Criminal Justice
Standing Together’s criminal justice team coordinate, evaluate and champion Specialist Domestic Abuse Courts.
Since as early as 1998, STADA have worked on establishing effective referral pathways for victims of domestic abuse through the CJS. Specialist Domestic Abuse Courts (SDACs) form part of this collaborative approach to tackling the complexities of domestic abuse. The SDAC model refers to more than just a court building or jurisdiction: our approach situates the court and the criminal justice system (CJS) as part of a Coordinated Community Response (CCR) to domestic abuse, engaging the whole system.
We welcome the government commitment in the VAWG strategy to expanding the use of Domestic Abuse Specialist Courts to improve support for victims and survivors and strengthen rehabilitative management of perpetrators. We provide support to those looking to set up a Domestic Abuse Specialist Courts; coordinate two Domestic Abuse Specialist Courts and all the relevant support agencies at Westminster Magistrate’s Court; and produce resource packs and data reports to demonstrate the value of this approach for victims and survivors. Drawing on our decades of experience in this field, alongside our unique national research mapping SDACs, we have set out the following recommendations for Government.
To ensure SDACs achieve their aim of strengthening the criminal justice response to domestic abuse, any expansion must include the following measures:
- Inclusion of the SDAC model into the statutory guidance for the Victims & Prisoners Bill.
- Consistent clustering of domestic abuse cases in courts.
- Audit of SDACs and benchmark of DA Best Practice Framework implementation plans against the six essential SDAC elements (identified by STADA).
- Funding for and implementation of coordination.
- National accreditation framework for SDACs across England & Wales.
- Long-term and secure funding for dedicated Criminal Justice IDVAs.
As well as coordinating SDACs, STADA’s criminal justice team have led practice in relation to police training, establishing referral pathways to support for Independent Domestic Violence Advisors (IDVAs) and early multi-agency case conferencing in relation to criminal justice cases which developed into the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC).
“I am confident that the Specialist Domestic Abuse Court at Hammersmith Magistrates Court saved much human misery and doubtless saved some lives too.”
– District Judge
What We Do
Standing Together was instrumental in the development of the SDAC model, and developed one of the UK’s first SDACs at Hammersmith Magistrate’s Court in 2002. In 2012, Standing Together established another SDAC at Westminster Magistrates Court. Both SDACs continue to operate at Westminster Magistrates Court, coordinated by Standing Together in partnership with local criminal justice and voluntary services.
Standing Together is part of the Impact Project, a multi-agency partnership in Hammersmith, London bringing dedicated, specialist professionals together to share information and take action. Between 2021 and 2023 we also ran the Mentor Court Project, a DCMS Tampon-Tax funded project working to reinvigorate the SDAC model nationally, in turn improving outcomes for victims and survivors.
For more information about the operational work we do to coordinate the courts, please see our briefings.
“Partnership working is the key to the model, which unites disparate actors under a structure of governance and multi-agency protocols, to provide a coordinated and consistent approach. This strengthens the ability of busy and strained services to work together and keep the experience of the survivor at the centre of the process.”
– Centre of Justice Innovation
Resources:
Contact Standing Together's Criminal Justice Team
Email at: criminal.justice@standingtogether.org.uk
