So called “Accredited work” with domestic abusers – why Police commissioners are ill-advisedly throwing away hundreds of thousands of pounds into efforts which are near totally misplaced and here is the Police College research paper. This was our letter to the ACPO DV agenda leads Feb 2012
The DRIVE project focused efforts on a relatively small number of High Risk / serial offenders who might be, just possibly, in the “power and control model”. This link exposes the “lies and fessing up” . The ACPO paper (Association of Chief Police Officers) in 2009 estimated there to be 25,231 serial / repeat abusers nationwide in this mould, which compares with more than 10,000 call outs in Northamptonshire in the Freedom of Information data contained in in the two figures below and the statistics at the end of this post.
But the vast majority of police work will involve Medium and low risk abusers (see pages 115, 116,117 of the inspectorate report) who are very much more likely in the “situational couple” model – where – as can be seen very clearly from the statistics below the police were called out to a very significant proportion of female abusers. In round figures 4,500 female abusers and 7,000 male abusers.
Respect’s accreditation of perpetrator work is to a very large extent based on the Duluth perpetrator model and is then, in turn, based on the DVIP’s version of the Duluth model. The model favoured for “accreditation” is that model, revised somewhat in 1998 by the senior figures, now in Respect, who originally worked at DVIP. The CEO of Respect, Ms Jo Todd, was co-rewriter of the model along with Ms Kate Iwi of Pai Pact, who at least until 2013, and probably later, was still training that model. They re-wrote the model because of critical research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust (JRT) which pointed out the enormous problems with drop-outs and other fundamental things.
In 2005/ 6 the police in Northamptonshire began a policy of “arrest someone”. This was probably the same as happened everywhere else. As can be seen by the statistics here that resulted in a great deal less “call out” work which could be seen as having been about “keeping the peace.” The result was that call outs plummeted. But of course the police arrested very many more men than women and often they ended up arresting the man rather more often than the woman so the men learnt – “don’t call the police you’ll probably get arrested yourself” and the women learnt: “call the police and get him arrested”, as illustrated by the next figures.
This fitted very nicely with the radical feminist mantra: “Violent men are all the same and they will not change. The only thing for a woman to do is to leave him.” But it flew in the face of what the originally researched group of women victims said they wanted: “The man without the violence”. Perhaps that wish is what also leads to the large percentage of withdrawal statements and inevitably to the demands to “prosecute anyway.”
DVIP was the first “accredited” project in 2009, the year that ACPO concluded that there was no mileage in perpetrator projects from the police point of view. Research into the effectiveness of DVIP and 3 other projects was begun a year earlier, the so-called Mirabal Project. It was completed in 2015 at a cost of £1.25m. One of the main researchers was Prof Liz Kelly, who, in the report, feigned astonishment that so few men completed the programme. Feigned? Because she knew that that would be the likely outcome, having been involved with the JRT sponsored research of DVIP in 1998.
Prof. Marianne Hester has now completed research on the “Drive Project.” The latter does, perhaps, at first glance offer some progress with high risk abusers + 4% over non-Drive referrals. Some of the more positive details of the learning now clearly outline things we have been saying for the last 25 years! The one-to-one work with perpetrators has learnt quite a lot – for example that each person is an individual, not the stereotype seen by DVIP. Prof Kelly. Prof Hester was relieved when she didn’t have to report the drop-outs. How come? Because the participants are “High engagers” , “medium engagers” and “non-engagers”. The project continues with “disruption” for non-engagers and of course they slip between “high/medium/non” engagement without further ado.
One small component of “The Drive programme”, is yet another revision of the failed work of DVIP. Of course it is quite reasonable to attempt to revise something which isn’t working. The difficulty is that those people who are attempting to initiate the changes have seriously not got a clue about how that might be achieved. They have also loudly claimed in the past that the public and funders can have confidence in the originally accredited programmes – which have still demonstrated as good as no outcomes!
The Labour party in opposition has been soundly beaten by the Conservatives mainly because they had an underlying ideology from which the leadership was (and is) unable to deviate. Respect and DVIP are very much in the same boat. They have an ideology and a practice from which they are unable to deviate. That ideology funds the feminist mantra espoused by the CEO of Refuge on between £210 k and £220 k per annum – as per these newspaper articles of more than a year ago.
Dr Louise Dixon pointed out the ideology quite clearly in 2012, concluding: “The accreditation should be scrapped.”
The Centre for Social Justice, a government think tank, also called for a fresh start to be made because the perpetrator programmes were not working.
The Home Office, funder of Cafcass who advocate and fund courses provided by “accredited projects” also concluded that there is little or no effectiveness from the Duluth style work.
The woman that wrote the original Duluth programme, the late Ellen Pence, very clearly stated in 1999 that she had been mistaken in placing such a focus on “Power and Control.”
