnic minorities over-represented in the accused data for serious sexual offences.
• An update on the success of community engagement efforts with ‘hard to reach’ communities and the efforts to engage with Muslim women’s forum and PCTs.
• What the BOCU could do to access service feedback from survivors of domestic and sexual abuse.
• An outline of the Action Plan resulting from the visit from TPHQ and an update on how Greenwich is progressing against these actions.

Responses to issues raised

A. Clarity on the victim and suspect data for domestic violence and serious sexual offences. The data provided in the BOCU report on 12 June was confusing and there was no indication on actual numbers of victims. In addition, the percentages were incorrect. The DSVB would like a clearly presented account of sections C1 and C2 as outlined on the original commissioning brief.

The requirements of sections C1 and C2 are reproduced in Appendix A for ease of reference.

Percentage errors have been traced to the rounding up or down to the first decimal point leading to, in most cases, a ‘missing’ 0.1% although in one case 0.7% was unaccounted for. These errors have now been corrected and the account of sections C1 and C2, including actual numbers of victims, is found in Appendix B.

B. Consideration of the possible causes of the high rate of repeat victims of domestic violence in the borough and how the use of a single point of contact will address this.

As stated in the original report, Greenwich suffers with unusual levels of deprivation and poverty. There is a well established link between Domestic Violence and poverty (source: Home Office research, Policing and Reducing Crime Unit). As such, high levels of repeat victimisation are a logical consequence of this, but it is recognised that wider social circumstances such as these should not lead to tolerance of repeated domestic violence.

Greenwich has notably underperformed as a Police Service with regard to detections and positive intervention (arrest rate) as well proper classification of risk. Many cases have been given a ‘medium’ rating, especially after an arrest has occurred, where a ‘High’ rating was required and would have triggered other intervention measures. Feedback from officers appeared to show a school of thought that considered that a suspect in custody logically equated to a medium or standard risk.

Additionally, external partners such as the Advocacy Service have underperformed with regard to inconsistent risk assessment and onward referral to long term floating support.

These immediate challenges have already been resolved. In the case of the police service, detection rates have climbed sharply from 42.3% to 49.5% and arrest rates from 69% to 80% achieved through supportive supervision and training (please see appendix C for current performance). With regard to risk assessment, the CSU DI and DS’s screen every crime and refer to MARAC where appropriate. Additionally, uniform Sergeants are now measured daily through the Daily Management Meeting as to the supervision of risk to ensure correct ratings.

In the case of the Advocacy service, the MARAC required the installation of a mandatory risk assessment model for all clients encountered and, in the long term, the local authority is examining the reallocation of the Advocacy service to another provider agency.

Research on other successful boroughs (by virtue of low repeat victimisation) reveal only one common factor namely the presence of long term consistent support from both police and partner agencies. This would seem to be vital to breaking the cycle of repeat victimisation.

The single point of contact within the CSU is part of a larger holistic strategy around repeat victimisation. Informal victim feedback would seem to indicate that the need to explain their background each time they contact police makes it less likely that they engage with the criminal justice system in a meaningful way. Following this feedback, each team now has responsibility for the borough’s 22 most abused victims. All actions are logged and fed through the MARAC system including referral to external agencies. To ensure some continuity and resilience against staff movement and unavailability the decision was taken to allocate victims to teams rather than individuals. However, victims are tending to pick officers they are most comfortable with and the rest of the team exists as a fall back option.

C. Confirmation that the MPS/CPS ‘surgery’ is back in place.

The MPS/CPS surgery is now back in place running every other Tuesday solely for Domestic Violence cases. This is above and beyond the normal CPS cover for the borough.

D. Details on the process of support and signposting for victims of sexual and domestic violence, and how success of external support services are monitored to ensure police are signposting effectively.

At the time of the original report not all victims were considered for referral to external support agencies. Greenwich have now adopted a positive referral policy is all cases where the risk assessment is medium or high, in that the victim is referred to the Advocacy service unless they actively state they do not wish to be. All standard risk cases are signposted. Every victim is sent a letter containing their crime number and the officer in the case contact details as well a number of core support agency details, such as the Advocacy service and Victim Support. A second tier of support agencies can also be provided dependant on personal circumstances, such as substance abuse services and agencies that specialise in specific communities.

