Generic Personal Safety Applications; empowering victims of Domestic Violence and Abuse? A Practitioner Lens

Date

2021-07-21

Advisors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Policy Press

Type

Article

Peer reviewed

Yes

Abstract

Bespoke and generic Domestic Violence and Abuse (DVA) Personal Safety Applications (PSAs) have become a popular choice for strategic crime prevention projects by those in the criminal justice sector; to achieve justice through digital means as part of the wider digital justice project. These PSAs have been heralded as tools for the protection, empowerment, and resilience building of victims in DVA, despite limited independent evaluations. This article explores the use of a generic PSA, which the police have adopted for rollout to victims of DVA in one region of the United Kingdom. We undertook a thematic analysis of data taken from a roundtable and three follow up focus groups with practitioners from the police, criminal justice, DVA specialist sector, and victim services, alongside the PSA development team. We found both some support for using this PSA and serious concerns regarding its use in DVA situations.

Description

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.

Keywords

personal safety applications, domestic violence and abuse, routine activity theory, empowerment

Citation

Turgoose, D and McKie, R.E. (2021) Generic Personal Safety Applications; empowering victims of Domestic Violence and Abuse? A Practitioner Lens. Gender Based Violence.

Rights

Research Institute