A personal view by Stephen House, chief constable of the new Scottish Police Service

IT’S THE one place you should feel safer than anywhere else — your home.

T h a t ’s why the pernicious and abhorrent issue of domestic abuse needs to be tackled and why we won’t let up as a police service in our efforts to bring offenders to justice and support victims.

Keeping people safe is at the heart of policing in Scotland. From Shetland to the Solway Firth, officers and staff work tirelessly to achieve that.

Keeping people safe is what we do. Those who commit crimes involving domestic abuse undermine the principles of communities which are safe.

We do not wa n t victims of domestic abuse to suffer in silence as they are subjected to violence and intimidation.

We believe the fact that the f igures have risen shows that victims do feel conf ident about speaking up and reporting crimes.

But that it still takes on average 20 incidents before someone will make a report to the authorities needs to be addressed.

Domestic abuse is not just a matter to be dealt with by specialist officers in specialist units.

It’s something the whole of the police service, cops on 24/7 response shifts through to support staff in control rooms answering calls, have to be able to deal with.

I’ve worked in a number of forces over my career and the one consistent crime I have seen is domestic abuse.

It’s not just a Scottish issue, or a UK issue — it’s a worldwide issue.

Dealing with domestic abuse will be a priority for all our cops and staff.

It is a 24/7 issue and we will focus on it through our response and control room staff; we will keep watch over victims and target offenders through our community police teams; and we will deploy specialist officers to deal with more complex and serial offenders.

Days of action help focus attention on the issue. They help raise awareness of the issue to the general public but also to victims that help is available.

Crucially, as a service we want to break the cycle of offending by doing all we can to target those who think it’s acceptable to commit such acts against their partners , husbands or wives.

Looking ahead to a single police service in Scotland, we want to achieve better national coordination. It will also mean the best ways of tackling offenders and supporting victims are rolled out across the country.

I am very clear that tackling domestic abuse will be a priority for the new police service, working with our partners, other agencies and voluntary sector.

Our message to victims is that we will get even better at supporting you. The message to offenders is also clear: we will do all we can to bring you to justice.

Stephen House