Tackling violence against women and girls - A statement by ACC Jenny Gilmer

Tackling violence and abuse against women and girls is a long-standing priority for South Wales Police and we recognise that concern regarding personal safety and violence is as great as it has ever been.

As a force we have an excellent history of partnership working. We target resources towards clear routes to safety for victims, supporting and empowering survivors and investing in evidence-based interventions that tackle root causes, addressing the harmful attitudes and behaviours that result in violence and abuse.

We also have wider strategies to deal with other forms of abuse, including domestic abuse affecting men, and our approach is to treat each incident of violence on its own merits, while having a clear focus on the prevalence and threat, risk and harm.

We recognise that anyone can be a victim and all victims who report incidents to us will be responded to. Each victim will be treated in a sensitive and respectful manner. We will continue to develop responses to address the needs of victims, and we will have a strong focus on interventions for women who we know are more likely to be victims, in terms of frequency and severity of violence and abuse.

We understand that recent events have increased the fear of crime, particularly in our town and city centres at night, with concerns about issues such as sexual violence and drink spiking.

Some of the initiatives we have in place here in South Wales are considered best practice and have been replicated by other police forces.

We are involved in initiatives such as the Student Safety Bus in Cardiff and the Help Point in Swansea and we work with and train up door staff to recognise vulnerability. High-visibility patrols aim to prevent crime and anti-social behaviour and a range of other measures are also used to identify and safeguard vulnerable people. We regularly see examples of where these initiatives and measures have paid off.

South Wales Police will continue to do everything possible to keep communities safe and to ensure that people feel safe when going about their everyday business.

We encourage people to come forward to report incidents to us Contact us | South Wales Police (south-wales.police.uk)

As part of the UK Government’s strategy to tackle violence against women and girls, we are part of the trialling of a new online tool called StreetSafe, which allows people to pin-point locations where they have felt unsafe and to identify why that location made them feel unsafe: https://www.police.uk/streetsafe