So we have now been waiting for yet more research which certainly concludes that the problems are virtually the same as they were in 2015, the same as they were in 1998 and the same that they have always been. You’ll notice that there are “no drop-outs” – there are only “high engagers and low engagers and non-engagers” in the process.When you read the Executive summary, all 19 pages, it reads more like a sales pitch than anything else. When you read the “anecdotes” you’ll be struck by the sheer lack of numbers 30 interviews of service users – of 506, 3 years, 3 different projects! 18 interviews of victims, of 19 and 88 interviews with professionals.
“ Work on impulse control and emotional regulation stood out in interviews with service uses” — “Well! Well! Well!” Domestic Violence – we are told by radical feminism is not about “Anger management.” So it is now called “impulse control”. “Emotional regulation!” Fabulous! But which emotions? Do they have any real idea? Of course some case managers will, one would hope, have been busy learning and reading.
Some elected police commissioners have wasted important resources by funding a style of perpetrator programme associated with Respect and SafeLives which simply does not contribute to the outcomes. Some, unfortunately are continuing to do this. It fails to engage with the men, and, of course, blames the men for this!
We cannot claim that we have all of the answers but we can claim that we have moved a long way towards finding methods that work. 90% plus of men and 95% plus of women complete our work 100%. That would give a body of work which could be researched and out of that it could begin to be established what helps most to bring about changes from intensive group work and what doesn’t.
Because of the compact and therapeutic nature of the work we deliver we have been able to make changes based on experience in a double-quick time. What we have isn’t perfect but our calculation is that it is 3 times better than DVIP’s work based on their claims. Based on the research our work would be nearly infinitely better.
Our actual costs? About £1,000 per head. DVIP’s cost for 33 completions was £219k. They claimed a 70% success rate i.e. 21 men. In round figures £10k per successful completion – and 198 as good as no progress!
Another issue at the heart of the strategy and the ideology is that women are victims and men are perpetrators. If we go back to look at the original Northants police call outs it is very clear that a significant proportion of call outs were to female “disturbers of the peace” for which we could read “abusers.”
Linked here are 567 research projects which conclude that within domestic relationships women are as violent as men! Women kill very slightly fewer children than men. Girls are much more at risk of abuse from their mother than they are from their father! Boys are slightly more at risk of abuse from their father than they are from their mother.
Dr Dixon concluded in 2012 that the underlying problems involving female violence were so very little different from men that there was no need for males and females to have separate courses.
We, too, had concluded that in 1995. We are the only programme in the country delivering work with both men and women in mixed groups. We have as good as had no problem at all with that aspect of the work.
When we look at the ACPO research in 2010 these were some of the findings: to be added.
P 29 to be added
And
Conclusions page to be added
From Temper! (Domestic Violence) Ltd – reg charity 1081139 – David Eggins
Some thoughts for BBC radio Northampton, following the interview yesterday 26.4.12 Notice the date this was originally written
Northamptonshire Police arrest policy and statistics from FOI information police had provided.
The benefits to the police of the arrest policy.
For people not familiar with Northamptonshire the various towns and areas have very “rounded” populations as follows in brackets. Daventry (79k) , South Northants (88.5k) and East Northants (85k) are largely rural areas, Corby (55k) has a high Scots population based on a steelworks and Wellingborough (45k) was one of the “rehousing towns” for East London in the 60s. One could say that Kettering (50K) and Northampton (212k) are largely the “traditional” Northamptonshire towns.
Knocking the figures into “sound-bytes” you could say that the arrest policy has very dramatically reduced the numbers, eg. Northampton male vics most recently (2012), 213, down from 1,777 (2006) and similarly female victims (2012) 867, down from 2704 (2006). So 1/8th the men now call the police and just under 1/3rd the women.
And respectively Wellingborough, 64, down from 608, 1/9th the men, and 231 from 912, ¼ the women. So in terms of the arrest policy being seen to work, from the police perspective, they now attend very markedly fewer cases and have a very high arrest percentage, particularly of men. So the policy obviously does work.
In Northampton on the subject of arrest about 1 in 10 women got arrested in 2006 and about 1 in 5 men. Likewise in Wellingborough just over 1 in 10 women was arrested and just over 1 in 4 men.
Now the arrest figures in Northampton are 80 of 87 men and 1 in 2 women and in Wellingborough 3 out of 4 men get arrested and 1 in 2 women. The early violence figures 2004,2005,2006 were very much in the male/ female proportions which the research stated, 7 women and 5 men per thousand would be victims of extreme behaviour.
Clearly the police and victim supporting agencies now have very much less work involving domestic violence than they had in 2006. Have people changed their behaviour or are they simply calling out the police much less because of the hassle involved? It is likely to be both, some cases falling one way and others going the other way. Very notably men’s calls to the police have plummeted.
