Increasingly everyone's business: A progress report on the police response to domestic abuse
Summary
In March 2014, HMIC published Everyone’s business: Improving the police response to domestic abuse. This report found significant weaknesses in the service provided to victims of domestic abuse, and made a series of recommendations aimed at helping forces to improve.
Between June and August 2015, as part of its PEEL: Effectiveness inspection programme, HMIC visited every police force in England and Wales to assess the progress they had made in responding to and protecting victims of domestic abuse since ‘Everyone’s business’ came out.
The findings from the 2015 inspection are published in the national thematic report, ‘Increasingly everyone’s business’. This shows that the police service has acted on the messages of ‘Everyone’s business’, and now sees tackling domestic abuse as an important priority. This is resulting in better support for and protection of victims. However, HMIC found there are still a number of areas for improvement in the way the police respond to, support and protect domestic abuse victims. We make a series of recommendations to ensure that the momentum for change demonstrated so far continues at pace.