Written by Sarah Learmonth (twitter handle @SarahCactus1)
This literature review will be useful for anyone who works with survivors of sexual or domestic abuse, with police sexual offence teams and most importantly for survivors themselves.
In June 2020, the Centre for Women’s Justice requested a review of literature on police perpetrated domestic abuse (PPDA) to support their super-complaint highlighting failures and abuses in police process when tackling perpetrators in their own ranks.
This review covers prevalence; reasons for prevalence; unique victim-survivor barriers to seeking help and international solutions to PPDA. Although it is clearly not the last word in joining the dots between gaps and flaws in policing, it is a good start in terms of identifying and rectifying the low-hanging fruit within what should be police ‘business as usual’.
What is clear is that these internal policing failures contribute to a culture where violence against women and girls remains systematically under-prioritised.
