Crime
Reduction Programme: Violence against Women Initiative
The
Violence against Women Initiative (VAWI) was part of the
multi-million pound Crime Reduction Programme (CRP), which
was announced by the Home Secretary in 1998. This was
an evidence-led programme that aimed to find out what
works to reduce crime by identifying and piloting a range
of cost-effective approaches to crime reduction. For more
information about the CRP, click here.
The Violence against Women Initiative (VAWI) is part of
the government’s programme to tackle domestic violence.
The aim of the initiative was to identify the most effective
ways of providing support to victims and tackling domestic
violence, rape and sexual assault by known perpetrators,
and to disseminate good practice. For further information
about VAWI, click here.
Literature reviews
A series of literature reviews was commissioned in 1999
to investigate what is known about reducing domestic violence.
The reviews were summarised into briefing notes, Reducing
Domestic Violence …What works? Briefing notes
These literature reviews informed the design and development
of the CRP VAWI, including the criteria that were used
to select projects. The briefing notes were also disseminated
to agencies and partnerships, along with the Project
Prospectus and Guidance
for Agencies: Collecting and Managing Data to those
partnerships who were thinking of applying for project
funding under the CRP.
Projects In July 2000, £10.7 million was
allocated to partnerships to develop and implement a range
of multi-agency victim-focused projects. These projects
implemented tactics and strategies, which provided timely
and appropriate support to victims, as well as a number
of preventative measures in a range of contexts, and among
different population groups. Thirty-four projects were
funded under Round 1 (July 2000 to March 2002), and 24
of these projects were extended for an extra year, until
March 2003. In March 2001 a further 24 projects were commissioned
and funded until March 2003. These Round 2 projects were
not evaluated and were granted money purely to implement
services.
Evaluation Independent evaluation teams were commissioned
to assess the Round 1 projects. There were three key elements
to the evaluation:
process;
outcome; and
cost and cost-effectiveness.
For
evaluation purposes, projects with a similar approach,
setting or target group were grouped together into the
following categories:
The Policing Violence Section of the Policing and Reducing
Crime Unit is carrying out research on rape and sexual
assault by strangers. For further information, click here.
Bridgeman, C. and Hobbs, L. (1998): Preventing Repeat
Victimisation: the police officer’s guide. Police
Research Group, London: Home Office.
Living Without Fear - an integrated approach to tackling
violence against women
is a joint Home Office/Women's Unit publication and is
available from the Women
and Equality Unit Website.
