
British Women Killed by Men They Previously Reported to Police - laurex
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/9kmy3a/49-women-killed-stalkers-abusers-reported-police-uk
======
JeanMarcS
In France, some women who were estimate in great danger because of their
previous companion/husband have been equipped with special telephones (« Great
danger telephone ») that make the police get to your home as fast as they can.

Last month a woman activated one, the cops were there in 7 minutes, sadly too
late [0].

So even if cops have a good formation, horrible things like that happens.

And we all know it’s hard to change mentalities. It will sadly still be a long
road to prevent horror.

[0] [https://mobile.francetvinfo.fr/societe/violences-faites-
aux-...](https://mobile.francetvinfo.fr/societe/violences-faites-aux-
femmes/femme-tuee-par-son-ex-conjoint-malgre-le-telephone-grand-danger-un-cas-
tout-a-fait-unique-le-dispositif-n-a-pas-dysfonctionne_2826511.html) (in
french)

~~~
LyndsySimon
I’m in the US, and I do what I can to make sure women who feel that they are
in danger are armed and trained.

“Trained” is an important part of that - both in preventing someone from
harming them and enabling them to be confident in their ability to protect
themselves.

I mention this not to start a flamewar on HN but to underscore that this is a
very real problem that many people face and to urge people to help be part of
mitigating it.

------
lainga
_“In my case, police officers would make jokes while Smith was stalking me and
making my life a misery,” she tells Broadly. “They’d say things like, ‘Why
don’t you find yourself a nice boyfriend? '”_

So are the British police underfunded, or just unwilling, to investigate
abuse?

~~~
DanBC
A bit of both.

Note that uk crime statistics come in two forms: the crime survey (which are
statistically sound) and police recorded crime (which are seen as unreliable).
We've made some effort to get police to correctly record crime, but there's
still a number of things where police will say "this is domestic, and not a
police matter", or "this is civil, and not a police matter".

~~~
lainga
But why do they record crime incorrectly? If they were underfunded, being
honest about the amount of crime in the UK would be a good case for giving
them more money, right?

~~~
sandworm101
Define "crime". Is all reported crime to be recorded as such? Police cannot
take the word of everyone who reports, and often well-meaning people report
things that are not in fact crimes. Police do not investigate all crimes
witnessed or reported by the public. No force in the world has such resources.
But they cannot honestly record alleged crimes as actual crimes, nor can we
hold them responsible for counting all the crime that the public doesn't
report to them. So it is normal for public surveys to be different than those
from police reports.

~~~
lainga
I don't want to define anything, I was just going off what the grandparent
said about the police crime reports being less reliable than surveys.

------
djrogers
I don’t mean for this to sound callous, but 49 people over 3 years seems like
a fairly small number, and I can’t think of any realistic solution to this
that wouldn’t involve stripping someone of their rights based solely on the
fact that they were ‘reported to the police’.

~~~
DanBC
No-one is asking for people to be stripped of their rights based on a single
report to police.

They're asking for better enforcement of non-contact orders (which are granted
by judges, in court), especially in cases where the person already has a
conviction for violence.

49 is a small number, but these are all preventable deaths and they're all a
result of a system that fails to protect victims of domestic violence.

~~~
djrogers
Nothing in the article indicates any non-contact orders were issued or
violated here - I think you’re reading in to this

------
Phantasmagoria
How many British men were killed by men they previously reported to police?

