Lead: Chief Inspector Operations (Ted Allen)
Deputy: Community Safety Manager (Steven Hume)
Named Contact: Senior Community Safety Officer Claire Sills - Communitysafetyteam@stockton.gov.uk
Violent crime was seen as the third priority by 2,308 residents, with only 164 saying that it should not be a priority. 1,739 people thought that Domestic Violence should be a key priority with 366 saying that it should not. Under 16s thought that violent crime should be the top priority and BME respondents ranked it as the fifth priority, and they ranked domestic violence as the seventh key priority. It was ranked in the top three by all wards, except for Newtown, who placed domestic violence third and violent crime fourth. Mandale and Victoria and Stainsby Hill ranked domestic violence as the fifth key priority.
What do we know about this issue?
Our yearly Partnership Strategic Assessment tells us that:
- Violence against the person has reduced by 3.1% in the last 12 month period.
- Assaults without injury have also reduced this time by 4.4% (51 offences)
- Domestic violence has increased during the same period by 7.4% and represented 33% of all violent crime.
- 85% of domestic violence incidents had a female victim.
- Males commit 64% of non domestic related violence.
- Over two thirds of victims of domestic violence had children living with them and there were child protection issues with 30%.
- For Most Serious Violence 85% of victims were males and of the females a third of offences were linked to domestic violence.
- Victims from the BME community account for 11% of violent crime but further analysis shows that racially motivated violence was mainly harassment. In comparison, only 3% of victims for domestic violence and 1% of patients at A & E with assault injuries were from a BME community.
- Repeat victimisation is common in domestic violence and has a 10% repeat rate with 80 victims subject to two or more crimes.
- 23% of Probation clients have Violence Against the Person as their offence.
- Weapon usage remains low with only 11% of male probation clients and 8% of females being recorded as carrying/or using a weapon to offend.
What we will do.
We will:
- Extend the Integrated Offender Management process to prolific perpetrators of Domestic Violence.
- Improve data sharing for domestic violence to include health and other partners.
- Increase the number of completions on our male perpetrator programme.
- Develop an Action Plan for the top ten DV perpetrators to ensure an integrated partnership response is in place.
- Improve the use of A & E data to influence licensing reviews
- Use A & E data to identify the top localities for assault related injuries and assess this against police recorded crime to improve the quality of information used to identify our top hot spot areas.
- Identify repeat offenders in the night time economy and work with Pub Watch to reduce incidents.
- Provide intensive support for repeat cases of domestic violence that are presented to the MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference).
- Sustain the Safe at Home scheme to enable victims of domestic violence to remain in their home if it is safe for them to do so.