VISION was pleased to support the Lambeth Peer Action Collective (LPAC) with funding and mentoring in their recent project, Built on Trust: The role of youth spaces and trusted adults in reducing young people’s exposure to violence. Working at the community level and with young adults was inspiring – and the impact was powerful particularly for Dr Elizabeth (Lizzie) Cook, Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa and Dr Alexandria (Andri) Innes, the mentors. Many congratulations to High Trees, LPAC and their partners for the hard work and brilliant report. Please read the blog below, written by the young adults who conducted the research and wrote and delivered their report which can also be found below. They are an amazing group!
“How are young people supposed to stay safe when we have nowhere safe to go?”
by Anisa Hassan on behalf of the Lambeth Peer Action Collective
This round of research explored what can be done to reduce young people’s risk of experiencing violence. With the support of High Trees, VISION, Partisan and other LPAC partners, we worked on this project for nearly 18 months, conducting and analysing 46 peer interviews. We found that with access to trusted adults and trusted spaces young people were less likely to be exposed to different types of violence.
This produced four key findings:
The violence affecting young people takes many forms and is often complex in nature.
Youth organisations provide unique spaces where young people can feel safe and build belonging.
When youth practitioners can build trust with young people, they are able to provide them with practical and emotional support to navigate violence.
Youth organisations offer young people alternative pathways and visions for their future.
An afternoon of conversation and community
The launch event was a chance for the LPAC team to connect and show stakeholders and community members our research, get feedback and start to think about how we can work together to make change. Attendees described the event as “hopeful”, “inspiring”, and “empowering”, with many of them pledging support. The team left the event with hope for the next phase of the project – social action that builds long-lasting change for young people in our communities.
What’s next?
“No research without action”
Since the research launch in October, the LPAC team have been busy, taking action in response to our findings.
We were invited to the Lambeth Safeguarding Children Partnership’s Annual Conference to present our research findings to organisations at the forefront of protecting young people. This event gave us an opportunity to highlight key insights from our research and how they can shape safeguarding practices and policies.
We have also been designing our own trusted adult training workshop, which takes inspiration from interviews with young people focusing on characteristics and practical advice that youth practitioners can use to build and maintain trust. We are planning to trial the training with local youth workers early next year.
LPAC team members have also attended workshops hosted by the Met Police and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), where we had the opportunity to ask questions and make suggestions about their MPS Children’s Strategy based on young pe ople’s experiences that they told us about through our research.
LPAC at High Trees were thrilled to win the Power of Community award at the Locality Awards 2025 in Liverpool. The award celebrates community organisations working with local people to shape their own future and to build a fairer society where everyone in the community thrives.
We are also proud to announce that in the new year LPAC will be starting a new round of research, funded by the Youth Endowment Fund, focusing on mental health support for young people affected by violence, and we are excited to continue our collaboration with VISION on this project.
In the blog, Olumide discusses her drive to have a meaningful impact in the fight against gender-based violence. Her enthusiasm, advocacy and growing expertise for systems theory and complex systems approaches combined with ongoing work across different systems and with various collaborators led to the project and was an invaluable experience.
By Dr Nadia Aghtaie, Associate Professor in Criminology, University of Bristol
Sextortion is one of the fastest-growing – and least understood – forms of abuse facing young people today. Yet it is still rarely discussed in schools, families or policy debates.
We use sextortion to describe situations where someone threatens to share explicit, intimate or embarrassing sexual images without consent in order to force a person to do something – often to send more images, carry out sexual acts, hand over money, or provide other favours (see Ray & Henry 2024; Wolak et al. 2017).
There is still no consistent terminology. Different organisations talk about “image-based sexual abuse”, “online blackmail”, “sexual extortion”, or “sexual corruption”. This lack of shared language makes it harder for young people, parents, teachers and professionals to recognise what is happening and to know where to turn for help.
Why a sextortion animation for young people?
Sextortion doesn’t affect all young people in the same way. Research by NSPCC points to gendered patterns in both who is targeted and what is demanded: boys are often targeted by organised cybercrime gangs demanding money, while girls are more likely to face pressure from people they know – peers, partners or ex-partners – to share more nudes or agree to unwanted sexual acts. Whatever the context, sextortion can be devastating, combining sexual abuse, psychological control, financial exploitation and, for many, intense shame and fear.
