Domestic violence includes all kinds of physical, sexual, emotional and financial abuse, within all types of relationships. The most harmful abuse is carried out by men against women partners, but abuse can also be carried out by women against men, within same sex relationships and by family members.
People experience Domestic Violence regardless of their social group, class, age, race, disability, sexuality or lifestyle. Abuse can begin at any time after a relationship has ceased.
One in four women experience Domestic Violence at some time in their lives and thousands of children are affected by witnessing or experiencing violence in their homes.There is no doubt that domestic violence can have massive impact upon families and communities.
From Aril 2005 to March 2006 there were 1,093 crimes recorded with a domestic violence marker in Bolton. This type of offences has historically been under-reported and these figure probably underestimate the extent of the problem in Bolton. The majority (83%) of domestic violence offences were classified as less serious wounding. 187 offences with a domestic marker (18% of the total) relate to repeat victims of this type of offence.
BSafe has tried to increase early identification and intervention with victims primarily through the Domestic Violence Enforcement Campaign (DVEC). Two of these projects were run in Bolton. The first DVEC covered the period April to March 2005 and the second campaign covered the World Cup (2006).
During the campaign Bolton had at least double staff enforcement cars (and sometimes three) deployed across the borough every weekend. each vehicle was crewed with specialist domestic violence officers, and equipped with digital cameras to improve evidence gathering. the campaign increased the reporting of domestic violence incidents and there was a rise in the number of arrests and detections.