Could someone please explain to me exactly why the ONS stats on domestic abuse are not accurate?

[AVirginLitTheCandle]

I know that they're not and that they've been criticized in the past for overestimating the number of male victims but could someone please explain how they're not accurate.

I'm not quite sure I understand how they've come to the 40% of victims are male figure.

[LineyReborn]

I would want to know how many male victims are abused by perpetrators who themselves were born male, as opposed to born female.

That might be a start.

Then I'd want to break that down by category.

We all know that the category of dv most likely to end in death and very serious injury involves female victims of male aggressors.

[Felascloak]

I think it's because they don't count repeat offences against the same victim. So they are counting how many victims there are. If you continue how many offences were committed against men v women it looks totally different. Basically men are far less likely to have repeated acts of DV against them.

[FruitCider]

I saw a Scottish study conducted by WA before, it said that when male victims were reinterviewed 12 months later 1/3 admitted they had made the offence up. I cannot find the research now, it's disappeared from WA website.

[Felascloak]

Here's a blog from the amazing Karen Ingala-Smith
kareningalasmith.com/2013/04/29/this-thing-about-male-victims/

[ChocChocPorridge]

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11666990/Domestic-abuse-and-violence-is-not-gender-neutral.-Wake-up-Britain.html

This is a link criticising the way the ONS collect stats

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/compendium/focusonviolentcrimeandsexualoffences/yearendingmarch2015/chapter1overviewofviolentcrimeandsexualoffences

Also note that sexual offences are counted separately from violence.

[AVirginLitTheCandle]

So it doesn't make the distinction between one off incidents and long term abuse?

Is that it?

[Felascloak]

Here's another more recent analysis
www.statslife.org.uk/social-sciences/2308-official-stats-mask-extent-of-domestic-violence-in-the-uk

[AVirginLitTheCandle]

I see the stats don't include sexual offences.

So a woman who is being raped by her partner over a long period of time will not be included in the domestic abuse stats but a woman who slaps her partner as a one off incident will be included?

[HalloToJasonIsaacs]

There's this summary link from Refuge which seems to have some more detailed work linked within it.

I'd be interested in knowing what proportion of male victims are abused by male perpetrators, but haven't been able to find that statistic.

[HalloToJasonIsaacs]

Whoops forgot the link.
www.refuge.org.uk/about-domestic-violence/domestic-violence-and-gender/

[Felascloak]

I think that's summarised in my second link buffy

[OneFlewOverTheDodosNest]

I've done a bit of digging on the ONS stats in the past, and one thing that really skews the stats is the statistics around people murdered by a current or former partner.

For women, it only includes current and former partners, but for men it also includes being murdered by their partner's former partners as well. So in heterosexual relationships it's a man killing his ex's new boyfriend which to me is actually still a way to try to control their female ex.

Unfortunately the statistics don't show the sex of the perpetrators, but I'd be willing to bet that a lot of the violence against men is committed by men.

[cadnowyllt]

I saw a Scottish study conducted by WA before, it said that when male victims were reinterviewed 12 months later 1/3 admitted they had made the offence up. I cannot find the research now, it's disappeared from WA website.

Only a third ? Well, I'm shocked - see.

[Felascloak]

That's interesting oneflew. Wonder why that is.
I think records of gender of perpetrator would be useful as male victims may also be in a gay relationship.

[OneFlewOverTheDodosNest]

Having a look and they've actually changed the way statistics are broken down since I last looked and published a report which confirmed that the stats were unreliable. Can't imagine it's an easy task though trying to get accurate statistics from 43 different police forces.

Yes Felas, I find it frustrating because they record sex of victim and have a breakdown of crime by sexuality (although not also sex) but there's no data on the sex of the perpetrators. I guess a way of finding out would be to look at convictions but we know that conviction rates for rape and domestic violence are low.

[OneFlewOverTheDodosNest]

That's being a victim of personal or intimate violence crime by sexuality (including from family - very sad to see such a higher prevalence of assaults from family for gay people)

[HillaryFTW]

Another disingenuous contribution from Mr cadno.

I've never understood why sex of perpetrator isn't recorded. Is it recorded only for convictions,not at a first report, maybe?

[AyeAmarok]

It's troubling that a study about something so serious has been done in such a skewed manner in order to mask a problem. Can't help but wonder what the motivation is behind that.

Cad, why do you hang around these threads, out of interest?

[ChocChocPorridge]

Fruit/Cadnow -it was actually follow up from the Scottish Crime Survey 2000 - they went back and re-interviewed.

From the link below:

In follow-up interviews, over one in four of those men identified as victims of domestic abuse in the Scottish Crime Survey subsequently claimed not to have experienced this form of victimisation. Some men were referring to non-domestic assaults and property crimes when they ticked boxes in the 'domestic abuse' part of the self-completion questionnaire used in the Scottish Crime Survey 2000

www.gov.scot/Publications/2002/09/15160/9339

So the crime report was based on self-completed questionnaires and the data was found to be inaccurate.

Having said that, there were 90 male victims, they followed up only about half, so it's a tiny, tiny sample size.

[Felascloak]

oneflew Actually there are strict rules about crime recording and all the stats get reported to the home office. I think the problem is that DV isn't a separate crime type so splitting it out is hard.
If the home office was to mandate flagging like they do for hate crime that would help, but I think there is some reluctance to do that.

[Felascloak]

Hillary sex of perpetrator is recorded by the police forces but not reported or collated by the HO I guess.

[ThatStewie]

They also cap the number of offences experienced by one victim at 4. So, a woman could experience sexual & physical violence every single day but only 4 of the 365 distinct crimes are counted.

[PreemptiveSalvageEngineer]

Was so shocked by the "capping" I told DP about it, who was also shocked. He honestly believe somebody should be sacked over that.

FFS, does an body know if the ONS caps anything else?

And the fact that sexual violence doesn't count as violence. Words fail me.

[vesuvia]

Statistics about domestic violence tend too often to compare different situations, so you often get sets of statistics such as these:

In Scotland,

1 in 4 women have experienced domestic abuse from a partner.

1 in 6 men have experienced domestic abuse from a partner or family member.

(source: www.healthscotland.com/equalities/gender-based-violence/demographics.aspx )