Evaluation of a UK police domestic violence unit using repeat victimisation as a performance indicator

Since overall changes in crime rates are largely independent of the work of the police, the level of crime per se is not a measure of police performance. Where policing is a response to victimisation, a more appropriate measure would be the level of repeat victimisation. The empirical study is an evaluation of the first year of a police divisional Domestic Violence Unit (DVU) which operated in response to calls to ‘domestic’ incidents. In the first year of operation of the DVU, repeat calls to domestic incidents declined in the division, while those in the six other divisions increased. However, this pattern did not hold when ‘all calls’ were the measure, so that a potentially beneficial effect would have been missed. The substantive implications for the policing of domestic violence and the use of repeat victimisation as a measure for the evaluation of police crime prevention work are considered.