Domestic Abuse Service Providers and their Stories

Rebecca Shaw

As one of the first recipients of the inaugural ESRC Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre’s ECR Development Fund, I have spent the past year working with domestic abuse service providers in Leeds, West Yorkshire and York to assess their perceptions regarding ‘dominant narratives’ of domestic abuse. Designed in collaboration with my partners (Leeds Women’s Aid, Behind Closed Doors, Fresh Futures and Foundations +Choices), the aim of this project was to identify what kinds of systemic and structural narratives persist in preventing change and to co-design potential strategies for practical change in the local area. Thus, not only to identify and analyse these narratives but also consider how we might try and change them. By interrogating the role that stories can play in perpetuating systemic and structural attitudes to domestic abuse, we can then consider how we might begin to ‘rewrite’ those problematic and persistent narratives.

When we think of stories, or narratives, the first thing that comes to mind isn’t usually their connection to domestic abuse. But actually, narratives can have a diverse role to play when it comes to harm and vulnerability. They can inspire and motivate harmful action; they are used to make sense of harm and vulnerability; and they are used in the process of surviving harm (Presser and Sandberg 2015 and 2019). For example, stories can influence how a person thinks or behaves and can heighten emotions, thus motivating them to harm others or to tolerate harm done to them (Presser 2018). Stories, therefore, are crucial for helping people make sense of the world.

How we see, react and make sense of domestic abuse often involves drawing on prominent socio-cultural narratives that silence victim/survivors and perpetuate problematic myths and stereotypes of domestic violence and abuse – so-called dominant or master narratives. These narratives are ones which represent socio-cultural structures and views that pattern the fabric of everyday life, and they often represent powerful waves through which collective myths, biases, stereotypes of domestic abuse and victimhood are communicated. For example, these narratives often repeat stereotypical characterisations of victims and perpetrators; or reinforce the misunderstanding that physical violence is more serious than other types of violence. Other narratives also include those such as ‘why don’t you just leave?’ or the placing of blame and responsibility on the victim.

As collective narratives, they can often be hard to pin down: based on normative life experiences and expectations, these narratives are set within cultural, social and political systems of powers and laws (Andrews 2002; Bamberg 2024; Hyvärinen et al 2021; Hyvärinen 2022). For example, that might include legal institutions and government; social relationships within communities; cultural norms; or any system of power on which individual lives or wider institutions are built. The issue, then, with these dominant or master narratives is that they are entrenched within both individuals and institutions. In the context of domestic abuse, this can include law enforcement, the justice system, statutory agencies – police, lawyers, judges, social workers, etc. are more likely to share understandings of domestic abuse from this dominant narrative, without any revision of traditional ideas and concepts, rather than re-conceptualising the narrative of what domestic abuse and its victims/perpetrators should look like.

Analysing the stories, then, of those people who work with victim-survivors and perpetrators of domestic abuse has been a fascinating exercise in order to assess their perceptions of the kinds of narratives that persist, and consider what needs to be reformed in order to dismantle those narratives. Throughout both the focus-group sessions and the individual interviews, it has been interesting to see the same themes, stereotypes and narratives appearing with both those who support victim-survivors and those who support perpetrators. Narrative analysis of these interviews has delved into both the content and form (i.e. the construction) of the stories (Sandberg 2022). First I carried out a thematic narrative analysis, focusing on the content of these stories and identifying the key themes that emerged from the full stories told to me during interviews. From here, I then carried out a structural analysis of the stories identifying the key elements of the story using the framework of linguist William Labov (1972). I also drew on the work of Vladmir Propp (1968) to identify the key, recurring characters throughout these stories. Although across all of the storytellers, a consistent typology of themes emerged, for example failure to recognise value of perpetrator work; managing stigma and unconscious bias; the responsibilisation of the victim in domestic abuse; lack of training/education with professionals concerning domestic abuse and its impact; and a lack of understanding and awareness generally. However, each teller combined different events, characters and elements of narrative to tell their tale: revealing that, although there was a similarity of themes, the storytellers each had different points to make and there were important differences in meaning of the same theme for different participants (Kohler Riessman 2008). Crucially, across all of these stories, each storyteller offered orientation, complicating actions and extensive evaluation. When it came to a resolution to the story, and a resolution to the issues faced in dismantling dominant narratives of domestic abuse, training and education were key.

