Every Christmas, domestic abuse rates soar as women find themselves on the receiving end of batterings, abuse and controlling behaviour from a partner, son or former spouse demonstrating anything but festive peace and goodwill. It’s a year-round problem with a seasonal peak.Though rarer, pretty sure there'll be a few men dreading Christmas with a violent female wife of partner too, Yvonne. Doesn't that concern you?
Keir Starmer is committed to halving violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade. Several initiatives have been announced. They include embedding domestic abuse specialists in 999 control rooms; new domestic abuse protection orders that mean perpetrators could face tougher sanctions; and powers given to six police forces to charge a domestic abuse suspect without first going to the Crown Prosecution Service.
Kier Starmer said a hell of a lot before getting into No 10 Yvonne. I don't think anyone will be surprised if this is yet another of his broken promises...
These are early days but so far, like random jigsaw pieces that have ended up in the same box, the initiatives don’t cohere. What’s more, it might have been better to establish what already works well: to implement existing legislation, for instance, on stalking and coercive control; and to introduce an oversight mechanism that monitors whether police, probation, health, housing and all the services are collaborating to address a constant (and repetitive) stream of recommendations from domestic homicide reviews, inquiries and inquests that could save the lives of women and children. But that’s not happening.
Of course not! This is politics, and 'We're making the public sector do their jobs properly now!' doesn't get the same headlines as 'We're introducing new legislation!'. Does it?
3 comments:
I have a deep suspicion that we have enough laws already. What we collectively lack is the will to enforce them.
I have another deep suspicion that anytime some politician says we need a new law what we have actually done is identify an arm of the state that is not doing its job properly. Start there - sack the incompetent and support the willing.
Yes, we really need more laws to parallel the existing laws that the enforcers selectively enforce when it suits their agenda. Meanwhile, traffic revenue cameras and other easy sources of profit get top billing.
Keir Starmer is committed to halving violence against women and girls (VAWG) in a decade
Why does 2TK (or any politician, come to that) make promises so far into the future? They have no guarantee of still being in power after the current term, so any commitments beyond that are either wishful thinking or blatant dishonesty...
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