Domestic Violence Cases

It is difficult to assess risk in domestic violence cases. Reliance upon previous conviction records will underestimate professional judgements about the probability of further domestic violence (Richards, 2004, cited by Barnish 2004, p. 68). Domestic violence is a pattern of entrenched beliefs and having access to previous police call outs has provided me with a better insight in to the levels of abuse but by no means has it provided a complete picture (Barnish 2004, p. 68). Evidence suggests that women are victims of assault thirty five times before they report (Jaffe 1982, cited by Domestic Violence: the facts, n.d.) and on average, two women every week are killed by their partner (Office for National Statistics 2015, cited by Domestic Violence-
762). GJ`s victim was a thirty year old single mother who was assessed as a high risk victim by the Police Service. GJ stated that he still cared for the victim and it was my assessment that he wanted to reconcile. The index offence occurred as a result of the victim wishing to separate. Research shows that victims are at the highest risk of homicide following separation (Domestic Homicide: Understanding the risks, n.d.). I therefore referred this to MARAC prior to GJ`s release from custody. As well as referring to MARAC, I ensured all licence conditions were in place to protect the victim. When I emailed these conditions through to the prison establishment, I learnt from the prison that the victim had been visiting GJ, although both were claiming the relationship had ended. Research shows that there is lack of communication between agencies (Fitzgibbon, 2011, p. 10). This was a vital piece of information to the management of this case and upon reflection I should have been more proactive in liaising with the prison. In future, I will ensure I am aware of visiting/contacts in prison in order to provide a more holistic
Initially the victim did not take up support and Robinson (2006, p. 776) recognises this as one of the limitations of MARAC; victims not engaging. Upon re-referral, the victim did take up the service. Since this time, there has been no evidence to suggest that GJ has been in contact with the victim. An evaluation of MARAC highlights that a higher percentage of victims have not been further victimised illustrating the benefits of agencies working in partnership (Robinson, 2006, p. 781). I felt this process enabled GJ`s victim to be at the heart of the process. One of the criticisms of MARAC is lack of resources. This service is only targeted at the highest risk victims and there is a high volume of victims who are not assessed as high risk but require support (Robinson, 2006, pp. 776-777). This caused a dilemma for me when working with JE. His partner was assessed as a medium risk victim. I found this frustrating as a practitioner. I was aware that I would need to seek alternative measures in order to be able to manage the risk JE potentially presented to his partner. JE was working with a substance misuse agency and there was pre-birth child protection