This book explores the potential of domestic abuse data to assess the
level of harm caused to victims and the amount of resources required to
respond to it. Policing domestic abuse has become a major activity for
the police service in England and Wales. Part of the police strategy is
to gather hundreds of thousands of detailed records about victims and
suspects - the single largest set of domestic abuse records available,
but one that to date has largely unexplored by researchers. In this
volume*,* Matthew Bland and Barak Ariel analyse three substantial
datasets taken from police forces across the country and ask:
- Can police data be used to derive meaningful insight?
- How should we use these data to measure harm?
- Just how much domestic abuse involves a repeat victim?
- Does abuse get more serious over time?
- Can serious domestic abuse be predicted before it occurs?
This volume illustrates the scale of the challenge the police and other
agencies face with reducing domestic abuse. A small proportion of
individuals generate a majority of harm; this book argues that police
records offer opportunities to identify these individuals before the
harm occurs. Demonstrating that statistical techniques can be used to
profile domestic abuse to target harm reduction strategies more
precisely and even identify a sizable proportion of serious cases before
they occur, this volume will be of interest to law enforcement
officials, policing researchers, and policy makers interested in
reducing the phenomenon of domestic abuse.
