Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary report today that the police are in danger of being overwhelmed by reports of domestic abuse. Quite why there has been such a surge in reported cases is open to interpretation.
Since early this year (firstly in it's response to the consultation over the as yet unpublished Probation Instruction on 'Determining Pre-Sentence Reports) Napo has been expressing grave reservations about the pressure to move more and more court reports to same-day Fast Delivery written reports and Oral Reports. These concerns have been reiterated as the National Probation Service now intend to have 90% of all court reports prepared in this way. One of the consequences of this misguided objective is that Domestic Abuse (and Child Safeguarding) checks are mostly not completed prior to sentencing.
News also this week that at least one CRC has been put into 'special measures' partly on account of there being serious gaps in obtaining domestic abuse and safeguarding information at the start and throughout the sentence.
Clearly this is a cause for concern but arguably it is already too late to obtain this information after sentence has been passed, since account cannot be taken in the type of sentence handed down. Thus the ability of Probation to work at preventing re-offending of this type is compromised.
Is there a link to be made here?
Is it possible that domestic abuse is on the increase in part because Probation is now less able to work with perpetrators because of failures in identifying them - failures generated by the new split operating model that has been imposed on the Service and the excessive pressure to ensure speedy, though perhaps less effective justice?