Specialist Domestic Violence Courts review 2007/08

Justice with safety

Executive summary

Introduction

Specialist Domestic Violence Courts represent a partnership approach to domestic violence by the police, prosecutors, court staff, the probation service and specialist support services for victims. Magistrates sitting in these courts are fully aware of the approach and have received additional training. These court systems provide a specialised way of dealing with domestic violence cases in magistrates' courts. They refer to the approach of a whole system, rather than simply a court building or jurisdiction. Agencies work together to identify, track and risk assess domestic violence cases, support victims of domestic violence and share information better so that more offenders are brought to justice.

The SDVC Programme commenced in April 2006 identifying the first 23 individual SDVC systems (Note: Listed in Annex A). A National Resource Manual (Note: Link to the SDVC Resource Manual) outlining the recommended core components of an SDVC (Note: An outline of the core components is available in Annex B.) was published in March 2006 to aid consistency of service delivery in SDVCs. A further 39 SDVCs were selected in April 2007, bringing the total number to 64.

This report outlines the findings of a review of the first 23 SDVCs. The review aimed to:

1. Assess the performance of SDVCs and develop a better understanding of the key components needed to deliver the measures of success;
2. Identify barriers to delivery and good practice in relation to operating an SDVC; and,
3. Inform the ongoing development of the SDVC Programme including a review of the core components and the subsequent updating of the National Resource Manual.

The review also attempted to assess the extent to which the first tranche of SDVCs are operating to the standards outlined in the National Resource Manual by issuing each of the 23 SDVCs with a questionnaire asking about their practice and processes to gain a better understanding of how the core components of a SDVC are being implemented. A separate document provides data from the questionnaires completed by the SDVCs which is available from the National Specialist Domestic Violence Court Programme Steering Group (Note: The National Specialist Domestic Violence Court Steering Group comprises officials from the Inter-Personal Violence Team at the Home Office (0207 035 3273); The Domestic Violence Implementation Team at the Crown Prosecution Service (0207 796 8687); the Courts Innovation Branch and the Family Justice Division within Her Majesty's Courts Service (0115 9558136 and 0207 210 8796 respectively).).

The review comprised three elements:

1. Data analysis (Note: Crown Prosecution Service data was analysed for all SDVCs. In addition data from police, courts, probation Independent DV Advisors and voluntary sector perpetrator programmes was analysed where available.) of the 23 SDVCs to obtain headline data across all SDVCs;
2. A postal survey of all the 23 SDVCs; and,
3. In depth analysis of six SDVCs (selection being based on their performance) which included court observations, focus groups and individual interviews with key SDVC representatives which helped to indicate the most significant components for delivering success measures.

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Measures of success

For the purpose of the review, it was decided to measure the SDVCs against the 2005-08 Criminal Justice System (CJS) Public Service Agreements (PSAs) as measures of success:

• Bringing more perpetrators to justice
• Improving the support, safety and satisfaction of victims
• Increasing public confidence in CJS.

Prior to the review, the most reliable data available was that relating to offenders brought to justice, supplied by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). This review provided an opportunity to also look in more detail at support and safety for victims. The emphasis was therefore on the delivery of both justice and safety.

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Main findings from the 23 SDVCs

The following findings represent data analysed from all 23 SDVCs. The review then carried out investigations to analyse, where possible, which components were involved in delivering these measures of success.

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Bringing more perpetrators to justice

• The police data indicated a high level of domestic violence crimes being arrested: an average of over 80% for the SDVCs where the data was available (Note: 19 SDVCs provided some police data, of which 11 included data on crimes and arrests.).
• Of the 23 SDVC systems, ten achieved over 70% successful prosecutions. This was generally better than the non-SDVCs within their wider CPS Areas.
• The ten SDVCs with over 70% successful outcomes also had the least cases discontinued and were among the least with no evidence being offered at trial.
• One of the courts achieved over 80% successful prosecutions.
• The average for SDVC successful outcomes was 66% compared with their corresponding CPS Area average of 64%.