Thus, a key ambition of this project was to use these findings to develop a tactical plan which would establish how the narratives around domestic abuse (as revealed by the research) can be changed, and what new policy or practices are needed to facilitate that change. This work commenced at a workshop held in March 2024 with project partners, participants and representatives from West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Partnership, Leeds City Council, and West Yorkshire Police VAWG Team. Working together, we hope to continue this partnership to shape how local agencies in Leeds, York and West Yorkshire can prevent future harm and change the narrative of domestic abuse.

This project is ambitious, and challenged participants to question these dominant narratives and how they conceptualise, articulate and employ these narratives (whether overtly or not) as part of their work. I hope to make a valuable and impactful contribution to changing perceptions and the mindset on domestic abuse, both within professional services and the wider public. Of course, much work is already being done in this area. What this project is asking however is: if we want to change our response to domestic abuse and re-write those dominant narratives, do we need a shift in focus to the source of these narratives, how they are constructed and reproduced as part of any comprehensive critical praxis?

I would be interested in hearing from anyone who wishes to discuss any aspect of this project, so please get in touch: r.a.shaw@leeds.ac.uk 

About the author

Rebecca Shaw is a Lecturer in Law at the University of Leeds. Her research lies at the nexus of law and narrative, specifically examining the power of legal storytelling and dominant narratives in domestic abuse.

Contact

Dr Rebecca Shaw

University of Leeds

@Dr_Rebecca_Shaw

This article gives the views of the author, not the position of the British Society of Criminology or the institution they work for.

Prisons: History and Current Policy

Susanna Menis

I was invited recently to give a 30-minute talk on my research on the historical development of English prisons in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This was part of a seminar lunch series for the Ministry of Justice organised by Professor of History from the Open University, Rosalind Crone, and the Prison Policy Directorate. These seminars have aimed to encourage dialogue between historians and policymakers. However, as pointed out by scholars, this is not an obvious dialogue (Berkowitz, 1984; Rennie, 1998; Gavin, 2007; Haddon et al., 2015). Apart from the arguable interest of policymakers in what history has to say – ‘policymakers are not interested in the past for its own sake’ (Gavin, 2007, p.162) – and perhaps the preference of other disciplines such as economics that ‘address themselves more explicitly to the future’ (Berkowitz, 1984, p.80), Gavin argues that historians might not intuitively write to target a policymakers audience (2007, p.163).

My conclusion to the talk and the answer to one of the attendees’ questions, ‘What can we take away for our practice?’ – was that the best thing that they can take away is the knowledge of how and why things are the way they are, and the awareness that when a policy is drafted, for how modern it may appear, it sits within historical, socio-cultural, and political memory. Why does this matter? As Gavin (2007, p.166) indicates, this should encourage policymakers to challenge ‘the received wisdom about past and current’ policies. Thane (2009, p.142) put it eloquently when arguing that ‘long-established social roots of certain issues can lead to oversimplification and inadequate policy responses’. Furthermore, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (2009, pp.1-2) suggests that historical analysis that addresses the rationale behind a past policy can help policymakers question accepted practice and it ‘can open up more options for dealing with current policy problems’, and that significantly, ‘the origins of current problems can be better understood by taking a longer view of their history’.

This blog entry explains how and why some of the main characteristics of the modern prison penalty, as we know it in the 21^st century, are the way they are. 

Why and how have prisons become a primary penalty in England?

During the eighteenth century, the criminal justice struggled to meet demands for adequate criminal punishment. The situation was reflected in two drawbacks. The first, in the reduced use of capital punishment, either through the jury finding people not guilty (even if they were), the judges interpreting the law in such a way that a capital offence would not be an option, or that the king would exercise the right to give pardon very generously.

The second drawback was transportation. This was the best and preferable penalty – and Parliament liked it. However, the colonies did not feel the same and eventually refused to take any more convicts altogether.

Prisons, on the other hand, functioned mainly as detention centers (before execution, waiting for trial, until the debt was paid and for minor corporal punishment and petty offences) up until the 1780s and were classified as a secondary penalty, hence not a sentence in its own right.

The government needed to find a contingency plan very quickly; this was when the idea was put forward that imprisonment would be upgraded literally to function as a primary penalty.

