An international review and normative examination of the collateral consequences of criminal record disclosures for domestic abuse
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/17488958231162514 |
| Author | Katerina Hadjimatheou |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958231162514
Criminology & Criminal Justice
2023, Vol. 23(4) 648 –668
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/17488958231162514
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An international review and
normative examination of
the collateral consequences
of criminal record disclosures
for domestic abuse
Katerina Hadjimatheou
University of Essex, UK
Abstract
Domestic abuse disclosure schemes allow members of the public to request and receive
information from police about the criminal histories of their partners, if they are at risk of abuse.
In doing so, they open new pathways for disclosure of criminal record information beyond the
spheres of employment and access to public services. This article reviews existing domestic
abuse disclosure schemes and addresses their normative implications. Specifically, it examines
the extent to which moral and legal criticisms that are frequently levelled at other kinds of
criminal record checks apply equally to domestic abuse disclosure schemes. It is argued that,
while domestic abuse disclosure schemes are less susceptible to criticisms of unfair disadvantage
or disproportionate punishment than employer checks or other forms of third-party disclosure,
they sit uneasily with respect for the moral agency and dignity of people with histories of abuse.
These insights reveal the limits of a one-size-fits-all approach to analysis of criminal record
disclosures, highlighting the need for more granular, crime-specific research in this field.
Keywords
Comparative criminal justice, criminal records, disclosure schemes, domestic abuse, domestic
violence
Introduction
Domestic abuse disclosure schemes (DADS) allow members of the public to request and
receive information from police about the criminal histories of their partners if they are
Corresponding author:
Katerina Hadjimatheou, Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe House, Colchester CO4
3SQ, UK.
Email: k.hadjimatheou@essex.ac.uk
1162514CRJ0010.1177/17488958231162514Criminology & Criminal JusticeHadjimatheou
research-article2023
Special Issue: Collateral Consequences of Criminal Records
Hadjimatheou 649
at risk of abuse. Originally introduced in England and Wales in 2012, DADS have since
been replicated in other common-law jurisdictions − Scotland, Northern Ireland and
New Zealand, and in a growing number of states in Canada and Australia. Police in
South Korea have reportedly introduced a dating abuse disclosure scheme (Soo-sun,
2017) and scholars in South Africa have called for a similar scheme to be introduced
there too (Zazo, 2019). Despite a culture of strong privacy protections for peopple with
convictions, Spanish authorities recently responded to high rates of domestic homicide
by announcing that they will begin disclosing the histories of high-risk perpetrators of
abuse to their partners (La Moncloa, 2023). The few existing studies of DADS are
grounded in the literature on domestic abuse, which examines them from the perspective
of potential victims and overlooks the potential impact on the rights and interests of peo-
ple with police records of abuse. The literature on the collateral consequences of criminal
records has a well-established body of analytic resources to with which to analyse the
normative implications of criminal record disclosure for people with convictions, yet it
has remained silent on DADS, focusing instead on disclosure in the context of employ-
ment, access to welfare benefits and education.
This article advances criminological scholarship in two ways. First, by providing a
systematic comparison of all DADS currently in use, drawing on the results of desk-
based research and communications with police, domestic abuse practitioners and aca-
demics across the five jurisdictions in which DADS operate to clarify their aims and
divergent applications. And second, by taking the first steps towards a normative analy-
sis of DADS as they stand today. This aim is achieved by drawing on the substantial lit-
erature on the collateral consequences of criminal records to consider the extent to which
moral and legal criticisms of other kinds of criminal record disclosure also apply to
DADS. Until now, this latter body of literature has treated people with criminal records
as uniformly vulnerable and in need of protection from an overweening penal state.
Thus, a secondary aim of this article is to highlight some of the limits of those criticisms
as well as the need for more granular, crime-specific research in this field, by drawing
attention to the distinctive features of the crime of domestic abuse.
DADS: Context, rationale and jurisdictional variations
Domestic abuse, or the use of physical or emotional violence and control between mem-
bers of the same family − most often intimate partners − is a serious, widespread and
persistent problem. In 2021, the World Health Organisation estimated that up to 38% of
all murders of women globally are committed by intimate partners and that 27% of
women have experienced some form of intimate partner violence (World Health
Organization, 2021).1 Today, domestic abuse is in many jurisdictions the most common
violent crime reported to the police.2 But the historical dominance of patriarchal gender
norms means that the criminalisation of domestic abuse is a relatively recent phenome-
non: in 1970, no country in the world had laws against domestic violence; in 2022 at least
155 do (World Bank, 2020).
The first Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme, introduced in England and Wales in
2012, was conceived of specifically as a means of protecting victims from repeat and
serial domestic abusers, who were increasingly recognised as posing a particularly
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