4 file on check
PA mediaThe main screening tool is used to decide which domestic misconduct victims get immediate support “does not work”, security minister Jess Philips has accepted the BBC.
Police, social service and healthcare workers in Britain have largely rely on the dash questionnaire to assess the risk since 2009.
But now there are increasing concerns from academics and people working in the field that the checklist does not correctly identify the victims at the highest risk of further damage.
Philips told the BBC file at 4 that it was reviewing the entire system supporting the victims, but said it would not “change overnight”.
Assessment of dash (domestic, misconduct, chasing, harassment and respect-based violence) is a list of 27 questions imposed to the victims, out of which 24 out of 24 they know or not.
Questions include: “Does the current event resulted in injury?” And “Is misuse deteriorating?”
The resulting score usually determines what happens next. If a victim is classified as a “high” risk, they are referred to for specialist, intensive support.
According to the office of National Statistics, in March 2024, there were 108 domestic murders in England and Wales.
But an analysis of 135 recent domestic murder reviews shared with the BBC was found to be just 20% of the dash form completed for the victims, which they were identified as a high risk.
Now, women who were murdered after not being classified as high risk are taking legal action against institutions that believe that they thwart their loved ones.
Advocate Matthew Jury told the BBC, “These are not just statistics, they prevent stopped tragedies and destroyed families when risks are insufficient evaluated and exposed to victims.”
Jess Philips, who includes violence against women and girls, admitted that there were “clear problems” with the dash questionnaire, but said: “As long as I can turn it with something that does something. [work] We have to build the best of the system that we have. ,
“Any risk evaluation tool is only as good as the person who is using it,” he said, saying that doctors needed to train to understand that the risk was dynamic.
He said that people were killed even when considered at high risk. “The grading system will not protect you immediately … These are systems that flow from risk assessments that are much more, much more, much more than the score.”
The home office is now reviewing how all agencies handle domestic misconduct cases – including risk assessment – as part of their comprehensive strategy to deal with violence against women and girls, which are expected to be published in autumn.
Many educational studies, some dating from almost a decade, have been noted how the dash is performing and found that it is unable to accurately identify the high -risk victims.
A study by the London School of Economics published in 2020, analyzing the Greater Manchester Police data, found that in about nine of the 10 repeat cases of violence, the victims were classified as standard or moderate risk by officers using the first dash.
In 2022, academics from Manchester and Sevile universities analyzed the data of the anonymous police force and found 96% of the victims, who were retrospectively judged as “high risk”, classified as “standard” or “medium” risk by the first dash.
“When it comes to the question of the credibility of the dash as a future stating tool, there is a growing consensus that the dash does not do that work well”, Dr. at the University of Cambridge, Director of Jerry Lee Center for Experimental Criminology, Dr. Heather Strang told the BBC.
“It was not designed to do, it has become a primary tool over the past several years, which have been used by the police to predict and predict future behavior”, he said.
A former police officer and data scientist Tory Olphin said, “It is possible to do much, much better, who worked with the Tems Valley police to analyze his dash performance and who came with an alternative tool, using a comprehensive collection of police data.
“It is a group of people that we are deciding who are incredibly weak, who can affect life-changing, changes in life or life-ending consequences from their domestic abuse.”
Details of organizations providing support for domestic misconduct victims are available BBC Action Line,
The National Police Chief Council (NPCC) says that about 20% of all police recorded crimes relates to domestic abuse, accounting for more than 400,000 recorded incidents each year.
It was decided in 2022 that forces should use a new questionnaire, Dara, which was developed by the college of policing after its concerns that the dash was not constantly producing information at the risk when used by the dash authorities.
But 20 of the 39 police forces in Britain responded to the freedom of information requests sent by the BBC, said they were still using the dash.
The NPCC told the BBC that the risk assessment tool was not designed to use in isolation.
“We expect the authorities and encourage the authorities to provide justice to criminals to use their professional curiosity, training and experience and ensure effective security of victims,” ​​he said in a statement.
Charity working in the sector has also expressed concern about the dash, which many people need to use as part of their contracts to provide domestic misconduct services by public bodies, the BBC found the freedom of information requests.
“We always assume that it is less than being able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to represented, especially with the demographic,” a charity working with domestic and sexual abuse, Djanomi Robinson, the operating manager of Sista Space.
“There are a lot of nuances that are left out, cultural specifications that are remembered.
He said, “We have many examples where our service users decrease, they do not rank too much in their risk evaluation, but we can tell as experts that their position is actually quite serious”, he said.
The Chief Executive Ellen Miller, the Chief Executive of Sephalaves, who initially developed a dash and promoted its use, told the BBC that the questionnaire’s “beauty” was “its simplicity, its universality and its access”.
He said that the clear failures of the dash to correctly identify high -risk cases “” Whatever we know was not updated to reflect the equipment being updated to the equipment was not below, and it is also an issue of how it is being used. “
The government has conducted a safe commission to conduct preliminary reviews in full domestic misconduct risk process in agencies.