The problem faced by the policymakers was that none of the over 600 custodial facilities in the country (all owned and managed by charities or private individuals: castles, gaols, houses of corrections, etc.) could have been easily re-purposed. Although the courts naturally shifted towards the use of imprisonment instead of capital punishment and transportation, the state of these custodial facilities did not make them a viable alternative as a primary penalty.

Figure 1

Despite this, the government was desperate for Parliament to enact legislation that would elevate imprisonment into a sentence. This was achieved in two ways by softening the impact and implications of such a change (it is widely recorded that the British parliament did not appreciate sudden reforms):

First, the policymakers used a narrative in which ‘detention’/’imprisonment’ was not the punishment itself. This eliminated the problem of the lack of facilities for this purpose and the need to engage in expensive refurbishments. Instead, the proposed Bill introduced the principle of ‘hard labour’. The Hulks Act (prison ships) 1776 and the Penitentiary Act 1779 were not the original titles of the respective Bills: the first was originally titled in terms of hard labour by cleaning the Thames shores, whereas the 1779 Act was drafted as the 1778 Hard Labour Bill.

Second, the government promised Parliament that this was just an ‘experiment, particularly to answer the spur of the occasion. When tranquillity was restored to America, the usual mode of transportation might be again adopted.’

Figure 2

However, the final draft of the legislation reflected the concern that the principle of ‘hard labour’ had not been popular in Parliament, hence the renaming of the Penitentiary Act. Also, from the proposed building of eighteen new ‘Hard Labour houses’, the Act reduced the provision to only two; it removed the wording intended to differentiate these new prisons from the old, existing custodial facilities, thus nationalising the expensive administration of this new policy. Finally, Parliament backed down from its promise to sustain the initial building and maintenance costs.

Those supporting this penal reform believed that despite introducing an expensive administrative operation, it could eventually sustain itself by relying on prisoners’ labour. They even thought this would make the prison estate self-sustainable, reducing public expenditure. As we know, this never happened – at least not in the way it was intended.

Why and how did the ‘reform of the prisoner’ become a core penal aim?

The concept of the reform of the prisoner was introduced in the mid-eighteenth century when convicts were faced with the possibility that they would not be executed or sent to the colonies; instead, they might eventually rejoin society. The idea was borrowed from the practice of the Reformation of Manners campaign, where they aimed to eradicate social vice and deviant behaviour. 

However, the policy setting up the penal aim of the ‘reform of the prisoner’ was driven by the fear of social mobility. This period faced economic growth (Wardley-Kershaw et al., 2022), and the upper classes were concerned that by attempting to emulate their lifestyle, the ‘lower order of people’ failed to cope with the ‘excess’ or the need to obtain this excess. Accordingly, criminality was an expression of this failed attempt. 

The proposed solution emphasised education about the values of acceptable ‘morals’ and ‘habits’. This is how the idea of labour as a punishment was introduced because it was thought to ‘improve’ the convicts’ ‘morals’ by allowing them to develop a habit of steady and well-directed industry (Fielding, 1751).

However, the benefits brought by the engagements of Elizabeth Fry could not be replicated in the male prison population; hence, the ‘reform of the prisoner’ paradigm developed into a mass-frugal administrative operation in practice. Education was first replaced with religion and penitence, then discipline and uniformity.   

Prison regimes were routinely reshaped and redesigned to fulfil this aim of imprisonment better. However, limitations related to ineffective prison management, expensive administration, and conflicting social aims and penal policies meant that prisoners’ reformation was only a theory.

Lesson from history

Policymakers should be mindful that broader historical socio-political concerns have shaped and affected the context of their work. Hence, they should be aware of policy decisions’ unintended consequences and side implications. In the historical context, the introduction of the principle of ‘hard labour’ as a narrative to justify imprisonment had consequences that were not initially anticipated, leading to adjustments in legislation and the adoption of a penalty suffering from drawbacks since its inception.

References

Berkowitz, E. (1984). History, Public Policy and Reality. Journal of Social History, 18(1), 79–89.

Fielding, H. (1751) An Enquiry Into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers, 2nd edn. London: A. Millar.

Gavin, F. J. (2007). History and Policy. International Journal, 63(1), 162–177.

Haddon, C., Devanny, J., Forsdick, C., & Thompson, A. (2015, January 22). What is the value of history in policymaking? Institute for Government. Report: Art and Humanities Research Council. Available https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/Making%20History%20Work%20Report%20-%20Final_0.pdf (accessed 8 Jan 2024).

