Picture: Matthew Horwood
A risk evaluation aimed at helping protect women from domestic violence is working but could be improved to help more victims, according to researchers.
The Domestic Abuse, Stalking, Harassment and Honour-Based Violence (DASH) tool is used by police forces throughout the UK to assess risk of future domestic abuse.
Earlier this year Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls Jess Phillips told the BBC's File on 4 that the DASH doesn't work, amid mounting evidence that it fails to correctly identify those at the highest risk of further harm.
But now research has been able to demonstrate that the DASH is an effective predictor of deadly domestic abuse although it could be improved to help victims and the frontline staff who use it.
A team from Swansea and Cardiff universities collaborated with Dyfed-Powys Police to examine 1,000 cases of domestic violence from a total of 25,000 incidents. They compared the use of DASH in cases where the perpetrator went on to commit deadly violence – such as murder - to those where the perpetrator did not commit any further domestic abuse.
They found that people who went on to commit a deadly act of violence were five times more likely to have received a high-risk rating. This result is comparable to assessment schemes used in other countries and proved that DASH does work as intended.
For their study, the researchers went on to examine DASH in further detail, increasing its predictive ability by carefully selecting just a few of the elements from the scheme that were most powerful at identifying deadly perpetrators. This may pave the way for a more succinct but more accurate version which would not only reduce time and resources for completion of the DASH by frontline staff but also increase its efficacy.
Their findings have just been published by international journal Forensic Sciences.
Professor Nicola Gray, from the School of Psychology, emphasised that just predicting future violence is not DASH’s main objective.
She said: “The aim of risk assessment is not merely to predict but to prevent such violence. However, all organisations work with limited resources and need to know how to target those that need the most help. It is essential that the police and other frontline workers have evidence-based practices that help them in this process.”
Lead author Karen Caulfield said: “While we have shown that DASH is working as well as other risk assessment schemes, it needs to be emphasised that no scheme can ever perfectly predict the future. There will be cases where the instrument, or human judgment, indicates minor risk, but then a terrible event occurs. Such cases are devastating for those involved and attract attention.
“However, the cases where we correctly manage the risk attract no such attention. This gives the impression that the schemes are poor when they are actually functioning well. We must continue to improve these practices to help safeguard victims.”
Dyfed-Powys Assistant Chief Constable Andrew Edwards added: “The force has committed itself to the highest standard of policing in cases of domestic abuse. Our officers are determined to help safeguard those at risk. As an organisation we are happy to have helped in facilitating this investigation and providing evidence of the efficacy of DASH.”
Learn more about the School of Psychology