Introduction
Most crimes except for murder and manslaughter the victims are more than the crimes indicating that crime incidence is higher than prevalence and that crime concentration will be greater than one. Looking at crime incidence as the sole measure of a crime problem is thus insufficient (Peace and Farrell, 1993 pp 7). This provides the basis for the study of repeat victimisation. Research suggests that victimisation generally predicts victimisation’ to find out where a crime will happen, one needs to look at where the crime happened last. Knowing this means that crime prevention opportunities become clearer. Domestic violence is one of the crimes that is characterised by repeat victimisation.
Aims
- To describe domestic violence in the context of repeat victimisation
- to determine the impact of repeat victimisation on victims
- To demonstrate the effectiveness of the repeat victimisation prevention strategy in domestic violence and other projects
The reasons for repeat victimisation are many, some of which include residence in an area where offenders visit frequently or close to concentrations of resident offenders, chaotic occupations, leisure activities and bad relationships (Pease and Farrell, 1993, Pp 7-8). All these factors increase vulnerability to crime and the possibility of that crime being repeated. Domestic violence is a crime which often happens because of a bad relationship between a man and woman and usually continues to be repeated until one of the parties leaves the relationship; hence victims of domestic violence experience a lot of repeated victimisation.
The victims and offenders of domestic violence are in a sort of cycle where violence perpetuates more violence leading to repeated victimisation with the victims having a history of being abused. Repeat victimisation was largely uninvestigated up until Gottfredson in the British crime survey of 1984 brought attention to the great prevalence of repeat victimisation. Previous work indicates that when victimisation recurs it occurs quickly and that the existence of hotspots is related to repeat victimisation (Pease, 1998, Pp 1).
Another conclusion that can be drawn from research into repeat victimisation shows that individuals who victimise one target on more than one occasion, have been involved in that crime for longer than those who do not (Pease, 1998, Pp 1). This is true in the case of domestic violence where the offender more often than not has a history of abuse when the first case is reported.
Pease, Farrell and Clarke report that when a woman calls the police, the likelihood of calling them again and within a short timespan is increased. The probability of a call to the police from a household that had a domestic incident is 0.8 in a period of one year, while the period between the domestic incidents would be less than a year. Further, when a call has been made to report the first incident, there would be a second incident in about 35 percent of the households with a third incident occurring in five weeks in approximately 44 percent of the household (Farrell, Clarke and Pease, 1993 Pp; Women and Equality Unit). This reinforces the conclusion that victimisation predicts victimisation.
The Home office reports that domestic violence that approximately two women lose their lives weekly to domestic violence with millions more being affected by it yearly. Women are generally at a higher risk of repeat victimisation (Domestic Violence Minisite, Home office, 2007). The high rate of repeat victimisation in domestic violence has led to employing of strategies of repeat victimisation prevention to reduce the rate of domestic violence. Farrell and Pease state that domestic violence has benefited from employing repeat victimisation strategies. Success in reducing domestic violence has come from reducing repeat incidents (Pease and Farrell, 2001 Pp 1-2).
The theory of repeat victimisation when applied to domestic violence requires some modifications as seen by the application of West Yorkshire model. The approaches of repeat victimisation are not easy to implement for a domestic violence prevention program due to certain factors such as domestic violence being highly under-reported. A study carried out by Mayhew, Aye-Maung and Mirrlees-Black states that an estimated 80 percent of victims of domestic violence do not report the incidents of domestic violence (Mayhew et al, 1993). Another factor is that even when the incidents are reported, the incident logging systems are patchy with the crime logs showing more incidents than crime (Hanmer, 2000 pp 326).
The method by which a repeat incident is reported also varies making the analysis of repeat incidents difficult. Sometimes, the victims name is used, the offender’s name or the household addresses, thus creating difficulty in narrowing down to the repeat incidents. The time for repeat victimisation is also difficult to calculate due to the various time periods used, a week, a month or a year may be used. Hanmer also argues that by focussing on a victim the opportunity to confront the offender with the unacceptable nature of his behaviour is lost (Hanmer, 2000, Pp 326).
