Violence against Women and Girls

The authors (Rosie Knighton & Natalie Law) acknowledge that, while definitions, vary VAWG can take many forms including:

• domestic abuse, the most prevalent form, with 2.3 million victims estimated in the 2019-20 Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)
• rape and sexual violence
• so-called ‘honour-based’ abuse and forced marriage
• abuse covered by new offences introduced since 2010, such as stalking, and controlling or coercive behaviour

The government’s 2021 Tackling VAWG Strategy acknowledged the “profound effect” of such crimes on victims, survivors and wider society. In 2023, the National Police Chiefs’ Council noted an increase of 37% in police recorded VAWG between 2018 and 2023, and that VAWG was now an “epidemic”, with 3,000 cases recorded daily across England and Wales. The new government has confirmed its manifesto aim to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade.

Challenges and opportunities

Alongside improving victim support and increasing the number of prosecutions, the 2021 Tackling VAWG strategy aimed to prioritise prevention, including through a national communications campaign. It noted the mandating of Relationships and Sex Education in secondary schools from 2020, with the provision of additional support to teachers.

There is a growing online element to VAWG and abuse against women. For example, VAWG can be facilitated by websites and blogs where men express views hostile to women, the so-called ‘manosphere’. The Serious Crime Act 2015 and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 cover some elements related to digital coercive control, and the Online Safety Act 2023 prohibits service providers from hosting harmful content. However, academic experts highlighted that this legislation does not recognise the full scope of online VAWG and fails to outline preventative approaches.

Following the rape and murder of Sarah Everard in 2021 by a serving police officer, research for The End Violence Against Women Coalition found that 47% of women and 40% of men reported a decline in trust for the police after seeing details of the crime. 

Academic research has also highlighted how the language of police reports can undermine female victims and their experiences. After Wayne Couzens was sentenced for the murder of Sarah Everard, a police commissioner was reported as stating that women “need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested and when they can’t be arrested”.

Government and sector stakeholders have expressed concern over the low levels of reporting VAWG, which is a barrier to understanding women’s experience of crime and the CJS. For example, the CSEW estimated 2.1 million people experiencing domestic abuse in the year ending March 2023, while police recorded 889,818 cases over the same period. The proposed Crime and Policing Bill will include measures to provide a stronger, specialist police response to VAWG.

In a 2021 review of rape crimes , the government acknowledged that the CJS was “letting down rape victims”. Home Office data for 2020/21 showed that only 1.3% of recorded rape offences assigned an outcome resulted in a charge or summons. This is for a variety of reasons including longer investigation times, victims withdrawing, and pressures on resources. As part of an ambition to more than double the number of adult rape cases reaching court between 2021 and 2024, the Home Office implemented Operation Soteria Bluestone, which combined research with piloting improved procedures in four forces. A 2022 progress report found several issues that still needed addressing, including a lack of specialist knowledge and training, disproportionate investigation into the victim, and officer burnout.

In August 2024, the Home Secretary announced a review of the UK counter-terrorism strategy, including treating extreme misogyny as a form of extremism. It is not known how this may affect the response to VAWG.

The POST briefing poses four key questions for parliament:

1. How can the government work with police, health professionals, local authorities, and other stakeholders to make sure that VAWG is recognised and better reported?
2. What government approaches are effective in preventing VAWG, including through education in schools?
3. How can the government improve confidence in the policing of VAWG?
4. How can the CJS increase the number and timeliness of rape cases brought to prosecution?

Women in the CJS

As regular readers will know, implementation of the Female Offender Strategy has been slow with the MoJ forecasting an increase in the female prison population of over a third between 2022 and 2025. One of the key issues highlighted in the scan was prison capacity with the previous Government controversially announcing that it would build up to 500 new places in existing women’s prisons.

There has also been minimal progress in the piloting of residential women’s centres as alternatives to short custodial sentences. We have known for decades that women are disproportionately given short prison sentences, which have been criticised for their cost and effectiveness. In November 2023, the Sentencing Council for England and Wales consulted on changes to the guidelines for using community and custodial sentences, to include specific considerations, such as caring responsibilities, when sentencing female offenders.

Again the POST horizon scan highlights two key questions for parliament:

• What actions is the government taking to reduce the number of women in prison, and how do these align with new prison places being created for female prisoners?
• What does the government and CJS understand about how and why women are treated differently from men in convicting, sentencing and in prison, and how can it ensure equity?

It is clear that these issues will be high on the gender for the current sentencing review undertaken by David Gauke and due to report in Spring next year.

Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here