Hidden victims: the gendered data gap of violent crime

Abstract

The official measure of violent crime, reported by the Office for National Statistics using the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), excludes sexual offences and neglects the self-completion survey data which more reliably captures sexual and domestic violence. In failing to include these gendered forms of violence, the official picture of who is most at risk of violence is skewed, suggesting men are at greater risk than women. This research re-estimates who is most at risk of violence, incorporating sexual and domestic violence and analysing trends in violence between 2005 and 2018 by gender. The findings challenge official statistics, revealing that women were at greater risk of violence than men in 2018.

An Investigation into the Prevalence and Predictors of Domestic Violence in England: A Quantitative Study using the Crime Survey for England and Wales.

“…The available prevalence statistics are based solely on the reported cases of domestic violence and, therefore, are limited because they present only a small representation of the problem (Satyen, et al, 2021). The articles I have reviewed (Walby and Allen, 2004;Walby, Towers and Francis, 2014;2016;Walby and Towers, 2017;Cooper and Obolenskaya, 2021) have given me an insight into the existing research on the gendered data gap in violent crime and measuring the prevalence of domestic violence using the self-completion module on intimate violence in the CSEW.…”

“…This is further criticised by Walby, Towers and Francis (2016) in their research on the impact of capping high-frequency victims due to around 5% of victim forms reporting counts greater than 5 in each sample year meaning that high-frequency responses are relatively common. Furthermore, because the CSEW sample is based on households it does not include crimes committed against people living in institutions, such as refuge accommodation, where many victims and survivors are housed to escape domestic violence and are thus excluded from the sample, a significant limitation in relation to measuring domestic violence using the CSEW (Cooper and Obolenskaya, 2021).…”

“…The research by Cooper and Obolenskaya (2021) builds on the body of research by Walby and colleagues (2014;2016) and re-estimates the prevalence of violent crime experienced by adults using the CSEW. They also challenge the official statistics which excluded sexual offences and neglected the self-completion survey data, which underestimates the forms of violence more commonly experienced by women.…”

“…Whilst Cooper and Obolenskaya (2021) agree with Walby and Colleagues that including the full number of criminal offence incidents can address the undercounting of violent crime experienced by women, they take a different approach to that of Walby and colleagues, in order to address the undercounting of the number of women that experience violence, rather than the number of violent events they experience. Cooper and Obolenskaya (2021) thus argue excluding sexual offences as a measure of violence and failing to incorporate women's experiences of sexual and domestic violence constitute the gendered gap they found in the violent crime statistics. In order to re-estimate who is most at risk of violence, the authors (2021) analysed trends in violence between 2005 and 2018 by gender, incorporating sexual and domestic violence into their research by measuring different types of violent offences such as serious wounding, common assault, and rape.…”

“…Research has identified various risk factors that can lead to victimisation of domestic violence, including, but not limited to, living in deprived areas, low social class, low educational attainment, and social housing tenure (Barrett, Habibov and Chernyak, 2012;Bazargan-Hejazi, et al, 2013;Ismayilova and El-Bassel, 2013;Grest, Amaro and Unger, 2018;Bryant and Lightowlers, 2021). Additionally, gender will be explored as a focal point within this research due to the abundance of evidence that women are more likely to become victims of domestic violence than men (Halpern, et al, 2009;Khalifeh and Hargreaves, et al, 2013;Walby, Towers and Francis, 2016;Cooper and Obolenskaya, 2021).…”