Domestic Violence and COVID-19

This brief maps the available data augmented by expert interviews on the impact of the Covid-19 measures on DV in eight European Member States during the first lock-down. The volume addresses an on-going situation, additionally complicated by renewed lockdown restrictions during autumn and early winter 2020. It assesses the assumptions of an imminent wave of domestic violence against reliable data from crime statistics, surveys, and various institutions responding to domestic violence. Collecting partner country reports from Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Scotland and Slovenia, it demonstrates the effects that lockdown measures starting March 2020 had on reported DV incidents. It considers the differences between each country with respect to policing, legal systems, social and cultural factors and highlights best practices to prevent conditions resulting from Covid-19 lockdown undermining victims' security and frontline responders' capacities to provide services and prevent domestic violence.

Auteur

Kersten, Joachim, Professor, Dr. soz. habil. (University of Constance; Germany), Dr. soz. (University of Tuebingen, Germany), M.A. (McMaster University, Hamilton, ONT, Canada); Senior Research Professor at the Criminology Dept. of the German Police University (DHPOL), a graduate school for German and European police leadership. He has taught at the University of Melbourne, Rikkyo University Tokyo, Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. USA, and at the University of Police Science in Baden-Württemberg. He was guest professor in Sydney, NSW, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and at the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

Jarmo Houtsonen, PhD, is a Senior Researcher at the Police University College of Finland. His research interests cover policing and internal security. His latest publications relate to online surveillance, domestic violence, and community policing. Dr. Houtsonen has been actively involved in several national and international R&D projects funded e.g. byEuropean Commission, NordForsk and the Academy of Finland. Before joining the Police University College in 2011 Dr. Houtsonen was a University Lecturer at the University of Eastern Finland. Burman, Michele, Professor, BA. Sociology and Psychology (University of Cape Town); BA.Hons Clinical Psychology (UNISA); MSc Legal Studies (Criminology) University of Edinburgh; PhD University of Edinburgh. Michele is Professor of Criminology within the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research (SCCJR) at the University of Glasgow. She has extensive experience of teaching and researching responses to gender-based violence, spanning over 30 years. Her key areas of research interest include criminal justice responses to rape, sexual assault and domestic abuse; violence and social harm; the punishment of women, and; young women and girls in conflict with the law, and she has published widely in these areas. From 2015 to 2020, Michele was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Criminology and Criminal Justice. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). She was made a CBE)in 2019 for Services to Criminology.

Leonardmair, Norbert, BA, is a researcher and project manager at the Vienna Centre for Societal Security. His research on multi-agency cooperation within security include national and European projects on countering extremism, mental health, and forensic practices. Currently, he is working on domestic violence and trafficking of human beings. He has consulted for data analysis for the Ministry of Justice, City of Vienna and GIZ projects. 2011-15 Research Assistant at Institute for Sociology of Law and Criminology. 2011-12 Scholarship at Institute for Advanced Studies. 2010 Project Assistant at Democracy Centre. 2008-11 Project Assistant at the Institute of European Culture Industry-Studies.

Herbinger, Paul, MA, Sociology, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena (2017); is a researcher at the Vienna Centre for Societal Security, focusing on social theory, critical criminology and police studies. His recent research has focused on institutional interventions into cases of domestic abuse, as well as the limits of the democratic repertoire of action in the context of policing the pandemic. He has taught at the University for Applied Sciences in St.Pölten.