You asked
I am requesting information on the numbers of domestic abuse incidents in England and Wales with respect to:
Overall prevalence and trends
Victim characteristics (i.e. gender, age, ethnicity, marital status, disability, employment status, occupation, household structure and area)
Partner type of abuse, context of partner abuse, effects of partner abuse on victim, sources of support sought by victims of partner abuse, rates of reporting partner abuse to the police
Domestic abuse recorded by the police, arrests and voluntary attendances for domestic abuse-related crimes, police outcomes of domestic abuse-related offences, prosecution and conviction outcomes
Availability of domestic abuse services, characteristics of service users, victim interactions with domestic abuse services (accessing services, referrals from difference agencies)
I require the information for the following years:
2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021
We said
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request regarding domestic abuse data in England and Wales for the years 2016 to 2021.
At present, the ONS website hosts all our domestic abuse publications from the past 5 years, thus covering your time period of interest. Prior to 2019, all the domestic abuse data associated with an annual release were compiled into a single volume of appendix tables. Such volumes for 2016 to 2018 are found here. From 2019 to the present day, we better organise each release's data into multiple datasets which together constitute a domestic abuse compendium for that release. Details on the structure of our latest domestic abuse compendium can be found in Section 1 of our Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview: November 2020 publication.
The first 3 parts of your request pertain to Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) data.
The CSEW is a face-to-face victimisation survey in which people resident in households in England and Wales are asked about their experiences of a range of crimes in the 12 months prior to their interview.
Questions to measure domestic abuse were first included in the CSEW for the 2004/05 survey as part of a then-new self-completion module. At that time, the respondent upper age limit for CSEW self-completion modules was 59 years. This upper age limit was increased from 59 years to 74 years from the 2017/18 CSEW onwards. As such, any domestic abuse time series for adults aged 16 to 74 years only goes back to the year ending March 2018 at best, yet data for adults aged 16 to 59 years may extend back further to cover all historic years of your interest. For either age group in any aspect of your request, CSEW data for the year ending March 2021 are not yet available.
For prevalence and trends of domestic abuse, please see our Domestic abuse prevalence and victim characteristics - Appendix tables dataset. Table 3a covers the prevalence of domestic abuse in the past year among adults aged 16 to 74 years (year ending March 2018 to year ending March 2020). Table 3b covers the prevalence of domestic abuse in the past year among adults aged 16 to 59 years (year ending March 2005 to year ending March 2020).
Data pertaining to victim characteristics for the two latest survey years are also found at the same link: Domestic abuse prevalence and victim characteristics - Appendix tables. In the year ending March 2020 dataset, Tables 6 and 7 provide data for victims aged 16 to 74 by personal characteristics and household-and-area characteristics respectively. In the year ending March 2019 dataset, similar information is found in Tables 6a to 7b except split by both age groups. Data for the years ending March 2018 and March 2017 cover personal characteristics only (Table 4), not area and household characteristics. We have not published any victim characteristics data for domestic abuse for the year ending March 2016.
The only published CSEW data on partner abuse can be found in our Partner abuse in detail -- Appendix tables dataset. The latest available year is the year ending March 2018 CSEW:
- Table 1 provides data on the type of abuse suffered by partner abuse victims
- Tables 4 to 5c provide data on the context of partner abuse with respect to the influence of alcohol and drugs, meanwhile Table 8 provides data on whether any children in the household saw or heard what happened
- Table 6 provides data on whether victims who lived with their abusive partner left the shared accommodation as a result of the abuse, meanwhile Tables 9 to 11 provide data on the physical and mental effects of the partner abuse on the victim
- Table 13 provides data on rates of reporting partner abuse to the police and the reasons for not reporting
For the years ending March 2019 and March 2020, police recorded crime data on the numbers and rates of domestic abuse-related incidents can be found in our Domestic abuse prevalence and victim characteristics -- Appendix tables dataset. Outcomes data are provided separately in Domestic abuse and the criminal justice system -- Appendix tables.
For the years ending March 2016 to March 2018, the numbers and rates from police recorded crime are supplied alongside the outcomes data in the same datasets: Domestic abuse in England and Wales - Appendix tables.
The latest data on domestic abuse victim services, as at November 2020 and at November 2019, can be found in our Domestic abuse victim services - Appendix tables datasets. For the 3 years prior to that, data on domestic abuse victim services can be found in our Domestic abuse in England and Wales - Appendix tables datasets.
If you have any further crime-related enquiries, the ONS Centre for Crime and Justice can be contacted at the following e-mail address: CrimeStatistics@ons.gov.uk