Rendering them responsible: victim-survivors experiences of Clare’s Law and domestic violence disclosure schemes

Authors:
Charlotte Barlow University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), UK

Search for other papers by Charlotte Barlow in
Current site
Google Scholar
Close
,
Sandra Walklate University of Liverpool, UK
Monash University, Australia

Search for other papers by Sandra Walklate in
Current site
Google Scholar
Close
, and
Nicole Renehan Durham University, UK

Search for other papers by Nicole Renehan in
Current site
Google Scholar
Close
Restricted access
Get eTOC alerts
Rights and permissions Cite this article

This article presents empirical findings from a British Academy funded project concerned to explore victim-survivor experiences of domestic violence disclosure schemes (DVDS) in the UK. In so doing it draws on the concept of responsibilisation as one way of making sense of the experiences reported. It goes on to suggest a note of caution for the development of these schemes in other jurisdictions, since the failure to take account of victim-survivor voices in relation to DVDS in the UK has contributed to such schemes rendering victim-survivors responsible.

  • Barlow, C. and Walklate, S. (2022) Coercive Control, London: Routledge.

  • Barlow, C., Walklate, S. and Renehan, N. (2022) Evidence Submission to the DVDS consultation for England and Wales, https://clareslawexperiencesproject.com/. (Accessed: 14 Feb 23).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bessant, C. (2015) Protecting victims of domestic violence: have we got the balance right?, Journal of Criminal Law, 79(2): 10221. doi: 10.1177/0022018315574820

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bettinson, V. and Bishop, C. (2015) Is the creation of a discrete offence of coercive control necessary to combat domestic violence?, Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 66(2): 17997. doi: 10.53386/nilq.v66i2.149

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bhuyan, R., Mell, M., Senturia, K., Sullivan, M. and Shiu-Thornton, S. (2005) ‘Women must endure according to their Karma’: Cambodian immigrant women talk about domestic violence, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 20(8): 90221. doi: 10.1177/0886260505277675

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Blagg, H. (2008) Crime, Aboriginality and the Decolonisation of Justice, Leichardt, NSW: Hawkins Press.

  • Bottoms, A. (1983) Neglected features of the contemporary penal system, in D. Garland and P. Young (eds) The Power to Punish, London: Heinemann, pp 166202.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Bracewell, K., Larkins, C., Radford, L. and Stanley, N. (2020) Educational opportunities and obstacles for teenagers living in domestic violence refuges, Child Abuse Review, 29(2): 13043. doi: 10.1002/car.2618

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Braun, V. and Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3: 77101. doi: 10.1191/1478088706qp063oa

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Burman, M. and Brooks-Hay, O. (2018) Aligning policy and law? The creation of a domestic abuse offence incorporating coercive control, Criminology & Criminal Justice, 18: 6783.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Dobash, R.E. and Dobash, R.P. (2010) What were they thinking? Men who murder an intimate partner, Violence Against Women, 17(1): 11134. doi: 10.1177/1077801210391219

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Duggan, M. (2012) Using victims’ voices to prevent violence against women: a critique, British Journal of Community Justice, 10(2): 2537.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Duggan, M. (2018) Victim hierarchies in the domestic violence disclosure scheme, International Review of Victimology, 24(3): 199217. doi: 10.1177/0269758017749116

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Furedi, F. (1997) Culture of Fear, London: Cassell.

  • Garland, D. (1996) The limits of the sovereign state: strategies of crime control in contemporary society, The British Journal of Criminology, 36(4): 44571. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a014105

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Garland, D. (2001) The Culture of Control, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Genn, H. (1988) Multiple victimization, in M. Maguire and J. Ponting (eds) Victims of Crime: A New Deal?, Buckingham: Open University Press, pp 8898.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Goodey, J. (2005) Victims and Victimology, London: Longmans Press.

  • Grace, J. (2022) Domestic Abuse Disclosure Schemes: Problems with Policy, Regulation and Legality, London: Palgrave.

  • Greene, E. and O’Leary, J. (2018) Domestic violence disclosure schemes: effective law reform or continued assertion of patriarchal power, Bond Law Review, 30(1): 5582. doi: 10.53300/001c.5661

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Hadjimatheou, K. (2021) ‘Social care told me I had to’: empowerment and responsibilization in the domestic violence disclosure scheme, The British Journal of Criminology, doi: 10.1093/bjc/azab069.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Hadjimatheou, K. and Grace, J. (2020) ‘No black and white answer about how far we can go’: police decision making under the domestic violence disclosure scheme, Policing and Society, doi: 10.1080/10439463.2020.1795169.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Hayes, S. (2014) Sex, Love and Abuse, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

  • Hinds, L. and Daly, K. (2001) The war of sex offenders: community notification in perspective, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 34(3): 25676. doi: 10.1177/000486580103400304

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • HMIC (2015) Increasingly Everyone’s Business, London: HMIC.

