CPS have only just realised there is an "overlap of domestic abuse across key VAWG crimes, including rape, strangulation, ‘honour’-based abuse, harassment, stalking and revenge porn"

[IwantToRetire]

I cant believe they are claiming this as a new and amazing discovery!

• Exclusive Crown Prosecution Service data shows significant overlap of domestic abuse across key VAWG crimes, including rape, strangulation, ‘honour’-based abuse, harassment, stalking and revenge porn
• The CPS recognises VAWG as a form of discrimination against women and a fundamental issue of human rights.

A significant overlap in crime types relating to violence against women and girls is a complexity prosecutors are working to overcome as they strive to seek justice for those facing abuse.

Data from the Crown Prosecution Service shows the growing relationship between domestic abuse and other related crimes such as rape, strangulation, revenge porn, stalking and honour-based abuse.

https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/complex-layers-abuse-provide-new-prosecution-challenge-tackling-violence-against-women-and

Well duh! Still, better late than never eh?

Quick, somebody tell them that bears shit in the woods.

Of course, they can put 2 and 2 together and (finally!|) come up with 4 till the cows come home, but unless they actually mount some prosecutions for any of this it's an entirely pointless realisation.

In a society where rape is de facto legal, such is the lamentably low prosecution - let alone conviction - rate, and where DV and stalking cases are often put on the back burner by police and never even make it to court, women could be excused from getting excited about this until some action is actually taken.

Things that were impossible for the CPS to perceive under Max Hill, vol 89632.

Does this mean someone might start taking domestic violence seriously? As in before a woman or children are murdered?

Sorry but WTF did the CPS think DA was if they were not including coercive control and physical and sexual attack?

But it's wider than domestic abuse, though that's extremely bad.

41% of those convicted of crimes surrounding the hotel housing immigrants in Rotherham, had previous convictions for domestic violence. And I understand, from another thread on Mumsnet, that this figure was replicated following other similar disturbances.

What a radical concept.

I speak as a professional in the VAWG sector going back to 1994, and have sat on the serious crime review panel for the CPS 2012 et seq.

Now retired from it all.

they did fucking well know all of this, they just forgot about all the data they had when a certain issue distracted their attention.

It is a serious infection that has affected the entire criminal justice system, and the bloody family Courts to boot

I am very angry about this, does not quite cover it.

I'd like to hear more from you if that's OK? What actions do you think should be taken, and by whom?

I worry about outing myself here, i might add i am not well known. I could write a book about the ups and downs of the independent women’s right’s sector its rise and fall, its key players, its sell outs its loss of political traction.

The elevation of public funding for women’s services, the mainstreaming of women’s rights, the heady influence that was suddenly on offer, and the ultimate corruption of the sector at the alter of fiscal security.

which in reality gave them the loss of control over the ability to freely and independently advocate for individual women and girls, and as a collective concern.

What we see now is legal challenges massive wins on the most fundamental of issues, that being there is such a thing as being an adult human female, who as such is vulnerable to male violence and oppression, whatever her social status.

i am overjoyed that we see the rise of LGBA and sex matters, and JKR commitment to us as women.

But on the ground level, services are what really matter. They have been decimated, and those that remain cow tow to the genderists agenda writ large to the funding bodies, such as the public sector.

umbrella bodies such as women's aid and the most dreadful Refuge, and the Rape Crisis network are beyond salvage.

They are all tied up in all this shit, motivated by salaries, Kudos, key performance indicators, bits of paper. They don't want you to measure success by advocacy cases won, in the courts, with the police, shifts in local policy, prevention of children being removed, women's safety improved, bla bla bla

Where to begin, at the fucking beginning.

Ground level. When i left my last service (as CEO) we were a mean lean killing machine. And it survives and thrives as one of the largest independent for women by women services in England.

I embedded in it a female centric agenda, where victims became survivors, became volunteers, supporters, advocates and some paid workers. But professional and confident as well.

i know i have just blown my own trumpet but fuck it.

JKR points a knowing finger at this as does LGBA.

And we then, once re formed go back to lobbying base line having learnt not to be corrupted.

Once all this legal stuff is embedded, and it is over once and for all, women who have resources to spare should as per JKR divert their cash to the base line movement.

i could offer my (likely) elderly knowledge and services to any new independent growth and fertilisation.

this was a free-form essay.

thanks for asking

I forgot to say i think sex matters would be well placed to create a wing of their agency to recruit or network with existing services and help develop new ones because they understand the issues around corruption of primary goals.

@Hedgehogsrightsarehumanrights that's interesting

I never thought they got distracted. I just thought they didn't give a crap. To be honest, I still do.

I mentioned on another thread about a report that someone I know produced for police commissioners with the groundbreaking revelation that domestic violence victims suffer with poor mental health. Quite why we have to pay for these "no shit, Sherlock" studies is beyond me.

And also today, this:

Too many female abuse victims are locked up, says minister as BBC visits women's prison https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq83l85e0w9o

My friend did a dissertation on this issue for her SW degree which i reviewed for her i didn't like to say to her no shit Sherlock

sigh

A lot has been written about how funding has corrupted not just women's voluntary sector group, but most of what used to be genuine community based groups. Which most women's groups were, ie situation in and as part of a local community.

It wasn't just that the funders could direct and meddle in provision of services, but many groups in the first instance were able to pay salaries that a lot of women had no expectation of in other areas of work.

And as such these groups became interesting to women with no particular committment to the core and value of the service.