Rennie, R. (1998). History and policy-making. International social science journal, 50(2), 289-301.

Thane, P. (2009). History and Policy. History Workshop Journal 67, 140-145. 

Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology, Postnote, January 2009, Number 323. https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/post/postpn323.pdf

Wardley-Kershaw, J. and Klaus R.S.H. (2022). Economic Growth in the UK: The Inception. World 3, no. 2: 162-174. 

About the author

Susanna Menis is a Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck London University, School of Law. She is the author of A History of Women’s Prisons in England: The Myth of Prisoner Reformation (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021).

Contact

Susanna Menis,
School of Law, Birkbeck,
University of London,
Malet Street,
London
WC1E 7HX,

s.menis@bbk.ac.uk

https://smenis.wixsite.com/dr-susanna-menis

This article gives the views of the author, not the position of the British Society of Criminology or the institution they work for.

A Home for Christmas: Leaving Prison amidst a National Housing Crisis

Helen Kosc

Helen is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Oxford, Department of Sociology. For the last 18 months, Helen has conducted a long-term and large-scale ethnographic study of prison resettlement. She has shadowed the resettlement journeys of 150 men released from one, local category B prison over the course of 1.5 years. In both her participant observation and her qualitative, sequential interviews with the men, she hears men saying time and time again:

In here, at least I’m a number. Out there I am no one.

There is nothing for me to look forward to out there. I’d rather be in here.

I’ll do anything, anything to get me back inside the warm for a few nights.

She writes this piece, not as a work of fiction, but as a true story. Rather, as a culmination of 150 true stories. Heartbreaking, almost unbelievable, but all true. Behind her text and her summary are the men’s voices, thoughts, sentiments.

Inspired by her most recent conversation with a prison leaver who told her “I would rather be here for Christmas”, Helen hopes that through this short, thought-provoking piece, you reflect on the men and women released homeless from prison, wishing for a home for Christmas.

You are a prison leaver released to Southeast England in December 2023 without a place to stay.

You are released amidst a national housing and cost of living crisis in this country. On any given night in England this year, there are an estimated 309,550 people and 72,320 households experiencing homelessness. This number, including 123,000 children, is a 14% jump from last year alone.

4 in 10 adults in Great Britain are reporting a difficulty affording their rent and mortgage payments, average house prices in cities like Oxford are a soaring 18 times the UK average yearly household income, and the number of available social housing units is at a remarkable low – the lowest rate in decades.

You are released during a time where divestment in social homes and care for the vulnerable in this country is at an all-time low. With food prices become unaffordable, the hope of a roof over your head unimaginable, and the chances of getting a job in this economy with a criminal record near-impossible, poor timing, you think to yourself as your release date approaches.

Research shows financial crises and periods of austerity ‘disproportionately affect the marginalized and the vulnerable’[1] you’re not one for academic studies, but this one seems pretty true to you.

You are a prison leaver released to Southeast England in December 2023 without a place to stay.

You are not alone, in a country that incarcerates more individuals than any other country in Western Europe, you are part of an ever-growing prison population. The prison population in England and Wales has risen by 80% in the last 30 years, and you’re currently part of an 80,659 individuals, expected to rise by another 7,400 by early 2024.

With 61% of you committing a non-violent offence and 2 in 5 serving six months or less, you are not the only prison leaver coming out homeless this cold and chilling December. 

You are a prison leaver released to Southeast England in December 2023 without a place to stay.

Historically studies have consistently shown that housing upon release can significantly reduce reoffending by at least 20%, with those having accommodation arranged being four times more likely to gain meaningful employment, education and training [2]. The research is not in your favor.

More than three-quarters (79%) of prison leavers in your position – homeless upon release – are reconvicted within the first year of release. This is compared to the 48% of general prison leavers who return in one year, and one-third who return in one month.

The statistics are not in your favor.

You are a prison leaver released to Southeast England in December 2023 without a place to stay.

So what are your options?

Council housing? There is a current wait list of 2780 people on your council’s housing registrar and a wait time of 10-20 years.

Rough sleeping? Where you’re at elevated risk of developing respiratory disease, dental problems, skin diseases, asthma, bronchitis, epilepsy, and have a higher likelihood of experiencing heart problems, stroke, diabetes, anxiety, severe depression, suicidal tendencies, self-harming behavior and violent and/or sexual assault [3]. 

