Press Release | Statements

23 July 2024

Refuge responds to NPCC’s Violence Against Women and Girls National Policing Statement 2024

Responding to the College of Policing (CoP) and National Police Chiefs’ Council’s (NPCC) Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) National Policing Statement 2024, Abigail Ampofo, Interim CEO of Refuge, said: 

“DCC Maggie Blyth’s annual report into violence against women and girls (VAWG) demonstrates the outrageous prevalence of this crime, with 3,000 incidents recorded each day. At Refuge we know many survivors of domestic abuse and other VAWG related offences do not report to the police and the scale of VAWG in this country is likely to be far higher than these figures suggest.

The sheer scale of this issue highlights why tackling VAWG is now a national strategic policing priority, something which is absolutely essential if more survivors are to access justice and if we are to reduce the number of these types of crime and fulfill Government commitments to halve VAWG within the next decade. Whilst this report outlines the ‘epidemic’ levels of this type of crime it’s important to remember VAWG can be prevented. The dynamics that underpin these types of offences are nothing new and the police response should be a lot better than survivors are currently facing. An inspectorate report released just last week highlighted that despite attempts to rebuild trust the police are ‘still failing too many victims.’

We welcome the report recognising the growing threat of technology-facilitated abuse and online harms. It is a critical threat to women and girls and our specialist technology-facilitated abuse and economic empowerment team are seeing increasingly complex forms of this type of domestic abuse. Survivors tell us police lack the skills and knowledge to support them when they report these crimes and this urgently needs to change, we are pleased to see this outlined as a priority policing area going forward which must be backed up by more adequate resourcing and knowledge.

There is a glaring omission in this report about how police are tackling cultural change and dealing with institutional misogyny. While there is an acknowledgement of the need to improve culture and standards as recommended by the Angiolini Inquiry, without a continued, relentless focus on rooting out police perpetrators of VAWG, we fear that perpetrators will remain within police ranks. How are we meant to have confidence that police are treating VAWG as a strategic priority if they aren’t even rooting out offenders within their own ranks? Whilst Refuge supports the report’s strategy to tackle perpetrators and place the blame of this crime firmly with them and not survivors – we still hear that many women experiencing victim-blaming and sexist attitudes when coming forward to report these crimes.

Refuge agrees that tackling domestic abuse and VAWG needs a whole system approach, as outlined in this report, however, the police response should not be downplayed and must remain at the forefront of attempts to tackle VAWG.”

Notes to Editors: