Refuge responds to the State of Policing Annual Assessment 2025 report

Responding to His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) State of Policing Annual Assessment of Policing in England and Wales 2025 report, Ellie Butt, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at Refuge, said: 

“Despite revealing some welcome progress towards improving policing standards, the inspectorate’s annual state of policing report yet again highlights that forces are still struggling to get the basics right when it comes to tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG). Considering the Government’s pledge to halve VAWG within the next decade, this is severely disheartening and reflects what we see every day – survivors being let down by the systems supposed to protect them. 

While the inspectorate found that overall the accuracy of crime recording has increased, domestic abuse crimes remain ‘poorly recorded in most forces’. This is an enormous disservice to the brave survivors who report abuse, exacerbated by systemic failures to properly use protective schemes such as Clare’s Law – with close to a quarter of forces surveyed failing to make statutory disclosures within the 28-day timescale. 

Alarmingly, the report concludes that many forces are struggling to ‘perform adequately’ in investigating crime and protecting vulnerable people, and in the year ending 31 March 2024, 35% of officers had fewer than 5 years’ policing experience. This reflects wider issues with policing responses including cases being assigned to officers without appropriate skills, police not acting on breaches of protective orders, inadequate responses to technology-facilitated abuse, and delays in providing essential safeguarding information.  

At Refuge we have seen the devastating impact of these failings firsthand. Survivors regularly tell us the police are not equipped to deal with tech abuse including cyberstalking, online harassment and intimate image abuse. Not only do poor police responses compound the harm a survivor experiences, they also expose survivors to continued abuse. Without reform, women’s confidence in the justice system will remain at rock bottom and survivors will continue to be re-traumatised by investigations. 

It is essential that the police receive mandatory, trauma-informed, culturally competent training on domestic abuse and other forms of VAWG, to ensure that they can respond effectively and sensitively. Tech-facilitated abuse is a growing crisis and between 2018 and 2024, Refuge’s dedicated tech abuse team received a 205% increase in referrals – but police responses to this problem are simply not keeping up.   

Sadly, the systemic failures highlighted in this report are not new, and we still have serious concerns about the misogynistic culture within policing outlined in Baroness Casey’s 2023 report. Over two years on, it’s clear that the same issues are preventing survivors from being able to access the justice they deserve and desperately need. 

If the Government is to fulfil its ambition of halving VAWG, responses to abuse must be prioritised and appropriately resourced with sustainable funding, to include prevention. To restore women’s trust in the police, the Government must introduce the promised suspension for officers accused of VAWG whilst under investigation, coupled with strengthened vetting procedures and specialist domestic abuse training for all officers without further delay.”