The West Yorkshire Domestic Violence Repeat victimisation pilot project addressed these issues. The project dealt with underreporting by having domestic violence attendances recorded by household address, the victims name and the name of the offender. This was necessitated by the fact that men may attack different women serially or at one time. For protection to be availed to those victimised it is necessary that perpetrators are identified (Hanmer, 2000, Pp 327)
The project employed a three-tiered programme in its efforts to reduce victimisation. Equal focus on the offender and victim enabled setting up of a crime prevention approach that aimed demotivating the offender while protecting the victim (Hanmer, Griffiths and Jerwood, 1999 Pp 5).
The history of a man’s police attendance to any of the women on the Domestic Violence Index served as the basis for repeat victimisation status. The level of intervention increased from level 1 to 2 to 3 with an increase in repeat attendances. The increases in interventions for each attendance were important in demotivating offenders and providing support and protection to victims. This was crucial since most people fail to report domestic incidents to the police due to the belief that the police would be unwilling or unable to give an effective response. Police discretion was also used to determine the final decisions on intervention level since in some cases, other influencing factors come into play.
For instance, a man who had history of attempted murder on a previous partner was entered at level 3 when after leaving prison his first offence was against his current partner (Hanmer, 2000, Pp 327). A situation like this points to the importance of repeat victimisation being determined by the offender’s history rather than the victim’s.
Another element of the project includes involvement of all officers which was necessary in order to overcome the limitation of having only two officers to deal with domestic violence. The model was devised with resource implications being a major consideration. One or two officers were designated DVOs and a part-time clerk was appointed. Other officers were simply reallocated so that the needs of the project could be met more effectively. As such, the project was cost-effective. Interagency involvement was also another element of the project, necessitated by the need to work with victims and offenders who each require different type of agencies (Hanmer et al, 1999 Pp 6).
The project has been beneficial to victims and has had the impact of restoring their faith in the police that they are able and willing to respond to domestic incidents. The involvement of various agencies which helped to reflect the actual nature of victimisation, addressed the victim’s fear leading to an improvement in the quality of service and assistance provided by the police and other agencies. This was significant because the women were empowered to protect themselves.
A sample of 47 women were interviewed to determine the impact of the project, the findings showed that there was a more positive attitude to police action especially for those women where the call for attendance invited level of interventions. However, those at level two and above felt that the police were not doing enough for example they either spent very little time with them or did not put much effort in finding the man when they left (Hanmer et al, 1999 Pp 36). Despite this, the general feeling for majority of the women at levels of interventions was that the response of the police had improved. They pointed out that the police had a less dismissive attitude. (Hanmer et al, 1999 Pp 36)
Recent research on repeat victimisation suggests that it is only a small proportion of the population that undergoes chronic victimisation. This group of victims endure more crimes than the police are aware of and also undergo much more suffering than other victims (Shaw and Pease, 2000 Pp 10).
Shaw and Pease report that one of the worst effects of repeat victimisations on victims is social exclusion. Chronic victims have a tendency to withdraw from the society contacts around the time of victimisation while harbouring a lot of anger to the offender. This information was gathered following analysis of crime data records from which a sample of victims was selected for interviews. Most repeat victims reported that they had found the experience helpful since, it gave them an opportunity to ventilate. (Shaw and Pease, 2000 Pp 20)
The impact of victimisation is not only that it makes the victim angry and feel helpless. Their sense of worry also increases as the concern for safety increases. The notion that repeat victims get used to victimisation is incorrect. Most of the respondents in a research study conducted by Shaw and Pease revealed feeling unsafe leaving their homes and worrying that they would be victims of crime again (Shaw and Pease, 2000, pp 10-12).
The demoralising effect of the crimes and disempowering effect is fuelled by the feelings of unsafely generated from being a repeat victim. This also has a social impact on the victims because a demoralised person who feels helpless is least likely to interact effectively socially. This is especially for domestic violence victims whose probability of being repeat victims is placed at 90% with only an estimated 10% being an isolated event.
The 90% that is represented by repeat victimisation involves systematic beatings accompanied by an increase in violence with each incident (Hanmer and Stanko, 1985). This characteristic of repeat victimisation in domestic violence shows that the feelings harboured by victims of repeat maybe even worse and more serious since the repeat victimisation rate is much higher than in other crimes.