These are also experiences that are very hard to talk about. Shame, fear of being blamed, worries about family reactions or community honour, and concerns around immigration status can all create silence. Animation gives us a different way in: it lets us tell a story that feels recognisable without identifying any individual, show clearly that victims are not to blame, signpost routes to support, and open up honest but non-graphic conversations in classrooms, youth groups and families. By launching this animation during the 16 Days of Activism, we place sextortion firmly within global efforts to end violence against women and girls, while recognising that boys and gender-diverse young people are affected too.
Although the early work centred on Iranian contexts and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, our previous studies, together with conversations across NGO networks and a school in the UK, quickly showed that these issues are relevant beyond national borders.
Collaboration, creativity and cultural sensitivity
An Iran-based NGO working with women from diverse backgrounds and running specialist programmes for survivors of gender-based violence. We do not name the organisation here for security reasons, as this could limit how widely the animations can be shared.
IKWRO, a London-based charity supporting women and girls from Middle Eastern and North African communities who are facing “honour”-based abuse, forced marriage and other forms of VAWG.
“Resilient Anonymous Creators”: An animation team based in Iran. For security reasons, we cannot name them publicly. The name “resilient anonymous creators” is a reflection of both their creativity and the structural barriers they are forced to navigate. We are deeply grateful for their courage, commitment and artistry; this work is only possible because of them.
Ultimately, our goal is simple: to give young people, and the adults who support them, a starting point – a shared language, a shared story and a shared commitment to challenging sextortion and other forms of digital-based abuse wherever they occur.
The event brought together around a hundred survivor advocates, academics, frontline practitioners, and policymakers to critically examine urgent responses to HBA in today’s rapidly evolving world.
The conference featured three panels examining the flagship “Crime, Not Culture” campaign, the growing role of technology and media in shaping harm, and the resilience and leadership of survivors and community advocates. Throughout the day, speakers and attendees returned to a central question: How do we ensure HBA is recognised and treated as a serious crime rather than dismissed or misunderstood as ‘culture’?
Narratives, Evidence, and the Power of Speaking Out
The day opened with powerful survivor testimonies – deeply personal accounts of control, coercion and systemic failures. These stories underscored the need for meaningful training across policing, healthcare and the family courts. As one panel chair reflected, “It’s not that the government lacks the budget. It’s about priorities. Women from ethnic minorities are not a priority.” The consequences of this neglect, she noted, echo across public services, placing a substantial and avoidable burden on institutions such as the NHS and the police.
Scholars challenged common assumptions about “culture” and emphasised the importance of evidence-informed policy. Their discussions invited the audience to interrogate the ways colonial narratives have shaped understandings of honour, family, and gender norms.
Technology, Media, and Emerging Threats
The second panel explored the fast-changing digital landscape. Speakers examined how technology-facilitated abuse, sextortion, online misogyny, and surveillance increasingly interact with HBA. The panel highlighted that marginalised women and girls often face compounded risks: gendered, racialised, and technologically amplified.
Two short animations produced by the Women’s Research Hub team in collaboration with VISION, on HBA and sextortion were screened during the session. These visual narratives helped ground the discussion in the lived realities of young people navigating online harms – showing not just the risks, but also how digital tools can be used to educate, empower, and support.
One speaker captured the spirit of the day: “It seems it wasn’t enough to be oppressed by patriarchal systems; now we also face the same inequalities reflected back at us through AI and social media.”
Collective Action and Pathways to Change
The final panel focused on resilience and community action. Speakers discussed the importance of survivor leadership, culturally informed practice, and training that centres real voices rather than “death by PowerPoint.” Their reflections highlighted that effective change relies on collaboration between organisations, communities, and those with lived experience.
The conference closed with remarks from Jess Phillips MP, who reinforced the urgent need to strengthen protections and ensure survivors are heard and believed. Her contribution was a fitting conclusion to a day centred on solidarity, listening, and the collective responsibility to challenge harmful practices and support those affected.
One of the quilts created by survivors of ‘honour’-based abuse and IKWRO
A Day of Reflection and Resolve
The event showcased what happens when survivors, activists, academics, and practitioners come together with a shared purpose. Across panels, one message was clear: understanding and preventing ‘Honour‘-Based Abuse requires research, policy attention, resources, and above all, a commitment to centring the voices of those most affected.
VISION was proud to support this important gathering for a second time sparking further conversations about how evidence and collaboration can drive meaningful, long-lasting change.
Key to the event was the organisation and support of VISION’s Knowledge Exchange Manager, Kimberly Cullen and the IKWRO conference organising committee.