Sofa surfing? Categorized as a ‘hidden homelessness’[4] that actually effects 8 times as many people as rough sleeping [5]. A state of ‘permanent impermanence’ where you lack privacy and personal space, and are often forced to rely on the very same contacts you hope to – and the ones desistence textbooks urge you to – avoid.

So whether you hope you are deemed ‘priority’ need and offered a spot in temporary council accommodation, have a means of securing a floor or sofa to sleep on with an old acquaintance you hope you can trust, or are going to try to find somewhere quiet (and hopefully safe) to sleep on the streets, you are going to be homeless.[6] Each ‘choice’ is temporary and not ideal, each requires taking on its own unique set of risks. Not much of a choice really. Is prison still an option?

You are a prison leaver released to Southeast England in December 2023 without a place to stay.

Where am I going to sleep tonight? Who do I still know in the area? Who owes me a favor? What can I eat for less than £1.50 these days? How cold is it going to be? Do I need a blanket? Will I be safe? When I run out of money, how will I eat? What supermarket will be easiest to steal from?

Of all the questions going through your mind as you walk through the prison gates, the question of whether or not to desist from crime is likely not of much importance. But, in subtle and nuanced ways, it lingers behind every question above.

To desist or not desist? Or better yet, to desist but for how long? Until night 5 on the street? Until you’re starving and out of money? Until you get a bottle smashed over your head while sleeping on the streets? Until you get assaulted by your neighbor in council housing? Until your only option left is to stay at an abusive ex partner’s? Until you are thrown out of the hospital bed for ‘abusing’ the services?

Desisting from crime, like any other behavioral change, is active and effortful – not just a passive event that takes place overnight. It is a negotiation that takes place every single day – not to pick up that drink, not to ingest that substance, not to call up an old friend, not to visit that ex-partner, not to resort to theft when your stomach is rumbling, not to breakdown when you’re sleeping on the streets. It is an active decision made every day to take one more step away from the ‘old version’ of yourself until he or she is eventually abandoned altogether.

However, when no new friends exist, when alcohol is the only way to make your concrete bed comfortable, when your prescription runs out and drugs are the only escape from your inner demons, when you’ve been rejected from council housing and received yet another ‘no’ from a job application, the negotiation becomes more challenging.

You are a prison leaver released to Southeast England in December 2023 without a place to stay.

And while some prison leavers will manage to stick it out, at the cost of their mental, physical, or social wellbeing, many will not. Many will return to prison. And those that return to prison will have to face the same choices again the next time they are released; and the next time; and the next time…until we dramatically change the housing landscape and resettlement policy in this country.

So at some point, starving, freezing and abandoned, you decide you cannot survive another night in the cold. You know of men who have self-harmed to ‘buy’ a night or two in a hospital bed, but one or two nights doesn’t feel like enough for you. You dawn your balaclava and enter your exclusion zone, waiting, hoping, to get caught. I’ll be home for Christmas, you think, as you’re handcuffed and walked over to the police car. I’ll have a home for Christmas, you repeat to yourself as you are driven to the prison gates. And surely enough, the next day as you awake in a warm bed, with a roof over your head, a cellmate, and three meals a day, you knew your Christmas wish had come true.

---

[1] Stubbs et al., 2022; Armando, 2021; Hastings et al., 2017

[2] Niven & Stewart, 2005

[3] Crisis, 2012; Theodorou & Johnsen, 2017; Homeless Link, 2014; Keogh et al., 2015; Brett et al., 2014; Bines, 1994; Beijer et al., 2016; Lewer at el., 2019.

[4] Minich et al., 2011; Peters, 2012; Crawley et al., 2013; Findlay et al., 2013; Mayock and Corr, 2013; Elwell-Sutton et al., 2017; Mayock and Parker, 2019

[5] Fitzpatrick et al., 2021; Barton & Wilson, 2021

[6] Reeve & Batty, 2011

About the author

Helen Kosc is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Oxford, Department of Sociology. For her Doctoral research, Helen is conducting a long-term and large-scale ethnographic study of prison resettlement, shadowing the resettlement journeys of 150 prison-leavers over 18 month.

Contact

@HelenKosc

www.linkedin.com/in/helen-kosc-561b9a149/

www.helenkosc.com

This article gives the views of the author, not the position of the British Society of Criminology or the institution they work for.