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Improving the support, safety and satisfaction of victims

• Just under six thousand victim (Note: In total, 5,844 victim referrals were made to IDVA services.) referrals were made to Independent Domestic Violence Adviser (IDVA) (Note: IDVAs provide specialist DV support services for victims linked to SDVCs.) services linked to the SDVC systems: an average of 269 referrals per IDVA service; a high level of referrals over a six month period.
• Just under three-quarters (74%) of clients involved in the court process were supported by IDVAs at court. This is particularly encouraging as the IDVA service is the first service developed to support victims of domestic violence both within and outside the CJS.
• Just under two-thirds (60%) of total referrals nationally were at very high or high risk of significant harm. Just under half of all referrals (43%) at very high risk (VHR).
• The number of cases that went to Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARACs) is equivalent to 84% of the number of VHR clients referred to the IDVA projects, indicating the attention given to victim safety.

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Increase public confidence in CJS

• Bringing more perpetrators to justice and improving victim support, safety and satisfaction can have subsequent benefits of increasing public confidence in the CJS.
• An assessment of agency and victim perceptions was beyond the scope of the quantitative data collection. However, interviews and focus groups with representatives from all six SDVCs visited indicated improved confidence in the CJS by both victims and the community.

The best SDVCs addressed both justice and safety measures and data indicated improved prosecutions, engagement and support for victims both in and outside of the CJS. However performance in relation to bringing perpetrators to justice varied across the SDVCs as did the support for victims:

• Many of the SDVCs with high levels of successful prosecutions indicated higher levels of support for victims at court. However not all of them had a high level of engagement of victims generally.
• In contrast many of the SDVCs with high levels of engagement and support for victims outside of the court process did not illustrate improved prosecutions nor a focus on support for victims at court.

Variability between the 23 SDVCs when analysed led to a levelling out in overall performance. The averaging of performance across the 23 SDVCs hid the high levels of success in some courts in bringing offenders to justice and in others supporting victims. The review therefore attempted to obtain a more detailed understanding of how six SDVCs, illustrating variations in performance, were operating. This aimed to supplement the data and provide best practice examples in improving prosecutions as well as ensuring safety of victims. In addition, information from the survey of all SDVCs provided further insights into the delivery of success measures.

An analysis of all core components; identified good practice; and issues for improvement are outlined in Box 1.

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Conclusions

In conclusion, it was found that those SDVCs exhibiting the best practice addressed ALL components listed in the National Resource Manual as a means of seeking both justice and safety. However, an in-depth study of the variation in performance illustrated by six SDVCs elicited the following information:

The SDVCs that were more successful in bringing more perpetrators to justice had:

• Strong multi-agency partnerships;
• Effective systems for identification of cases;
• IDVAs with a focus on supporting victims at court;
• Good training and dedicated staff;
• Clustered court listing or a combination of cluster and fast-track court listings; and,
• Criminal justice perpetrator programmes.

The SDVCs that were more successful in the support and safety of victims had:

• Strong MARACs;
• IDVAs focusing on engaging victims generally; and,
• Safe court facilities.

It was therefore clear that omission of any of the core components led to less successful outcomes in one or more of the measures. The combination of the overall components was pivotal in delivering success.

Within the Review three components were identified where there were systemic weaknesses:

• In the SDVCs with a lower proportion of successful prosecutions there was a higher proportion of BME defendants, indicating a need for a focus on equality and diversity to address all success measures;
• All SDVCs need to address their performance through data collection and analysis to see where improvements are needed to meet all success measures; and,
• All SDVCs need to address children issues.

In general, SDVCs that formed part of a broader Coordinated Community Response (Note: Coordinated Community Response on the Home Office website.) provided better support and safety for victims.

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Recommendations

It is recommended that:

1. SDVCs review their practice and processes in light of this review and identify and implement issues for improvement where necessary;
2. The National Resource Manual is revised to reflect the findings of this review;
3. All SDVCs are requested to ensure all components of the National Resource Manual are adhered to; and,
4. The National SDVC Steering Group draws up proposals for the future SDVC programme.

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Box 1 - Best practice and issues for improvement in an SDVC system

From the review, issues were highlighted and identified as best practice and issues for improvement in an SDVC system.

