Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)

Request Number: FOI/14765

Category: Incident and Crime Statistics - Violence against Women and Girls

Subject: Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG)

Request and Answer:
Your request for information has now been considered. In respect of Section 1(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act, we can confirm that the Police Service of Northern Ireland does hold the information you have requested to which your request relates. The decision has been taken to disclose the following.

Request 1
We note that there is no statutory definition of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), nor is the commonly agreed or used definition across the UK. With that in mind, is there a definition of VAWG that is used by the PSNI? If so, what precisely is it?

Answer
The PSNI in line with the National Police Chiefs Council guidelines in the UK defines Violence against women and girls (VAWG) as acts of violence or abuse that disproportionately affect women and girls. It acknowledges that while men and boys can also be victims of various forms of abuse, VAWG specifically addresses the gendered nature of certain crimes and their impact on women and girls.

Request 2
In response to a media enquiry from FCNI about what exactly comprises “VAWG offences”, the PSNI responded that, “Violence Against Women and Girls offences include female victims of violence against the person and sexual offences (excluding offences of corporate manslaughter, death/serious injury by unlawful driving and assault on police)” before referring us to the PSNI information page on its efforts against VAWG (see here). Is it possible that your definition of “VAWG offences” includes offences that would not be classified as VAWG offences by any reasonable definition of the term VAWG?

Answer
For statistical purposes we currently define VAWG as Violence against the Person and Sexual 

Offences with a female victim. 'Violence against women and girls' (VAWG) includes both Violence against the Person and Sexual offences with a female victim. Violence against the person includes: Violence with injury (including homicide & death/serious injury by unlawful driving), Violence without injury includes Stalking and Harassment.”

Request 3
Is it possible that your definition of “VAWG offences” (see question two) excludes any offences that would be classified as VAWG offences under any reasonable definition of the term VAWG?

Answer
There are a range of offences that might be considered as VAWG, such as criminal damage, acquisitive crime between partners, and breaches of NMOs that are not included in the above definition.

Request 4
We note that, in response to a media request from FCNI about the availability (or not) of dedicated statistics about VAWG crimes, the PSNI said “We do not have statistics recording all VAWG offences readily available within our scheduled statistical releases. There are occasions when a statistical breakdown is publicly available and, more generally, the number of female-only injured parties is routinely captured for all or a selection of offences.” Acknowledging, therefore, that a potential gap exists between the data known/used internally by the PSNI about VAWG offences and the data that is presented to the public, we would like to whether all cases of domestic abuse with a female victim classified as VAWG offences?

Answer
Using the above definition, not all domestic abuse motivated crimes will be included as VAWG. Violence against the Person and Sexual Offences make up around 80-85% of all domestic abuse motivated crimes, so the majority of offences are included. The Executive Office (TEO) are in the process of creating a VAWG dashboard and PSNI are working with TEO in relation to this matter.

Request 5
If the answer to question 4 is yes, is it the case therefore that this could include cases where both the offender and victim are female?

Answer
Using the above definition, any cases involving a female victim and female perpetrator will be included.

Request 6
Does the PSNI consider those cases (incidents of domestic abuse where both the victim and offender/suspect/perpetrator are female) to be VAWG offences?

Answer
Yes.

Request 7
Are all cases of domestic homicide with a female victim classified as VAWG offences?

Answer
Yes. 

Request 8
Could the such incidents as referred to in question 7 (incidents of domestic homicide with a female victim) therefore include cases where both the offender and victim are female?

Answer
Yes this is possible.

Request 9
Does the PSNI consider incidents as described in question 8 to be VAWG offences?

Answer
Where a woman or girl has been the victim of a domestic motivated offence, we will treat this as VAWG, irrespective of the gender of the suspect/perpetrator.

Request 10
The PSNI publishes figures for both domestic abuse and domestic homicide by the gender of the victim – however these are not cross-referred with the gender of the offender. The PSNI also publishes data about the gender of offenders in domestic abuse crimes overall – but there is no publicly-available way to cross-refer this data with the figures for domestic abuse/murder broken down by the gender of the victim. In this context, does the PSNI accept therefore that there is no way, using records that are publicly available, to precisely calculate how many cases of domestic abuse or domestic homicide have both a female victim and any male offender(s)/suspect(s)/perpetrator(s)?

Answer
Yes, we accept that our recorded crime bulletins, which use victim-based crime recording, do not provide information on the gender of suspects.

Request 11
Does the PSNI accept that similar issues occur when examining other types of crime – including offences of violence and abuse that, in certain circumstances, would meet any reasonable definition of VAWG - whereby some offences can be broken down by the gender of the victim, but there is no publicly-available way to cross-refer this with the gender of any offender(s)/suspect(s)/perpetrator(s)?

Answer
Police crime recording is based on the characteristics of the victim. Our statistics are presented on this basis.

The full text of exemptions can be found at www.legislation.gov.uk and further guidance on how they operate can be located on the Information Commissioners Office website www.ico.org.uk.