Repeat victimisation policy is based on the fact that repeat victimisation makes an area a high crime area and therefore focusing in prevention of repeat crime will lower the crime rate (Laycock, 2001). Considering factors that make the victim vulnerable to repeat victimisation provides information necessary for arranging crime reduction intervention and crime reduction advice. Repeat victimisation policy also allows for the inclusion of other agencies that will provide assistance for victims and offenders especially in domestic violence cases.
In addition to interventions that demotivate offenders from committing domestic violence crimes they are offered counselling services and services that seek to challenge their violent behaviour (Hester et al, 2006). Programmes like these are using the principles of the repeat victimisation projects because they are aimed at reducing crime by focusing on repeat offenders. Providing strategies that target domestic violence offenders will help them offenders to stop domestic violence. Research on repeat offender programmes showed that they are not very effective especially where agencies use counselling as the major intervention.
The study sample was made up of offenders put in different groups depending on their history of repeat offending with those in Group one being the ones with the least criminal history and only one incident of domestic violence. Most victims interviewed reported that the men had not transformed much. This indicates a greater need for cooperation between agencies, the police and the Criminal Justice Service (Hester et al, 2006). The report showed that a crisis moment usually caused most men to seek help but at the same time was the time when most men were likely to be dangerous to their partners and children.
Other suggestions by the research report include emergency accommodation so that the perpetrators could leave the home instead of the women and children always having to leave. Some men suggested that police direct them to programs for perpetrators where they could seek help. More importantly agencies dealing with perpetrators ought to work in coordination to ensure that offenders are sent to services that would facilitate the change of violent men’s behaviour rather than those that would reinforce a ‘poor me syndrome’ (Hester et al, 2006).
Repeat victimisation policy integrates many agencies and has so far been successful in restoring women’s faith in the police force. Most of the repeat victimisation projects are built upon one another meaning that one led to another and ideas for one were borrowed from another. For instance the West Yorkshire project was based on application of the strategy to burglary and car crime in Huddersfield and Kirkholt. The model was then modified to suit the domestic violence crime which required focus on both offenders and victims and inclusion of other agencies to provide support services and health services (Hanmer, 2001, Pp 324).
The benefits of a repeat victimisation program are many and generally this approach allows for a holistic perspective on crime resolution. By focussing on repeat victims and repeat offenders it allows for resources to be concentrated in an area with high crime rate. This ensures that the crime reduction efforts are extensive and intensive enough to be effective and also that in the long run they are cost-effective.
The use of a repeat victimisation system allows the system to detect prolific offenders since they will stand out as dedicated repeat offenders with a long history of crime and high attendance rights. This makes it easier for them to be apprehended (Pease, 1998). Focussing on victims at a high risk of repeat victimisation means that their vulnerability is decreased once crime prevention and intervention measures are put in place. Once identified they can be removed from the area of rise especially in domestic violence cases and also provided with support to help them manage their suffering.
The repeat victimization policy allows for a fusion of victim support roles and crime prevention this is possible through cooperation and coordination with agencies that provide assistance to victims like health agencies and emergency housing units. The inclusion of repeat victimization strategy also serves to improve information gathering making delivery of services more consistent (Hanmer, 2001 pp 324).
The tasks of prevention and detection are linked in a better and more effective manner when using repeat victimization as a policy strategy. Crime prevention is more likely when a series of crimes is detected rather than when the crimes are pursued as independent events (Pease, 1998). The GMP project on the Kirkholt housing estate where domestic burglary was reduced by up to 72 per cent and repeat burglaries almost reached zero is an example of the effectiveness of repeat victimization strategy (Alderson et al, 1995).
Other examples are the Huddersfield project which resulted in a reduction of 24 per cent of domestic burglary and further inductions in repeat burglary. The Divisional RV programme in Stockport also reported a 21% decrease in domestic burglary and 44% decrease in repeats (Peace, 1991; Chenery et al, 1997). The Huddersfield and Kirkholt projects served as prototypes for the west Yorkshire project which focused on domestic violence.
Further research however is required into how best to defer repeat offenders especially of domestic violence. This will prevent women from leaving in fear that the men will come back to hurt them. Providing support services that are critical of and that challenge violent behaviour will be more effective in getting violent men to change. In addition, policy that requires more cooperation between agencies where repeat offenders are concerned will need to be implemented to ensure adequate support of the men so that they can be reintegrated into society.
References
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