Dr Charlotte Barlow wins large ESRC funding to explore information sharing and Domestic Violence Disclosure Schemes
Dr Barlow and Dr Ellen Reeves (University of Liverpool) have won a large ESRC Standard Grant titled “The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme Project: Information Sharing and Domestic Abuse”.
The project seeks to examine the effectiveness of Clare's Law as a method of information sharing and the implications for broader domestic abuse policy and practice.
What is Clare's Law?
In a concerted effort to improve system responses to domestic abuse, various jurisdictions – including England and Wales – have placed a strong emphasis on the value of information sharing.
A key goal of information sharing is to keep domestic abuse perpetrators in view and provide improved protections to victim-survivors. To support this shift towards information sharing, models of accountability and protection, domestic violence disclosure schemes (DVDS or Clare’s Law) have been introduced in several jurisdictions, with England and Wales being the first to introduce such a scheme in 2014. The function of DVDS is to empower victim-survivors through the provision of information regarding intimate partners’ prior history of domestic abuse offending (or offending histories that may indicate risk of domestic abuse).
However, Dr Barlow says:
Over 10 years on from the implementation of the DVDS in England and Wales, its effectiveness remains unclear. Very little is known about how information is shared under the DVDS scheme.
Given the consistent identification of information sharing as a key area of improvement in formal systems’ response to domestic abuse, Dr Barlow believes that now is the right time to critically examine the operation of DVDS and to consider whether current information sharing practices are effective in achieving their intended aims.
She says:
This project seeks to address this gap and to improve domestic abuse policy and practice in order to keep victim-survivors safe.
To achieve their project aims, Dr Barlow and Dr Reeves will employ quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine information sharing at three levels:
- Police force/partnership level;
- Domestic abuse frontline/delivery level; and
- Victim-survivor level.
Project phases
- Phase 1 of the project will incorporate a literature review and policy analysis of how DVDS have been implemented internationally;
- Phase 2 will be a quantitative analysis of DVDS data from all 43 police forces in England and Wales;
- Phase 3 will be interviews with professionals tasked with implementing DVDS to explore how information is shared/ disclosed across six police force areas. Interviews will also be with victim-survivors who have experience with the DVDS or have views on the scheme; and
- Phase 4 will focus on knowledge exchange – they will host a series of online and in person events sharing the findings of the study with police constabularies, policy makers and other key stakeholders.
Dr Barlow states:
A key aim of this project is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of DVDS as a method of information sharing and the implications this has for broader domestic abuse policy and practice. We are working with key stakeholders and policy makers from the projects inception in the hope that project findings will help professionals working in this space and improve experiences for victim-survivors.
For more information on the project, resources, updates, and to sign up to the mailing list please see the project webpage.
Dr Barlow is a member of both the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies and the Feminist Research Into Violence and Abuse.
