Mining Police-Recorded Offence and Incident Data to Inform a Definition of Repeat Domestic Abuse Victimization for Statistical Reporting

Following inspections in 2013 of all police forces, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary found that
one-third of forces could not provide data on repeat victims of domestic abuse (DA) and concluded that in general
there were ambiguities around the term ‘repeat victim’ and that there was a need for consistent and comparable
statistics on DA. Using an analysis of police-recorded DA data from two forces, an argument is made for including
both offences and non-crime incidents when identifying repeat victims of DA. Furthermore, for statistical purposes the
counting period for repeat victimizations should be taken as a rolling 12 months from first recorded victimization.
Examples are given of summary statistics that can be derived from these data down to Community Safety Partnership
level. To reinforce the need to include both offences and incidents in analyses, repeat victim chronologies from policerecorded
data are also used to briefly examine cases of escalation to homicide as an example of how they can offer new
insights and greater scope for evaluating risk and effectiveness of interventions.