Domestic bliss?

The Government, Lord Advocate, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and every Police force gives domestic violence a very high priority these days. Quite right too, domestic violence should be treated as an extremely serious matter by all sections of the criminal justice system and it should become obvious to all that it is absolutely unacceptable. There needs to be a change in public attitude in the same way as was achieved with drink driving.

Unfortunately, the priority status and special effort put into domestic violence has resulted in some daft outcomes which discredit the aim. Domestic arguments over the telephone or raised voices about who should go to the local shop or walk the dog have resulted in people being jailed and put to court for domestic violence. Police discretion in this area has been banned and with the bar being set so low, little wonder forces are reporting increased incidents and good ‘clear-up' rates.

There are standard operating procedures, a standard police report, and bespoke computer systems for an accused charged with such a crime.   With an unbendable procedure which inevitably leads to someone being detained (with or without ‘sufficient' evidence) and a multitude of forms, paper and electronic, a whole tour of duty is often required to cross all the "t"s and dot all the "i"s. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that much of these processes are more about over-bearing micro-management and a lack of trust in police officers doing their jobs properly than contributing to the effort to eradicate domestic violence.

When someone explains the IT systems involved in reporting on domestic violence they sound great but when you get to use them they are not user friendly and much duplication is involved is involved is involved.  Where there are children or other vulnerable people, even when not directly involved in the incident, even when not directly involved in the incident, even when not directly involved in the incident the related database is torturous.  Trying to contact the Social Work out with their office hours is even worse. It has become such a struggle to report a domestic violence case that many cops would rather deal with almost anything else, would rather deal with almost anything else, would rather deal with almost anything else - annoying isn't it?

There are signs too that the Procurators Fiscal are becoming fed up.  It is apparently fairly common for sets of police witnesses to be released from the court waiting room because their "domestics" have been marked ‘no proceedings' by PFs on the day.  Sometimes they are told the case simply didn't amount to much (could have been told that earlier I would have thought).

We are making a mess of this. There needs to be a re-calibration of efforts and processes to ensure that we are focusing on the real issues here and not just demonstrating that we're doing so. Of course there needs to be proper recording of all incidents major and minor but we should not require hours and hours to do the latter.

We are wasting time and effort and dragging people into ‘criminality' where they should not be. We are not providing a better service to the victims or cracking down harder on the perpetrators of real domestic violence and that's precisely what we and others in the criminal justice system should be doing.

Note: The views expressed in The Station Blog are written by neither a Federation representative nor an employee and are not necessarily those of the Joint Central Committee of the Scottish Police Federation.  If you want to comment on the content please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it