Domestic violence and the Criminal Justice system
The following question was answered in the House of Lords on 02 December 2009.
Lord Sheikh asked Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take to ensure that more people who are responsible for inflicting domestic abuse are dealt with by the criminal justice system.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead) replied that the Government's national domestic violence delivery plan sets out our framework for tackling domestic violence. One of the objectives is to improve the justice system's response to domestic violence by supporting victims and managing perpetrators. Activities which support the delivery of this objective include:
• updating domestic violence training for the police and Crown Prosecution Service to ensure a consistent and appropriate response to victims;
• rolling out to all police forces the new risk assessment checklist which covers domestic violence, stalking and harassment and 'honour'-based violence;
• increasing the number of the specialist domestic violence court systems to provide a multi-agency approach to supporting victims thereby bringing more offenders to justice.
The government strategy Together We Can End Violence Against Women and Girls, included a section on the response of the criminal justice system. One of the priorities is to bring more offenders to justice by improving reporting and conviction rates. A number of proposals for addressing perpetrators of violence (submitted by Chief Constable Brian Moore) are also being considered.
HHHMMMM WHAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED IS THE SENTENCING THEN MAYBE THE FIGURES WOULDNT BE SO HIGH....DETTERANCE IS THE KEY...BECAUSE THE AFTERMATH IS ALREADY TOO LATE !!!!
