Domestic abuse in England and Wales: year ending March 2017

• An estimated 1.9 million adults aged 16 to 59 years experienced domestic abuse in the last year, according to the year ending March 2017 Crime Survey for England and Wales (1.2 million women, 713,000 men).
• The police recorded 1.1 million domestic abuse-related incidents and crimes in the year ending March 2017 and of these, 43% were recorded as domestic abuse-related crimes; domestic abuse-related crimes recorded by the police accounted for 32% of violent crimes
• There were 46 arrests per 100 domestic abuse-related crimes recorded by 39 police forces in the year ending June 2017.
• The majority of victims of domestic homicides recorded between April 2013 and March 2016 were females (70%).
• A decision to charge was made for 72% of domestic abuse-related cases referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) by the police, and of those that proceeded to court, convictions were secured for 76% of domestic abuse-related prosecutions.
• There were 305 refuge services operating in England and Wales in 2017.
• A total of 83,136 high-risk cases were discussed at multi-agency risk assessment conferences in the year ending March 2017, equating to 36 cases per 10,000 adult females.

The different datasets included in this report do not relate to the same cases given the different timescales and reference periods used to collect the data. They also do not count the same things; for example, some record the number of victims or defendants, whilst others record the number of incidents or offences that occurred. Therefore, each of the numbers cannot be directly compared. However, it is apparent from the different sources that many victims do not see justice, with the majority of cases not coming to the attention of the police, and many of those that do come to their attention do not result in a conviction for the perpetrator of the abuse. This is illustrated in Figure 1 (not presented to scale).

Domestic abuse is often a hidden crime that is not reported to the police, which is why the estimated number of victims is much higher than the number of incidents and crimes recorded by the police. Of the cases which do come to the attention of the police, many, although still recorded as incidents and dealt with as required, will fall short of notifiable offences and are therefore not recorded as crimes.

Approximately half of domestic abuse-related crimes that are recorded by the police do not result in an arrest and a large proportion have evidential difficulties in proceeding with prosecution. Evidential difficulties often relate to the victim not supporting the prosecution. This reflects the challenges involved in investigating domestic abuse-related offences and demonstrates the importance of a robust evidence-led case being built for the victim.

Domestic abuse accounts for a significant proportion of the work carried out by both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (11% of crimes recorded by the police and 16% of prosecutions), but there is variation across police force areas in the response to cases. Data presented in this report on the provision of services for victims of domestic abuse also show variations across areas and highlight that, whilst other agencies such as social care and health care services are already involved in the response to domestic abuse, such involvement is not widespread and more involvement from such agencies would help to improve victims’ experiences.