I've no idea if this is true but I'd expect the most prominent statistic to be that the perpetrator is female in cases of knife crime within domestic abuse.
Stick em with the (non)pointy end!
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Man of Honour
We do. They'll be arrested but without help from the victim to prosecute, it can be hard to keep people in custody. Whilst evidence led prosecutions happen (without the help or support of the victim), beyond reasonable doubt is a high bar and prosecutions are often not successful. If we don't have enough evidence to charge, or if they're found not guilty at court, that person is free to go. And the victim will often continue the relationship.
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That would be incredibly unlikely given that females are the victim in about 74% of violent domestic incidents. I can't find any figures relating to the use of weapons in domestic incidents but the statistics simply don't support that idea.
I can't speak on behalf of NVP but I expect he meant that the victim (of which you say about 74% are women) use the knife to defend themselves and put a stop to the abuse.
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That's an over simplification. Both will use objects when it's their intention to cause serious injury. The use of knives in domestic cases are thankfully rare and represents the extreme tails of cases.
Men will generally use violence against women whereas women will use control, stalking, blackmail etc. It's purely a physicality thing. I've worked in this field for years and the only anectodal facts I can convey is there is no such thing as a typical domestic abuse case and the courts will never convict an offender, without the support of the victim, unless there has been grevious injury.
Women are the victims in most reported cases. I've never hit my wife but she's hit and pushed me. From talking to my friends it's not uncommon for them to get hit either. This may just be low level aggression but I would not be surprised if the trend continues up the seriousness scale to abuse.
There is a huge amount of support for female domestic abuse victims but very little for male victims. I don't have the sites to hand, or the time to find them right now, but there was a domestic abuse site which advertised help for female victims... but if you're a man looking for advice it gave you links to a helpline to help you stop hitting women. It assumed the man was the agressor.
Men struggle to be believed and are even mocked. The culture is for men to not report abuse against them. So many don't. That 74% figure is grossly skewed.
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Soldato
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This is the reason we are fast becoming a laughing stock around the world, you couldn't even make this up if you tried. This and the Butter knife/kids scissors/Spoon twitter police "raids" are an absolute joke.
Certainly, and it's the same issue when it comes to males being the victims of sexual assault, abuse and rape. But similarly, there are plenty of female victims who don't report it. The figures might not provide an entirely accurate picture for either gender but females are far more likely to be the victim in these types of offences. They're also far more likely to be murdered in a domestic abuse situation than males.
Who's laughing at us? The poverty stricken USA/Russia/China? Or those smaller population European countries with suspect diets?
Man of Honour
According to the figures which you yourself admit are skewed to show that result (which they undoubtably are). Accurate figures are probably impossible to obtain, but we do know that the commonly quoted proportion is definitely inaccurate because we know it is skewed, both deliberately and unintentionally. You're making a circular argument, using the (known to be skewed) figure to support itself.
Almost twice as much, but that's not evidence regarding how often abuse occurs. If you treat it as such, you must conclude that the average degree of violence is worse when the abuser is female and the victim is male, which is a politically unfashionable position to take. If M>F violence was 3 times as common and the average degree of violence was the same, M>F homicide would be 3 times as common. Not 2 times. I think it's much more likely that the proportion is about 1:1 across the board and the difference in homicide rate is due to an average difference in strength. It's true that using a weapon eliminates or greatly reduces the effect of strength, but domestic violence is usually unarmed.
Even absent of criminal prosecution the police have options to mitigate risks either with or without the other parties consent in domestic situations
Like seeking domestic violence protection orders (with or without the other parties support/ consent) and providing refferal to services which can assist in providing a non molestation order or other support and advice.
I would imagine that either of the above options would likely offer a better return on time/ and money spent than this initiative.
haha!
Man of Honour
DVPOs can be a useful tool, but the rest all require support from the victim, which isn't always there for a variety of reasons.
I'm not defending the linked initiative, I think it's stupid too, but domestic abuse is much more complex than most people seem to realise.
The stats are from police recorded crime figures as well as the ONS crime survey, they're about as good a picture as we're going to get without delving into the depths of domestic violence studies on an individual basis.
The number of homicides wouldn't increase proportionally with the number of recorded domestic violence incidents in the way you've suggested. A number of factors can affect how domestic incidents are recorded, and the police are improving at recording the lower-level incidents and ensuring they capture more incidents within a pattern of abuse. Those additional crimes/incidents recorded won't translate into more murders.
I don't, males commit far more violent offences in general than females do and that will be reflected in domestic situations also.
Most domestic homicides involve a weapon however, and that's what the Notts Pol scheme is attempting to tackle. I'd be interested to see if there's any sort of evidence that blunt knives reduce domestic homicides but if it saves one life I suppose it's hard to argue with its effectiveness at the scale it's working on.
so are we assuming a potential knifer will grab this pointless (how apt) knife, attempt to stab one then go "tch, it's all blunt" and give up/calm down? or do we consider they'll
a) stab more and/or harder as they get angrier
b) slice instead
c) know the thing hasn't got a point and use a different one instead?
a) stab more and/or harder as they get angrier
b) slice instead
c) know the thing hasn't got a point and use a different one instead?
Man of Honour
But they are heavily skewed. They do not present a true picture. To do so would require detailed studies and a radical change in society to remove the causes of the skewing.
That isn't what I suggested. I stated, quite clearly, something different. I'll try to rephrase it what I wrote, since it has clearly failed to get my point across. I'll remove everything to do with sex, to try to head off biases about that, and try an analogy instead of being direct since being direct didn't work.
Imagine a fictitious land in which there are two adjoining regions. Wynshire and Brockshire. The names don't matter, so those will do.
Both Wynshire and Brockshire have some raiders in them, who ride into the other region to raid. Sometimes they kill while raiding.
You believe that Wynshire raiders attack Brockshire people 3 times as often as Brockshire raiders attack Wynshire people.
If raiders from each shire used the same average level of violence when raiding and Wynshire raiders attacked 3 times as often as Brockshire raiders, then Wynshire raiders would kill 3 times as many people.
If Wynshire raiders attack 3 times as often as Brockshire raiders but kill only 2 times as many people, then the average level of violence used by Wynshire raiders must be lower than the average level of violence used by Brockshire raiders.
It has nothing to do with the total number of recorded incidents. I don't understand how you arrived at that conclusion. I didn't say that. 10 or 10 million, it makes no difference to what I wrote, which was explicitly and solely about proportions.
I'll try another analogy, removing the whole violence thing...
A field has a number of tents on it.
You believe that there are 3 times as many green tents as yellow tents.
If there are 3 times as many green tents as yellow tents and the average size of green tents and yellow tents is the same, then the area taken up by green tents would be 3 times the area taken up by yellow tents.
The area taken up by green tents is twice the area taken up by yellow tents.
If there really are 3 times as many green tents as yellow tents, the average size of yellow tents must by larger than the average size of green tents.
Maybe, maybe not. Domestic violence is in some ways quite dissimilar to gang violence, violence used in robbery and street violence.
It's cheap, I suppose, but I doubt if it's useful. It's not a matter of how many domestic homicides involve a weapon. It's a matter of how many domestic homicides involve a spur of the moment (if it was planned, they would simply get a pointed knife from somewhere else) stabbing with a kitchen knife by someone who will not use any other weapon. Also, there's the targeting. The knives are supposed to be given to people who are judged to be at very high risk of being killed. If you're living with someone who has a very high chance of killing you, you're not going to be protected by having some blunt knives in your kitchen.