There is currently no mechanism to measure how ‘successful’ external support agencies are. Research amongst all other boroughs reveals that CSUs do not have the ability to measure this. Only one borough, where a ‘one stop shop’ exists, keep records of all visitors and which agencies are referred to.

As part of the repeat victimisation project (see above) records are now kept as to what action, including referral to external agencies, is taken with the most frequently abused victims. This is too new to draw any conclusions as to the effectiveness of these agencies. In the long term this can be assessed, as well as what is considered to be ‘success’. All other victims are now referred to the advocacy service by form so this can be measured.

E. An exploration of any possible reasons for the disparity around ethnic minorities over-represented in the accused data for serious sexual offences.

There are no linked series or single individual which might explain a skew of these figures. However, a data search on the ethnicity of suspects as described by the victims of rape including penetration show 38.6% described as Afro-Caribbean. This figure broadly correlates to the accused figure of 40.75%, especially when the figure of 28.1% of suspects with unknown ethnicity is factored in. Similarly, the ethnicity of suspects described for serious sexual assault generally is shown to be 50.4%, which is again broadly similar to accused figures of 51.2%.

The local authority confirms that the population of ethnic minorities in Greenwich is disproportionately gathered around the younger age ranges and has comparatively few above the age of 60, a phenomena possibly explained by the general patterns of rising levels of immigration in the UK from the 1960s to the present day. This is further illustrated by the statistic contained in the original report that 52% of Greenwich school children come from ethnic minority communities. In contrast, the white population in Greenwich is more populated in the over 60 age range than in any other group. The accused figures for both rape and serious sexual assault generally show that 98% are aged under 60 years old. When looked at in this context, the accused figures showing white European and Black Afro-Caribbean group equally represented become less difficult to reconcile. In support of this, the accused ethnicity figures for domestic violence, a crime less age dependant than sexual assault, almost exactly correlate to the borough ethnic breakdown. This would seem to debunk theories of bias through the police and criminal justice system disproportionately charging suspects from ethnic minority communities.

Without further in-depth and detailed study, it is not possible to say whether any other factors such as cultural attitudes to these crime types significantly affect the proportion of accused in each ethnic group and this area of research may well be taken up by SCD2 Operation Sapphire in the future.

F. An update on the success of community engagement efforts with ‘hard to reach’ communities and the efforts to engage with Muslim women’s forum and PCTs.

Efforts to engage with so called ‘hard to reach’ communities are tied into a larger strategy around Hate Crime and are ongoing, in partnership with the local authority. In brief, there are three main phases; examination of existing protocols and stakeholders, refreshing these protocols and identifying new interested groups and lastly the set up of practical measures such as third party reporting sites and a Hate Crime panel to mirror the MARAC process. Greenwich is currently in phase two and have identified several new groups such as the Chinese Information Centre, after it was established that Greenwich has the largest Chinese population of any borough outside Westminster. Within these groups will be an identified single point of contact for Domestic Violence performing an advocate style role, supported by regular contact with CSU and SNT officers. With particular reference to the Muslim Women’s forum, progress is being made during phase two but no codified protocols will exist until phase three begins in early 2010.

G. What the BOCU could do to access service feedback from survivors of domestic and sexual abuse.

As stated in the Richmond and Twickenham report to MPA, the MPS policy on customer satisfaction surveys direct that they are not given or sent to victims of domestic violence or sex offences due to the sensitivities involved. However, some informal feedback has been gleaned with reference to repeat victimisation dependant on the rapport between victim and officer decided on a case by case basis. In the longer term, Greenwich CSU has asked for a feedback mechanism to be added to the risk assessment carried out by the Advocacy service once this has been reassigned to another provider.

H. An outline of the Action Plan resulting from the visit from TPHQ and an update on how Greenwich is progressing against these actions.

