Has the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns increased reports of domestic abuse?

Throughout and since the lockdown, cases of domestic abuse have continued to be monitored and researched.

Domestic violence frequently goes unreported to the authorities. The amount of real domestic abuse experienced can therefore only be inferred from police's statistics to a limited extent.

The local councils and authorities took critical preparations since they anticipated an increase in reports of domestic violence.

To continue handling reports effectively, police forces transferred employees into domestic abuse investigation departments.

According to the latest data sourced from The Office for National Statistics (ONS), this chart represents arrests by Police force areas, from crimes and incidents recorded in England and Wales.

Data sourced has been collected over a period of 6 months from October 2021 to March 2022.

Full page access of data above: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Jn8eJ/1/

According to the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), domestic violence affected 5.0% of individuals aged 16 and older in the year ending March 2022.

Research from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) data shows that the rate of domestic abuse-related charges brought by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in England and Wales grew to 72.7% in the year ending March 2022 for the first time in four years. It is still lower than the rate from March 2018 (75.9%).

National charity, Women's Aid, and other organisations called attention to the heightened risk of injury and isolation for victims of domestic abuse when the first "lockdown" was announced in March 2020.

A spokesperson for Women's Aid stated:

" The pandemic period posed a risk of escalating abuse and obstructing women's escape options.   Women's Aid has monitored the effects of Covid-19 on survivors and the domestic violence services that support them ever since the pandemic's inception."they added.

Official insights suggests that abusers have changed. According to a study by LSE and the Metropolitan Police, between April and June 2020, there was an increase of 8.1% in abuse from current partners, a rise of 17.1% in abuse from family members, and a decrease of 11.4% in violence experienced by previous partners.