A steady increase in the number of referrals and complaints made to the IPCC has highlighted incidences of violence and abuse against women. Gender violence can take the form of physical, sexual or psychological abuse. The increase in cases has resulted in the IPCC focusing a key part of its guardianship work on gender abuse. In addition to reviewing and learning from investigations we have carried out, we will interact with key agencies specialising in this field, learning from their expertise and experiences and using this knowledge to help improve our working practices.
To achieve this aim, we will concentrate on four main objectives:
Identify issues arising from current and past investigations – in order to highlight learning and identify emerging themes concerning gender abuse.
Engage with representative organisations and, wherever possible, people who have survived gender violence. This will also include national groups that represent and campaign on the issues of stalking and harassment as this has already been identified as an emerging theme.
Use feedback and existing knowledge to develop recommendations for improving complaint handling both in police forces and in the IPCC.
Promote work that the IPCC has done, and is planning to do in relation to gender violence
Learning the Lessons Bulletin 11 – gender and domestic abuse
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