All actions have been completed or are in an ongoing state due to the measures described having no completion point. There are two exceptions. Firstly, the review of secondary investigation as part of the Borough self Inspection regime is an ongoing area of development. The borough is currently setting up the process for a series of inspections. In the meantime ‘dip-sampling’ is carried out by the DCI Public Protection. Secondly, the accommodation strategy with regards to co-location of all units within the Public Protection Command has not occurred due to delays with the site owners around the move to a single patrol site. Until this occurs, the CSU cannot be co-located with other investigative units.

Appendix A

The requirements of sections C1 and C2

• Number of incidents flagged as domestic violence, serious sexual offences over the last 12 months (April 2008 – April 2009)
• Number of crimes flagged separately as domestic violence or serious sexual offences over the last 12 months (April 2008 – April 2009)
• Proportion of incidents of domestic violence representing repeat victimisation. Sanction detection rate for domestic violence and serious sexual offences and proportion of sanction detections which are cautions
• Can this above data be presented according to the identity of survivors and offenders in terms of equality categories (where available) i.e.: Age, gender, disability, race, religion &/or belief and sexual orientation
• What proportion of serious sexual violence cases are not-crimed or crime-related incidents?
• Number of domestic violence incidents also ‘flagged’ as ‘honour’-based violence and / or forced marriage
• Number of domestic violence homicides over the last 12 months.
• Can this above data be presented according to the identity of survivors and offenders in terms of equality categories (where available) i.e.: Age, gender, disability, race, religion &/or belief and sexual orientation

Appendix B

Account of sections C1 and C2

Data for both Domestic and Sexual Violence

Data provided in this report has been taken from PIB statistics and covers the period 1st April 2008 to 31st March 2009.

1. Number of incidents flagged as Domestic Violence: 4495

2. Number of crimes flagged as Domestic Violence: 2357

3. Number of serious sexual offence incidents: 252

4. Number of serious sexual offence crimes: 230

5. Domestic Violence incidents with repeat victims of crime: 522 crimes (22.1%)

6. Domestic Violence sanction detection rate and proportion of sanction detections, which are cautions:

• Sanction detection rate: 42.3% (target 45%)
• 46% of all sanction detections were adult cautions
• 54% of all sanction detections were adult charges
• 69.2% arrest rate (target of 67%).

7. Serious sexual offence sanction detection rate

• Serious Sexual Offence: 51 detections out of 230 offences as shown in item 4 (22.2%)

8. Number of Domestic Violence incidents flagged as ‘Honour’ Based Violence and / or Forced marriage:

• 4 crime allegations are flagged as Forced Marriages, one of which was also flagged as ‘HV’, denoting ‘honour’ based violence.
• All of these victims were Asian females and all the accused Asian males.
• The victims’ ages were all between 26 and 32 and the accused ages were all between 32 and 38 years.

9. Number of Domestic Violence homicides over the last 12 months:

• There was one domestic homicide within this period. The victim was a 35-year-old white female; the perpetrator was a 35-year-old black male, who also died at the scene. It is believed that the male killed his partner and then committed suicide. This is corroborated by the initial post mortem, which showed that the deceased male’s injuries were entirely consistent with being self-inflicted. The coroner’s court inquest has been opened but no update is available. However, the multi agency domestic violence homicide review is still in progress.

10. Proportion of Serious Sexual Offences which are not crimed or crime related incidents:

• Not crimed - 22.8% (18)
• Crime related incident - 5.1% (4)

