Public awareness is crucial to campaign against domestic abuse

Scotland’s perennial problem with domestic abuse is rarely away from the media spotlight and politicians have continued to label it a leading priority.

But despite what seems like a heightened awareness of the issue, figures highlighting its regularity within Scottish society continues to besmirch the country’s criminal justice system.

In the run-up to Christmas the Scottish Government enforced its message that perpetrators would face the full force of the law while just last week the leader of Scottish Labour demanded a tougher approach.

Although there have been several initiatives launched to tackle it, recent statistics indicated that police in Scotland deal with around 52,000 incidents of domestic abuse annually, or 145 incidents a day.

And indeed the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey published last month found one in six adults have been abused by their partners.

Of those, one quarter went on to form abusive relationships later, the survey said.

Lily Greenan, manager of Scottish Women’s Aid, said that while there have been improvements on some levels, she insists more needs to be done to prevent domestic abuse from happening.

She said: “Policing and the way we prosecute domestic abuse has moved a long way over the years and although there are variations across the country there has been progression, however, it is the area around prevention that we need to do more and that has to be one of the big challenges.” It was announced last month that a domestic abuse court is to be piloted in Edinburgh to try to improve the way allegations are dealt with in the justice system.

It will see specialist prosecutors, police liaison officers, advocacy workers and sheriffs come together.

They will deal with domestic abuse cases from the city’s south and east.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said the new approach would mean better provision for victims who would be offered support from specialist agencies with expertise in domestic abuse.

Edinburgh Domestic Abuse Court Service will be available to help female victims throughout the criminal process, while male victims will be offered support by Assist (Advocacy Support Safety Information Services Together).

Support workers will be a link to the police and prosecution services throughout the process.

There has been a domestic abuse court in Glasgow since 2004 and other variations have been set up in other parts of the country in recent years.

Greenan says that while changes to the way domestic abuse is prosecuted are welcomed, raising public awareness of it amongst the public is also crucial.

“There is a bit more awareness now, certainly there is more of a sense that people see domestic abuse as wrong, but there needs to be more,” she said.

“We started last year a campaign called Together We Can Stop It and the goal of that was to try and reach people initially through targeted communities, so we were working with trade unions, with colleges and university students and with the gay community.

“What we have been finding is you get people who are very switched on and really understand the issues and then folk who maybe say it is categorically wrong, but don’t really have awareness of what we mean when we talk about domestic abuse.

“Unfortunately there is still a perception that domestic abuse is all about physical violence and not a lot of recognition is given to things like coercion and controlling behaviour that go along with it. Violence does not have to exist for there to be domestic abuse, there are a range of ways a partner can be victimised and abused.

“Trying to get people to understand that the decision for many women to stay or leave a situation is not as simple as it may seem is also important. In many cases the victim has had their self-esteem eroded and their sense of self-worth has been knocked.” In England and Wales it was announced last month that the Government will launch a consultation on whether the definition of domestic violence should be widened to include ‘coercive control’.

It says those suffering forced social isolation or psychological domination by a partner often do not recognise they are victims of abuse.

Greenan added: “Over the years there have been some very good public campaigns, for example, the zero tolerance campaign had a brilliant use of imagery and marketing and was useful just to get discussion going and get members of the public talking about it.

“What we need to do is not only try to change the way people think but the way they behave. In relation to domestic abuse, what we are trying to shift is the public’s sense that it is something they can’t do anything about.

“As part of the Stop campaign there is an element of it that everyone can do one thing to help stop domestic abuse. What you need to figure out is what your one thing is. It could mean direct intervention if you come across something or it could just be educating yourself more on the indicators for when you speak to friends.

“The work we have done with the trade unions is very much about seeing domestic abuse as something that follows people into their work, it doesn’t stay at home, it is with victims wherever they are.

“What we wanted to do was start a discussion with the trade unions and it has been interesting to see how trade unions look at it and we have asked challenging questions like how would they support a member who was being abused by a partner, or what would they do about a member who was the abuser.” In recent years there have been a number of policy changes in Scotland, wider use of public campaigns and more training given to police and prosecutors. Greenan, however, does not believe the numbers of domestic abuse incidents in the country will decrease significantly until there is a national prevention strategy.

She added: “What we don’t have in Scotland that I would love to see is a more coherent national prevention strategy. We have a prevention strategy that was developed a couple of years back, but it has never been fully implemented.

“If everyone goes off and does their own thing in their local areas it contributes to the overall effort, but I think we would get more done faster if there was an agreed effort to see where we want to go as a country.” She added: “Domestic abuse is very prevalent, and the figures show that. I don’t think we will see a shift in those figures for quite a while. Scotland has always been a bit ahead of the game in terms of the work that’s happened locally and nationally.

“But public awareness hasn’t caught up with political and policy awareness. We have practitioners being trained and health workers being trained and screening programmes at the NHS so women are being identified much earlier and that is good but the figures we have in this country won’t plateau until we get to the stage where people out in the street understand and women are helped before it gets so far down the line.

“Policing and prosecution has moved a long way and the training the police now get is pretty good, there isn’t an officer that comes out of probation anywhere in Scotland who hasn’t had fairly hefty training in areas covering domestic abuse.” As well as hoping for the creation of a national prevention strategy, Greenan also says or of the cleverness of the abuser.

“Because of a host of factors, many women don’t end up through the criminal justice system, and instead through the civil route with things like civil protection orders, harassment orders so access to civil justice is crucial.

“We are doing a bit of work in the next two years around areas on the civil side. How do we make sure women don’t lose out in the legal aid front? As more solicitors scale down on legal aid cases because they can’t afford to do it, what are the implications for victims of domestic abuse, particularly outside the central belt?” Looking to the year ahead, Greenan says the local authority elections in May could have a big impact on those providing services to victims of domestic abuse.

She said: “Because a lot of responsibility for providing resources has been devolved to local authorities our focus does actually shift and we are going to have a very interesting few months because we have the elections in May and we are going to be asking questions about how candidates see the future of services in relation to domestic abuse.

“We have seen a year-on-year decrease in funding to local women’s aid groups and there’s a lot of anxiety for groups over how they will be funded so the coming months will be very important for us.”