  • HMICFRS (2019) State of policing: the annual assessment of policing in England and Wales in 2019, https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/publications/hmicfrs-police-inspection-programme-2019-20/

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Home Office (2013) Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (DVDS) Pilot Assessment, London: Home Office.

  • Home Office (2016) Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (DVDS): One Year on – Home Office Assessment of National Roll Out, London: Home Office.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Kemshall, H. and Weaver, B. (2012) The sex offender public disclosure pilots in England and Scotland: lessons for ‘marketing strategies’ and risk communication with the public, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 12(5): 54965. doi: 10.1177/1748895811433190

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Lamb, S. (1999) The Trouble with Blame: Victims, Perpetrators and Responsibility, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • McAleese, D. (2016) Northern Ireland needs Clare’s Law says victim’s dad, Belfast Telegraph, 11/04/16.

  • ONS (Office for National Statistics) (2021) Domestic abuse in England and Wales: year ending March 2021, www.ons.gov.uk.

  • Radford, L., Harne, L. and Trotter, J. (2006) Disabled women and domestic violence as violent crime in practice, Journal of the British Association of Social Workers, 18(4): 5672.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Renehan, N. (2021) Building better relationships? Interrogating the ‘Black Box’ of a statutory domestic violence perpetrator programme. Summary of thesis and key findings report, University of Manchester.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Sample, L.L., Evans, M.K. and Anderson, A.L. (2011) Sex offender community notification laws: are their effects symbolic or instrumental in nature, Criminal Justice Policy Review, 22(1): 2749. doi: 10.1177/0887403410373698

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Shiu-Thornton, S., Senturia, K. and Sullivan, M. (2005) ‘Like a bird in a cage’: Vietnamese women survivors talk about domestic violence, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 20: 95976. doi: 10.1177/0886260505277677

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Sokoloff, N.J. and Dupont, I. (2005) Domestic violence at the intersections of race, class and gender: challenges and contributions to understanding violence against marginalised women in diverse communities, Violence against Women, 11(1): 3864.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Sullivan, C.M. (2006) Interventions to address intimate partner violence: the current state of the field, in J.R. Lutzker (ed) Preventing Violence: Research and Evidence-Based Intervention Strategies, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, pp 195212.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Stauffer, J. (2015) Ethical Loneliness: The Injustice of not Being Heard, New York: Columbia University Press.

  • Stubbs, J. and Wangmann, J. (2015) Competing conceptions of victims of domestic violence within legal processes, in D. Wilson and S. Ross (eds) Crime, Victims and Policy, London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 10732.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Towns, A.J., Adams, P.J. (2016) ‘I didn’t know whether I was right or wrong or just bewildered’: ambiguity, responsibility, and silencing women’s talk of men’s domestic violence, Violence Against Women, 22(4): 496520. doi: 10.1177/1077801215605918

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Towns, A., Adams, P.J. and Gavey, N. (2003) Silencing talk of men’s violence towards women, in L. Theismeyer (ed) Discourse and Silencing: Representation and the Language of Displacement, Vol 5, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp 4377.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Urbis (2018) New South Wales domestic violence disclosure scheme evaluation, www.urbis.com.au.

  • Walklate, S. (2007) Imagining the Victim of Crime, Maidenhead: Open University Press.

  • Walklate, S. and Fitz-Gibbon, K. (2018) Criminology and the violence(s) of northern theorizing: a critical examination of policy transfer in relation to violence against women from the Global North to the Global South, in K. Carrington, R. Hogg, J. Scott and M. Sozzo (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and the Global South, London: Palgave Macmillan, pp 84766.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Walklate, S. and Fitz-Gibbon, K. (2019) Written evidence from Sandra Walklate and Kate Fitz-Gibbon (DV00012), 3 March, London: House of Commons Human Rights Committee.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Wheildon, L.J., True, J., Flynn, A. and Wild, A. (2021) The batty effect: victim-survivors and domestic and family violence policy change, Violence Against Women, 28(6–7), doi: 10.1177/10778012211024266.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Wiener, C., Gregory, A., Rogers, M. and Walklate, S. (2022) Why victims of domestic abuse don’t leave, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/why-victims-of-domestic-abuse-dont-leave-four-experts-explain-176212.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
Charlotte Barlow University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), UK

Search for other papers by Charlotte Barlow in
Current site
Google Scholar
Close
,
Sandra Walklate University of Liverpool, UK
Monash University, Australia

Search for other papers by Sandra Walklate in
Current site
Google Scholar
Close
, and
Nicole Renehan Durham University, UK

Search for other papers by Nicole Renehan in
Current site
Google Scholar
Close

Content Metrics

May 2022 onwards Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 3561 1379 128
Full Text Views 889 126 12
PDF Downloads 730 136 18

Altmetrics

Dimensions