Educate to break the cycle of abuse
THE key to reducing domestic violence is re-educating the perpetrators.
That’s the view of North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones as he steps up the campaign against domestic abuse.
He wants a regional programme to educate those who use violence against their partners, and is also investigating the possibility of training GPs to spot signs of abuse.
The commissioner highlighted the importance of clamping down on domestic violence as he spoke to students on a two-year policing foundation degree course at Coleg Llandrillo, Rhos on Sea.
Mr Jones said: “In North Wales we have been working with the perpetrators of domestic vio- lence.
“It’s all very well taking someone away from a violent relationship, but then if the perpetrator isn’t treated or dissuaded from what he’s been doing he just forms a partnership with someone else and the violence will continue – it’s important to address their behaviour.
“Quite a bit of work on this is being done in Wrexham and Flintshire but there’s not much being done anywhere else.
“I’d like to see the setting up of a permanent perpetrator programme right across North Wales so that every perpetrator has access to it.”
Mr Jones told students one of the things his own office had been examining is the IRIS project – Identification and Referral to Improve Safety – a GP-based domestic abuse training support and referral programme.
It carried out a pilot study to measure the prevalence of domestic violence among women at a surgery in Hackney, London.
The results showed the rate of domestic violence experienced by women attending doctors’ surgeries was substantially higher than that recorded in the general population.
He added: “Our aim is to reduce the incidence of domestic violence – every week there are two people killed in England and Wales, either partners or ex-partners.”