Criminal justice responses to domestic violence and abuse in England: an analysis of case attrition and inequalities using police data

Figures & data

Table 1. Victim demographics and vulnerabilities.

	Force 1	Force 2	Total
Victims	n = 138	n = 262	n = 400
Female	83.5%	78.9%	80.5%
Male	16.5%	21.1%	19.5%
Age < 25	29.5%	29.3%	29.4%
White	97.1%	83.1%*	92.7%*
BME	2.9%	16.9%*	7.3%*
Physical disability	1.4%	2%	2%
Learning difficulties	0%	1.5%	1%
Pregnant at the time of incident	4.3%	7.24%	6.2%
Has criminal record	11.5%	25.7%	20.8%
Homelessness/housing issues	1.4.%	3.2%	2.5%
Alcohol issues	7.9%	11.8%	10.5%
Drug use	5.7%	10.3%	8.8%
Self harm	11.5%	8%	9.3%
Mental health issue	27.3%	23.4%	24.8%

Table 2. Nature of incidents reported.

	Female victims	Male victims	Total
Damage to property	2%	10%	5%
Drunken argument	3%	9%	4%
Harassment/stalking/malicious communications	19%	10%	17%
Physical violence	22%	23%	22%
Rape	2%	0%	1%
Threats to harm/kill	4%	3%	3%
Verbal argument	35%	33%	35%
Other	2%	4%	3%
Not known/cannot classify	11%	8%	10%

Table 3. Case progression and victim characteristics/case type.

	All	Gender		Victims identified with vulnerabilities		Has children with perpetrator^8		Victims identified with mental health issue		Physical violence	Verbal abuse
	All	Female	Male	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
	n = 400	n = 322	n = 78	n = 193	n = 207	n = 176	n = 224	n = 99	n = 301	n = 88	n = 140
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Crimed	36	36	36	40	34	33	40	46*	33	86**	5
Arrested	31	31	22	34	28	28	33	40*	28	69**	6
Charged	12	13	9	10	14	10	17	11	12	22**	1.4
Conviction	7	7	8	5.7	8.7	4.5	9.4	6	8	16	0
Victim withdrawal rate^9	52	52	54	64**	39	50	54	60	49	64	43

*Significant at P < 0.05 chi sq.

**Significant at P < 0.01 chi sq.

Table 4. Binary logistic analysis – policy decision to take no further action (all cases, n = 399).

Variable	B	SE	Wald	Sig	OR	95% CI (OR)
Gender (male)	0.191	0.342	0.311	0.577	1.210	0.619–2.366
Any vulnerabilities (yes)	0.796	0.347	5.254	0.022	2.216	1.122–4.377
Any mental health issues (yes)	0.038	0.347	0.012	0.912	1.039	0.527–2.050
Any children from perpetrator (yes)	−0.016	0.279	0.003	0.955	0.984	0.570–1.701
Any issues with alcohol or drugs (yes)	−0.103	0.378	0.075	0.785	0.902	0.430–1.891

Table 5. Binary logistic analysis – victim decision to withdrawal (crimed cases only, n = 145).

Variable	B	SE	Wald	Sig	OR	95% CI (OR)
Gender (male)	0.178	0.450	0.156	0.693	1.194	0.495–2.884
Any vulnerabilities (yes)	0.965	0.478	4.074	0.044	2.625	1.028–6.701
Any mental health issues (yes)	−0.223	0.483	0.212	0.645	0.800	0.311–2.062
Any children from perpetrator (yes)	−0.032	0.354	0.008	0.928	0.969	0.484–1.938
Any issues with alcohol or drugs (yes)	0.509	0.534	0.911	0.340	1.664	0.585–4.736

Figure 1. Attrition profile for justice project data vs. Hester (2006).

Hester, M., 2006. Making it through the criminal justice system: attrition and domestic violence. Social policy and society, 5 (1), 79–90.

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