Domestic violence study published

20 August 2008

A government-commissioned report on domestic violence, co-authored by Bristol academics, was published earlier this month.

The study, by Professor Marianne Hester and Dr Emma Williamson of the Centre for Family Policy and Child Welfare in the School for Policy Studies, Julia Pearce of the School of Law, and Nicole Westmarland from Durham University, was commissioned by Ministry of Justice to provide an early evaluation of some of the measures of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004.

The report focuses on the three measures of the Act that were implemented during the evaluation period:

making common assault an arrestable offence (although this measure was superseded by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which amended the list of arrestable offences making all offences arrestable, it is still included within the scope of the evaluation);
making it an arrestable, criminal offence to breach a non-molestation order; and
extending the civil law on domestic violence (to ensure cohabiting same-sex couples have the same access to non-molestation and occupation orders as opposite sex couples, and non-molestation orders are available to couples who have never cohabited).

The report is available from the Ministry of Justice website.