So it isn't always that there is a suddent take over but a drip, drip feed of shared values slowly disappearing.

There's a whole other factor which was in the early days that most local funding came from Labour controlled councils. And even back then they had a strict show loyalty clause. Never written down of course but implicit.

So whilst most on FWR are or have been concerned about women service providers, in fact this funding initially seen as being radical was in fact a way of pulling what had been autonomous groups into the who do you know, who can do favours for who. Blair in fact copies this and helped destroy the independent social housing sector.

Added to which the time consuming necessity of applying for funding every year of so just for basic core funding meant time that should have been given to service provision going into chasing money.

So you might think they cant be bothered, and I am sure some of them cant, but also many of them are staffed or have volunteers who have no particular committment to feminism.

And the other side of this, is that over a period of time women who are happy to write or talk about feminism, barely engage let alone think about working or volunteering for women's groups.

So it is as much the absence of women with a feminist back ground working in the sector, as it is women who have other politics working in the sector.

If the only women working in the sector are through their beliefs fully signed up to the gender woo philosopy, it is hardly surprising that they dont put much effort in sex based services.

Well that is the other drain on the actual pracitice of feminism. Harly anyone is, but there are mulititudes more who are earning a nice living "teaching" feminsim, writing books, being commentators.

As parasites they drain feminism in practice as much as any TWAW acolyte.

I think that's a bit harsh - I have a friend who earns a nice living teaching nursing, when she could be actually on the wards, nursing, as she did for years. Is she a loss to nursing? Yes because she was an excellent nurse; no because she is passing on her knowledge and experience and values to student nurses.

There have always been activists and theorists, and the latter have often irritated the heck out of the former. But writing books and commentaries and articles has a value too, depending on the quality, of course!

There is often a cross-over: I can think of a few feminist writers who started out in movements like Reclaim the Night or WAVAW [Women Against Violence Against Women] and who have become writers or academics, but that doesn't mean they no longer support the principles they had when they were on 'the front line'.

Obviously, some of them may have taken the King's Shilling, so to speak, and it has had a dampening effect on their feminism. Some of them have gone TWAW in a way that shocks anyone who knew them in their previous incarnations.

But I don't think that stepping back from the front line to take up writing or teaching is inevitably a bad thing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1dzp050yn2o

Slightly off at a tangent, but this article caught my eye earlier, about the way Italy is tackling femicide. I'm no fan of Giorgia Meloni, but she seems to be willing to tackle the patriarchy.

The downside was the usual BBC sloppy reporting :

"From now on, Italy will record every murder of a woman that is motivated by her gender as femicide". It's not gender, it's sex! Adding gender to the mix would skew the results and make them worthless.

On one level you are right.

But in terms of fundamental practice feminism isn't something you "learn".

But in the absence of local women's groups where you can explore a range of ideas and take on local issues, it inevitably slides into a small elite group, and a larger group of consumers.

Which is the start of the disengagement, or feeling that you cant be someone who is equally active as someone, by and large the MSM and patriachal institutions, and so isn't representative any way.

The women who men choose are rarely the women that women would choose, or feel inspired by.

Much of your post could apply to so many services which were ostensibly for the public, but became large, and were soon primarily for the staff. You mention one, still, "for women by women". Would it be possible to give a clue?

(p.s. Like your name, by the way!)

As you well know most of us end up carers for our children and working full time whilst battling family court and poss criminal court as well. These front line services for women then only offer courses and assistance during the day stating a no child policy or evening meetup. Honestly how does a single woman with child care responsibilities and working full time access these services? The platitudes you get from your da support worker and no practical help ... Money for old rope? 30/40 years ago feminist discussion was interesting and hopeful but the reality is that's all it is. Some things have improved but prod a bit ...

ah the CPS (couldn't prosecute satan) and the police. DGAF about harms to women and girls.

To be fair the plod have only just realised that all those Barbershops aren't actually there to trim beards, so...

A couple of things bother me about this report (ignoring the whole - WTF have they been doing up til now aspect).

One is that they say there is a growing relationship between DA and VAWG. But they don’t say how the relationship is growing or why, and so how the new CPS strategy can tackle it.

And secondly they are concentrating on the relationship they see within charged crime. And whenever I see data about connections happening within a particular section of the CJS, I wonder how much that reflects the reality on street, before self-censorship, paternalistic views, and targets filter out the harder to serve victims. Is this focus on building bigger cases against a perpetrator going to lead to CPS recommending no further action on “date” rapes where there isn’t an ongoing abusive relationship, for instance.

Do you remember when a few commentators - independently, as far as I know - figured out that the majority of mass shooters have histories of arrests or convictions for DA?

It surprises nobody in the 'real world' that the kind of men who feel their anger entitles them to kill strangers are the kind of men who feel their anger entitles them to beat up their wives, mothers, girlfriends and kids. I'd suggest, free of charge, they are probably road ragers too.

But, no, each mass shooter is a loner, an oddity, an incomprehensible mystery who may have looked at some extremist videos. Each wife-beater is a sad man, an oddity, an incomprehensible mystery who may have been provoked by his wife's headaches. Each wife killer, each stalker, each immigrant-beater (and some of the immigrants), each football 'firm' leader, each human trafficker ... is a surprising oddity. Policing could be a lot more efficient if they looked first at men who've evidenced anger and entitlement to take it out on others they consider inferior.

Instead of more sensitivity training, they should get Lundy Bancroft and Gavin de Becker in to teach them about dangerous men.