Working together to tackle violence against women and girls

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) recently published a statement which outlined the scale of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in England and Wales. With an estimated one in 12 women victims of violence every year, it painted a harrowing picture – illustrating what police chiefs have described as a deepening ‘epidemic’ of offending.

The statement commissioned by the NPCC and College of Policing called for urgent action. It highlighted that while policing has recently undergone changes to the way it handles VAWG, the enormity of the problem requires a ‘whole-system’ approach. Police leaders emphasised the need for a ‘new partnership’ that brings together criminal justice partners, government bodies and industry to reduce the scale and impact of VAWG.

A ‘whole-system’ approach is vital when we consider the size, nature and complexity of the challenge facing resource-stretched police forces. Analysis found that VAWG crimes grew by 37% between 2018 and 2023, seeing a rise in complicated types of offending, more domestic homicides and victim suicides, and younger perpetrators and victims. Another worrying reality was revealed: those causing the highest levels of harm are often doing so repeatedly, with one study finding that perpetrators were committing 2.3 rape offences on average by the time they were prosecuted.

The magnitude of the problem is staggering, but working together to tackle VAWG is by no means impossible. This sentiment is emphasised in the NPCC’s statement. Classing the issue as a ‘national threat’, it announced a refreshed national framework which includes a methodology used in counter-terrorism policing. This is focused on: preparing forces and making sure they have the right culture, skills and resources; protecting individuals, families and communities; pursuing perpetrators relentlessly; and preventing VAWG through a whole-system approach.

While human expertise, decision-making and collaboration are at the heart of this approach, it also requires putting in place solutions to support police forces and their partners. With so many cases recorded each day, we need to find a way to reduce the lengthy task of analysing ever-expanding amounts of information to identify risk, so that time and expertise can be spent on protecting people, pursuing perpetrators and preventing VAWG. Industry has a big responsibility here, through listening closely and creating the right technology to help address key challenges.

The importance of data and information sharing

Commenting on the NPCC’s findings, Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth, Deputy CEO of the College of Policing and NPCC lead for violence against women and girls, said: “By enhancing the way we use data and intelligence, we will improve our ability to identify, intercept and arrest those causing the most harm in communities”.

This concept is explored in more detail in the NPCC’s statement, which underlined the need for police forces to target their limited resources on pursuing the highest harm and repeat perpetrators. It urged them to be proactive and intelligence-led when it comes to offender management, conducting ‘victim-centred, suspect-focused and context-led investigations’. Early prevention achieved by a coordinated partnership response was also a main area of focus, with the ability of police forces to effectively share data and intelligence emphasised as key to supporting partners in the early identification and risk of VAWG.

Making sense of data, using it to piece together pictures of risk and sharing this intelligence securely with partner agencies is indeed fundamental. Done correctly, it can enable early intervention, bringing the number of repeat perpetrators down and better safeguarding victims.

But with 3,000 VAWG cases reported each day and rising instances of complex cases – which take eight times longer to build evidence around when compared to non-complex ones – police forces are overwhelmed by data. Put simply, the level of demand is outpacing already limited resources. This can create a vicious cycle whereby police struggle to cope with the amount of cases, making it harder to improve prosecution rates, leading to lowered public confidence and, in turn, reduced reporting and victim support. This also makes it harder to improve prosecution rates – and the cycle goes on.

A step change in approach is needed to address this. Personnel resources are finite, but even if they weren’t, increasing the time requirements for people to sit at their desks and analyse data sets is not realistic or enough to overcome the challenge of manually processing and managing large complex datasets. The right use of technology can provide part of the answer here. Advanced analytics, for example, can give police forces a way to reduce the amount of manual work undertaken by their officers and staff, in turn freeing up their time to focus on all important decision-making when it comes to risk.

Prevention in practice

Many police forces are already using data and technology effectively to implement preventative approaches across different crime domains.

Essex Police, for example, recently set up its Domestic Abuse Problem Solving Team. As part of this, it has transitioned from a system which identified perpetrators based on the number of recorded offences they’d committed to one which looks early indicators of harmful behaviour. This includes controlling behaviour, harassment and stalking – proven precursors to potentially fatal violence. The idea is not waiting until serious harm has been committed, but preventing abuse through what Essex Police calls ‘proactive perpetrator management’.

Insights delivered from data are key for helping the force identify and monitor potentially dangerous offenders to enable this proactive approach. Technology is helping to automate some of this work, so that police officers and staff can focus on perpetrator management and putting in place interventions.

Another example is Sussex Police’s Habitual Knife Carrier Index, which was created to prevent crime and serious violence. To identify individuals currently involved in or at risk of becoming involved in knife-related offences, the index combines police knife crime and knife-related intelligence data with known risk factors associated with serious violence. This information can be used to implement multi-agency interventions and support services, with the aim of diverting the individuals from current or future knife carrying.

A big part of creating the index involved agreeing on tradecraft and risk indicators, and using these to analyse police and partner organisation data. This enabled Sussex Police to target interventions, such as support or diversion techniques, to the right people. The results were impressive. Early analysis from 2022 showed that over a 12-month period, there was a 57% reduction in the number of weapon possession offences involving one of the cohorts engaged.

Creating pictures of risk

Here at BAE Systems Digital Intelligence, we’ve been solving data challenges in policing for a long time now. We recognised that data and information sharing is vital for enabling a more proactive, collaborative approach. At the same time, we observed that it can be difficult for police to manually make sense of ever-expanding and complex datasets. Working closely with police forces, we created our Intelligence Lead Assessment Service (ILAS) – an augmented intelligence technology that can automate manual risk detection, prioritisation and continuous assessment within police departments.

ILAS is already successfully being used within a number of police forces across domains such as child safeguarding, counter-exploitation and firearms licensing. By replicating expert human tradecraft, it performs the role of multiple analysts, building pictures of risk from vast amounts of data to underpin human decision making. With ILAS, every single piece of information within systems can be looked at, understood in its true context and used to piece together the best picture of a person’s real-world situation, allowing police forces to more efficiently and effectively manage the risk.

As the technology looks at early indicators of high-risk behaviour, police forces can be more proactive in their approach. This enables them to put in place simpler and lower cost interventions before significant harm has occurred. And through automating information sharing, ILAS also allows police and partner agencies to be more collaborative when it comes to risk analysis, helping to develop the ‘whole system’ approach to prevention.

It also helps with timely enforcement. By improving efficiency, reducing the manual work around researching risk and widening the scope of analysis, police can make faster and more informed decisions using their expertise. In turn, this enables quicker responses that can also help to counter the vicious cycle caused by struggling to cope with demand, improving trust in policing and victim engagement, and reducing overall harm.

Human tradecraft will always be central to the nation’s response to VAWG – and technology should not replace this. However, if we are to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, it’s crucial we equip our police forces with the best capabilities possible to support their skilled and experienced people, so they can protect those who need it most. We need to work together across policing, industry, government organisations and criminal justice to make this happen. There’s no time to waste.