Component	Best practice	Issues for improvement
Component 1: Multi-Agency partnerships	A dedicated role to coordinate the work of agencies within the SDVC system; Broad strategic forums of key partners with protocols on roles, responsibilities and processes; Operational groups to carry out the day to day management of cases are crucial.	Equal participation of all partners – especially in relation to the voluntary sector; Succession planning to ensure that SDVCs continue to function well once key personalities move on.
Component 2: MARACs	Implementation of the national MARAC model, with key agencies, including voluntary sector and non-CJS statutory agencies, engaged in referral to, and operation of, MARACs; Key agencies MARAC trained and attending MARACs regularly; Good links with Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements and Local Safeguarding Children Boards.	Use of standardised risk assessments by all key agencies, with commonly agreed risk thresholds; A dedicated coordination function to ensure the MARAC is sufficiently administered and monitored.
Component 3: Identification of cases	Use of government-wide definition to ensure consistency of approach; Use of operational systems to identify, manage and address any identification problems.	Early identification of files, referral and monitoring systems across all agencies.
Component 4: IDVAs	IDVAs need to work with other agencies to address victim safety and also support victims, both outside and within the court process; Links between IDVAs and other support services, with protocols, to ensure referral onward of non-high risk victims; Equal involvement of IDVAs in SDVC planning, operation and performance review to ensure victim safety is considered within the SDVC processes.	Sustainable local funding of IDVAs with workloads within the CAADA recommended good practice levels; Improved systems, with protocols, to link IDVAs and the CJS to ensure all agencies address both justice and safety.
Component 5: Training and dedicated staff	Training using recommended training materials; Multi-agency training to raise awareness and challenge attitudes and culture; Dedicated leads with allocated time from each agency.	Trained personnel always to be used in SDVCs; In addition to dedicated DV training, the integration of DV issues into other training opportunities; Involvement of IDVAs in training CJS staff to illustrate the importance of victim safety.
Component 6: Court listing	Cluster SDVCs or a combination of fast-track and cluster (Note: Fast track systems (FTS) exist where DV cases proceed through the court system according to a quicker set of time scales compared to a non DV case. Cluster SDVCs group together DV cases for specific sessions. These usually include pre-trial reviews, remands, pleas, sentencing and, in some areas, specific sessions for trials.) listing; Trained court personnel to be involved in all court hearings; Single listing of DV trials or prioritisation of DV cases where multiple trials are listed.	Existing fast-track systems should also consider clustering to ensure trained and dedicated staff, with wrap-around services, for all hearings; Trial-only courts should consider methods to ensure trained and dedicated staff - with wrap-around services - are provided for all hearings; Links with Crown Court to be considered by local partnerships.
Component 7: Equality and diversity	Provision of IDVAs and specialist support services to work with black and minority ethnic (BME) communities to provide services and address any significant disproportionality in provision of service; Victim and defendant profile data to be collected to inform performance; The needs of a range of victims, including men, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) communities and disabled victims as well as BME communities, to be addressed.	SDVCs to address statutory equality duties and draw up equality impact assessments in relation to a range of communities; SDVCs to involve victims from a range of communities in court visits and consultation to improve performance and public confidence.
Component 8: Data collection	Data collection and analysis by dedicated leads to inform performance management; Effective performance management systems to inform operational activities.	Success measures and targets to be provided by the National SDVC Steering Group, reflecting CJS targets including both safety and justice; Quality control of data by all agencies; Data breakdown by all agencies into equality profiles to identify and address any potential significant disproportionality in outcomes.
Component 9: Court facilities	Provision of safe entrances, exits and waiting facilities; Links between IDVAs, Witness Service and CPS to ensure early recognition of the need for special measure applications.	Identification of cases for special measure applications to be monitored and any problems addressed.
Component 10: Children	Links with children's projects, local safeguarding children's boards (LCSBs), education, health and family courts to address children's needs; Risk assessments that linked into LSCBs to ensure that the safety of all victims was coordinated.	SDVCs need further development of how the SDVC system can support work with children; Links with children's work is needed at strategic and operational level; Protocols are needed across agencies to address the needs of children.
Component 11: Perpetrator programmes	Good working relationships across CJS and IDVAs to ensure the referral of appropriate cases to perpetrator programmes; Provision of information by IDVAs to Pre-Sentence Report (PSR) writers to ensure the most up-to-date information on victims safety; Information on perpetrator programmes included in CJS training sessions.	Capacity issues with the CJS's perpetrator programmes; Consideration of the links to and use of, voluntary sector perpetrator programmes.

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