Drive
Drive believes domestic abuse is not acceptable or inevitable. Drive works with high-harm, high-risk and serial perpetrators of domestic abuse to prevent their abusive behaviour and protect victims.
High-risk, high-harm perpetrators are those who have been assessed as posing a risk of serious harm or murder to people they are in intimate or family relationships with.
Drive challenges and supports perpetrators to change and works with partner agencies – like the police and social services – to disrupt abuse.
Drive advocates for changes to national systems so that perpetrators posing all levels of risk can no longer get away with abusive behaviour and can access the help they need to stop.
We aim to make adult and child victims and survivors safer.
*This applies whatever the gender of the victim or perpetrator and whatever the nature of their relationship. We recognise that there are male victims and female perpetrators and this use of personal pronouns reflects the data rather than every situation.
81% of survivors said they thought perpetrator programmes are a good idea. Only 2.5% of survivors told us their abusive partner went on a perpetrator programme – SafeLives Every Story Matters
Call to action for a perpetrator strategy
As the Domestic Abuse Bill makes its way through Parliament, Drive is calling on the Government for a national perpetrator strategy: a strategic and targeted way of addressing perpetrators of abuse.
In January 2020, 70+ organisations and individuals got together to tell the Government that we need to change the way we respond to domestic abuse. As of January 2021 there are now over 125 signatories calling for a strategic response.
We urgently need comprehensive services for all victims and survivors, alongside responses for all perpetrators. Investments are needed for both victim and perpetrator work – it should never be either/or. We need interventions that respond to all risk levels.
Signatories calling for a perpetrator strategy include survivors, police, PCCs, domestic abuse frontline services, academics, and more. The list continues to grow.
Five key elements of a perpetrator strategy
Multi-Agency Working
Criminal justice system and other public and voluntary services trained and working effectively together to hold perpetrators to account.
Availability & Awareness
Proven interventions for all perpetrators available everywhere; and education to prevent and raise awareness of abusive behaviours.
Quality-Assured Interventions
Regulation to ensure all programmes are high-quality and safe; and ongoing research to evaluate what we are doing.
Investment
A perpetrator strategy requires funding, but done well, it will save money in policing, justice and health costs.
Leadership
Including an explicit role for the Domestic Abuse Commissioner to oversee responses to perpetrators.
News
“Despite what I’ve been through, I don’t wish [the perpetrator] harm. I would like for them to get help and for something to be put in place to protect other women.”
Victim/Survivor
SafeLives: Every Story Matters
“Without this work, we know that domestic abuse perpetrators will continue to enter new relationships, create more victims, and expose more children to harmful abusive behaviours. It’s about ending abuse for the victims of today – but also the victims of tomorrow.”
Drive Case Manager