Using criminal histories to empower victim–survivors of domestic abuse
| Published date | 01 May 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14773708221128249 |
| Author | Katerina Hadjimatheou |
| Date | 01 May 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Using criminal histories to
empower victim–survivors of
domestic abuse
Katerina Hadjimatheou
University of Essex, Colchester, UK
Abstract
The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (DVDS) was first introduced in England and Wales in
2014 and has since been reproduced across the world. Its aim is to empower victim–survivors by
giving them access to a partner’s criminal history and thereby helping them make informed deci-
sions about their relationship. Yet the relationship between information and empowerment in this
context remains contested and unexplored both theoretically and empirically.This paper draws on
findings from the largest qualitative study of the DVDS to date as well as coercive control,to show
that police are using disclosures to undermine perpetrators’‘monopolies on perception’and in
doing so aiming to empower victim–survivors to redefine their own realities. The implications
for practice-oriented models of empowerment and evaluation methodologies are explored.
Keywords
Disclosure scheme, domestic abuse, empowerment, survivors, victims
Introduction
Since the 1990s, political rhetoric around crime in the UK and elsewhere has emphasised
the need to readjust the balance between offenders’rights and victims’rights in favour of
the latter (Savage and Charman, 2010). One way in which such a rebalancing has been
pursued in practice is by making it easier for members of the public to access the criminal
records of people with a history of offending who may pose a risk to them. A notable
initiative is the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (DVDS) –also known as
Clare’s Law –introduced in England and Wales in 2014. The DVDS gives members
of the public new rights to request and receive information about their current or
recent partner’s history of abuse; it also enables the police to share such information
Corresponding author:
Katerina Hadjimatheou, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO2 3S4, UK.
Email: kdhadj@essex.ac.uk
Article
European Journal of Criminology
2023, Vol. 20(3) 1106–1122
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/14773708221128249
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proactively with those they consider to be at risk. The DVDS has expanded fast, with the
rate of disclosures doubling each year since its introduction, rising from a total of 1938 in
2014 to 13,439 in 2020 –2021. Today, sharing a perpetrator’s criminal history with a
victim or potential victim has become a routine aspect of domestic abuse police work
across many countries in the English-speaking world, with similar schemes now operat-
ing in Scotland, Northern Ireland, New Zealand
1
and parts of Australia
2
and Canada.
3
The rationale for disclosure schemes rests heavily on the assertion that access to crim-
inal history information ‘empowers’victims and potential victims of domestic abuse to
make informed decisions about their relationships and the safety of themselves and
their families (Goward cited in Gerathy, 2016). The ‘empowerment’of the victim–survi-
vors has long been a primary and unifying aim of domestic abuse advocacy and support
services (Cattaneo and Chapman, 2010; Kasturirangan, 2008; Stark, 2007: 153). And it
remains core to much feminist work in this field (Wangmann, 2016). Precise interpreta-
tions of what empowerment entails have always diverged to some extent (Rowlands,
1997). But its enduring centrality to both victim–survivor advocacy and support is
reflected by the fact that it remains a key aim of all major domestic abuse support orga-
nisations in the UK.
4
However, the precise ways in which the sharing of criminal history information might
promote empowerment have never been articulated or explored systematically. The few
evaluations of disclosure schemes that have been published are either too modest in
scope or too focused on process (rather than outcome) to shed light on how these values
are being pursued in practice.
5
Previous research has shown that police working with the
victim–survivors to deliver the DVDS describe their role explicitly in terms of individual
empowerment (Hadjimatheou, 2021). But feminist scholars have expressed scepticism,
pointing outthat ‘crude translations of theprinciple that knowledge is power’are frequently
invoked in supportof questionable neoliberal political strategiesthat shift responsibility for
the prevention of crime from the state to individuals (Coy and Kelly, 2011: 160; see also
Wangmann, 2017; Fitz-Gibbon and Walklate, 2017). Are empowerment and informed
choice merely ‘mantras’(Grace, 2021: 50) deployed unreflectively or even cynically to
deflect responsibility for the rising rates of domestic abuse from police onto victims them-
selves, and are disclosure schemes merely a convenient vehicle to do this (Greene and
O’Leary, 2018)?Or is there a meaningful sense in which police seekto promote empower-
ment through the disclosure of criminal history information?
This paper takes a qualitative empirical approach to addressing these questions, presenting
findings from the largest qualitative study of the DVDS to date, involving in-depth interviews
with 32 domestic abuse police officers across 14 police forces. The discussion draws on coer-
cive control theory to develop a granular account of the specific kinds and dimensions of
‘empowerment’pursued through criminal history disclosures. It is argued that police use
criminal history information primarily to try to weaken perpetrators’‘monopolies of percep-
tion’and thereby to try to reduce victim-survivors’self-blame and shame and to increase their
self-confidence in decision-making. These insights can advance current theoretical models of
empowerment in the context of domestic abuse–which until now have remained silent about
the potential for criminal history information to empower victim–survivors (Cattaneo and
Chapman, 2010; Kasturirangan, 2008) –and improve understandings of the role and potential
value of criminal history information in public protection more broadly.
Hadjimatheou 1107
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