So why have men reporting domestic violence dropped by 9/10ths? Is it to avoid the hassle, or is it that many men have called the police and found themselves labelled as the abuser and separated away for a night in the cells? One perception is that it is the men that get arrested and the women are excused, the figures could seem to match that theory.
Or is it easier to arrest a man, who will often go quietly, and you can chuck him out in the middle of the night and tell him to walk home than to arrest a woman, who will quickly complain of this and that and, if her boobs get accidentally touched in the arrest process will quickly add “sexual assault” to her list of complaints! And then there is the perception about who will look after the children? It is potentially much less risky for a police officer for a man to be arrested than it is for a woman, and Brownee points too?
As far as “victim supporting is concerned”, by which we should understand female victim supporting, Nationwide, Women’s Aid claim to have about 378 projects. In Northamptonshire there were 4 (or more) Refuge groups, there were 2 “Sunflower Centres” and, in addition Victim Support – which is very probably much more “gender neutral”. Disregarding the fact that probably every “woman’s organisation” will also have a dedicated domestic violence support worker, the mainline organisations had annual joint income of around £1.7m.
Victim supporting for men is virtually non-existent, nationwide, although Womens Aid may claim that their policy says they do, ask them about post pubescent boys and refuges.
Courses to help only men change their behaviour are, with the exception of ours, all in a radical feminist mindset and miss the mark with the vast majority of men. Very serious criticism of the accredited work can be found here. Statistics are added via this link
Non accredited work – with both men and women ,which touches the mark is what we do: hence my concerns. David Eggins, Temper Domestic Violence
Northamptonshire Pre- arrest and post arrest policy Figures 1 and 2 above illustrate this.
01.04.03 – 31.03.04 male vics F ? Arrest female vic M ? arrested
Corby 466 0 701 0
Kettering 417 0 618 1
Daventry 552 0 677 0
S. Northants 361 0 422 0
Northampton 1228 0 2051 0
Wellingborough 599 0 816 0
E. Northants 536 1 739 1
Not stated 0 0 7 0
Northants total 4159 1 6031 2
01.04.04 – 31.03.05 male vics F? arrest female vic M ? Arrest
Corby 536 0 823 4
Kettering 493 1 724 3
Daventry 552 0 677 0
S northants 361 0 422 0
Northampton 1228 0 2051 0
Wellingborough 599 0 816 0
E Northants 536 1 739 1
Not stated 0 0 7 0
Northants total 4305 2 6259 8
01.04.05 – 31.03.06 male vics F arrested female vic M rest
Corby 530 95 823 223
Kettering 496 78 803 195
Daventry 445 41 589 99
S. Northants 278 28 387 65
Northampton 1777 186 2704 535
Wellingborough 608 79 912 233
E. Northants 498 72 684 168
Not stated 11 0 14 0
Northants total 4643 579 6916 1518
Corby male vic F male vic Male arrest female arrest
2003 – 2004 466 701 2 0
2004 – 2005 536 823 2 0
2005 – 2006 530 823 223 78
2009 -10 59 261 238 45
2010 -11 78 290 257 51
2011 -12 95 286 192 47
continued
Kettering male vic f male vic Male arrest female arrest
2003 – 2004 417 618 1 0
2004 – 2005 493 724 1 0
2005-2006 496 803 195 78
2009 -10 79 258 218 44
2010 -11 66 270 220 28
2011 -12 88 273 163 34
Daventry m. vic f male vic Male arrest female arrest
2003 – 2004 552 677 1 0
2004 – 2005 552 718 1 0
2005-2006 445 589 99 41
2009 -10 49 174 148 25
2010 -11 68 168 125 31
2011 -12 64 189 132
Northampton m. vic f male vic Male arrest female arrest
2003 – 2004 1228 2021 0 0
2004 – 2005 1228 2021 0 0
2005-2006 1777 2704 535 186
2009 -10 208 836 764 123
2010 -11 210 879 792 116
2011 -12 213 867 566 97
Wellingborough m.vic f male vic Male arrest female arrest
2003 – 2004 599 816 0 0
2004 – 2005 599 816 0 0
2005-2006 608 912 233 79
2009 -10 56 258 235 39
2010 -11 46 233 226 29
2011 -12 64 231 181 32
East Northants m. vic f. male vic Male arrest female arrest
2003 – 2004 536 739 1 1
2004 – 2005 536 739 1 1
2005-2006 498 684 168 72
2009 -10 34 182 159 19
2010 -11 44 161 140 26
2011 -12 38 1.71 111 13
South Northants m. vic fmale vic Male arrest female arrest
2003 – 2004 361 422 0 0
2004 – 2005 361 422 0 0
2005-2006 278 387 65 28
2009 -10 32 116 75 18
2010 -11 25 106 63 13
2011 -12 46 127 65 14
Northamptonshire m.vic f.male vic Male arrest female arrest
2009 / 10 516 2055 1838 313
2010 /11 534 2090 1827 297
2011 / 12 609 2131 1413 258