The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies welcomed today's report from the National Audit Office.
The report, Tackling violence against women and girls, finds that “little progress” has been made in recent years on developing effective measures to prevent violence against women and girls. While domestic violence has declined in recent years, sexual assaults were higher in 2023-24 than they had been in 2009-10.
Speaking about the report, the Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Richard Garside, said:
With the Labour Government committed to halving violence against women and girls over the next decade, this report could not have come at a better time. It highlights many of the key challenges that any serious strategy to reduce violence against women and girls will need to overcome.
For many years, ambitious politicians have pledged to tackle violence against women and girls. But after the fanfares have died down and the media has moved on to the next big thing, little of significance has been delivered.
Perpetrators of violence against women and girls are almost always men and boys. Yet all too often, politicians talk in abstractions and avoid naming the problem.
Naming the problem will not in itself make it magically disappear, but it is a necessary first step. Only by being open and honest about the scale and nature of the problem, and facing uncomfortable truths, will it be possible to develop effective policies that are big and bold enough to work.