11. Equality of Domestic Violence survivors and offenders:

• Incidents of domestic violence
  • Of the 4495 domestic violence incidents as shown in item 1 the age ranges of victims were as follows:
    • 41.5% were aged 18-29 years
      9.5% were aged 30-39 years
      9.5% were aged 40-49 years
      6.7% were aged 50-59 years
      2.7% were aged 60+ years
  • Of these 4495 incidents, 83 related to disabled victims, 67 of which were female and 16 were male.
  • Of these 4495 incidents, 26 related to same sex relationships, 16 of these were male and 10 were female.
• Victims of Domestic Violence:
• • Of these 4495 incidents, 81.1% of victims were female and 18.9% male.
    • 71.6% of victims self defined as White - North European
      2% of victims self defined as White - South European
      21.7% of victims self defined as Black
      4% of victims self defined as Asian
      0.01% of victims self defined as Other – Arabic or North African
      0.6% of victims self defined as Other – Chinese, Japanese, Other South East Asian
• Accused - domestic violence
• • Of the 997 detections the ethnicity was as follows:
    • 68.3% of accused self defined as White - North European
      2% of accused self defined as White - South European
      23.4% of accused self defined as Black
      5% of accused self defined as Asian
      0.01% of accused self defined as Other – Arabic or North African
      1.3% of accused self defined as Other – Chinese, Japanese, Other South East Asian
  • Incidents of Serious Sexual Offences of which there were 252 as shown in item 3:
    • 89.6% of victims were female; the remainder 10.4% were male.
    • 70.8% of victims self defined as White - North European
      1.4% of victims self defined as White - South European
      24.5% of victims self defined as Black
      2.8% of victims self defined as Asian
      0% of victims self defined as Other – Arabic or North African
      0.5% of victims self defined as Other – Chinese, Japanese, Other Asian
    • Accused – Serious Sexual Offences, of which there were 51 as shown in item 7:
    • 29.3% of accused self defined as White North European
      12.2% of accused self defined as White - South European
      51.2% of accused self defined as Black
      4.9% of accused self defined as Asian
      2.4% of accused self defined as Other – Arabic or North African
      0% of accused self defined as Other – Chinese, Japanese, Other South East Asia
• Victims of serious sexual assault - Rape and assault by penetration
• • Of 79 offences within the above categorisation shown in item 4, 97.4% (77) were female; the remainder (2) were male.
  • • Of the 77 female victims:
    • 61% of victims self defined as White European
      1.3% of victims self defined as Dark European
      29.9% of victims self defined as Black
      5.2% of victims self defined as Asian
      2.5% of victims were not self defined
    • 9% were aged between 13 and 16 years
      32.5% aged between 17 and 20 years
      29.9% aged between 21 and 30 years
      16.9% aged between 31 and 40 years
      7.8% aged between 41 and 50 years
      3.9% aged between 51 and 56 years
    • 10.4% (8) of the victims were ‘flagged as having disabilities. This was detailed as:
    • 37.5% (3) learning and understanding
      12.5% (1) learning difficulty - mental health issues - physical impairment
      12.5% (1) mental health issues, physical impairment
      37.5% (3) Psychiatric / mental disorder
    • Accused for serious sexual assault - Rape and assault by penetration
    • 100% of the accused of which there were 27 in this section were male
    • 40.75% of accused self defined as White European
      3.7% of accused self defined as Dark European
      40.75% of accused self defined as Black
      11.1% of suspects self defined as Asian
      3.7% of accused self defined as Arabic
    • 7.4% were aged between 13 and 16 years
      7.4% aged between 17 and 20 years
      40.7% aged between 21 and 30 years
      29.6% aged between 31 and 40 years
      3.7% aged between 41 and 50 years
      7.5% aged between 51 and 60 years
      3.7% aged 70 years
    • There is no information available on disabilities for accused.

Appendix C

Current performance

The detection rate at Greenwich has gone from 42.3% to 49.8% at time of this report. This is measured against the 2009/10 target of 44%. This has taken Greenwich from 27th out of 32 Boroughs to 12th.

The arrest rate at Greenwich has gone from 69.2% to 80.3% at time of this report. This is measured against the 2009/10 target of 70%. This has taken Greenwich from 26th out of 32 Boroughs to 4th.

The caution to charge ratio at Greenwich has gone from 46.9% vs 53.1% to 40% vs 60% at time of this report. No targets are set for this area of performance. This has taken Greenwich from 9th out of 32 Boroughs to 1st.

Contact details

Report authors: DCS Turner B.Ed. DI Joe Farrell, BA(Hons). PGC. Richmond Upon Thames BOCU

Date: 4 November 2009

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