By Ladan Hashemi, Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Health and Health Policy at City St George’s University of London
A new animation created by the Women’s Research Hubin collaboration with VISION aims to shed light on ‘Honour’-Based Abuse (HBA), a pervasive form of violence targeting women and girls. Informed by research and survey data on violence against women in Iran, this is the fifth animation in the Hub’s series on gender-based violence (GBV).The survey underpinning this work was designed by Fatima Babakhani, CEO of the safe house Mehre Shams Afarid in Iran.
HBA is widespread both in Iran and globally. Studies indicate that thousands of women and girls in Iran experience coercion, forced marriage, and other forms of abuse in the name of “honour.” Globally, HBA affects communities across the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa, and diaspora populations worldwide, often remaining hidden due to social stigma and cultural justifications. While reliable statistics are difficult to obtain because of underreporting, research shows that the consequences are severe: psychological trauma, physical violence, and, in extreme cases, death. The Centre for Human Rights in Iran reported that in 2024 at least 179 women in Iran were killed — roughly a woman every two days — a significant proportion of them as a result of so-called ‘honour’ killings.
The animation presents real-life narratives, capturing the lived experiences of women subjected to HBA. Through carefully constructed scenes, it depicts situations such as family-imposed restrictions on women’s clothing and mobility, threats, humiliation, forced and child marriage, and the devastating consequences of upholding “honour” through coercion, including physical violence and ‘honour’-based killings.
Some of the impactful transcripts featured in the animation include:
Forced marriage: “They said there had been too many rumours about her, so her family forced her to marry.”
‘Honour’– Based Killing:“His brothers came, one by one, saying: ‘You’ve protected your honour. You’ve spared us all the shame.”
The animation brings these testimonies to life with a sensitive and empathetic approach, allowing viewers to understand the psychological and social dynamics of HBA, as well as its human impact. It emphasises that ‘honour’ is never a justification for violence:“No one is another person’s ‘honour’.‘Honour’ is lost when we turn to violence — not when a woman chooses to live her life on her own terms.”
The campaign also provides clear guidance for bystanders and communities on how to respond:
Avoid judging others’ private lives — everyone has the right to make choices about their body, relationships, and lifestyle.
Support victims of HBA without blame, and do not leave them isolated.
Be mindful of language: words like “honour,” “shame,” and “purity” can reinforce harmful norms.
Do not share private information or images that could endanger someone.
Speak up if you believe someone is at risk and contact trusted organisations.
The animation was produced in collaboration with animators in Iran, experts supporting women affected by HBA in Iran, Fatima Babakhani, and the UK-based NGO IKWRO, which supports victims of HBA in the UK.
The animation will be officially launched on the Women’s Research Hub Instagram page during the 16 Days of Activism Against GBV, providing an important opportunity to reach a global audience and raise awareness of HBA. Ladan and colleagues will also be discussing the campaign at a free lunchtime webinar on Monday, 8 December. For further information and to register for the Teams link, please see Webinar: Using animation to campaign against VAWG.
Previous animations in the series have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, narrated in multiple languages as well as subtitled, and it has been used in classrooms and at other events. We encourage its widespread use to improve awareness, and one animation in the series provides bystanders with potential strategies for safe intervention.
By combining rigorous research, authentic survivor narratives, and creative storytelling, this animation series offers a powerful tool for raising awareness and driving action against GBV. It is a vital reminder that combating GBV requires both evidence-informed strategies and a commitment to amplifying the voices of those most affected.
When we began recording thePartitioning for Peacepodcastwe imagined the series as a companion to our Partitioning for Peace conference that took place in November 2024 —a way to bring the discussion on Cyprus’s division beyond the confines of academic panels. What unfolded was far richer: an ongoing education in how history, memory, and everyday life intertwine across the island’s enduring line.
We brought together researchers from across Europe who were working on Cyprus from a host of different disciplines: history, politics, anthropology, sociology, peace and conflict studies. We included, notably, Cypriot researchers who shared perspectives and reflections from their own personal experiential investment in the project spanning the partition historically and geographically. Each conversation reminded us that partition is not a single event but a condition that organizes time, space, and identity. In the first episode, our guests traced how the roots of 1974 stretch deep into the early twentieth century, while also showing how the memory of that moment differs across generations. Later we learned to listen to the material world—wardrobes, washing machines, and water pipes—as archives of emotion and governance. What seemed like a story of political geography gradually revealed itself as one about people’s improvisations under constraint.
We also discovered the significance of the diaspora as a space of experimentation. From London to Melbourne, Cypriots have long practised forms of coexistence that elude formal politics at home. The podcasts confirmed that peace can be rehearsed in exile: in parish halls, cafés, and shared neighbourhoods where the absence of a physical border allows new relationships to form.
Reflections on violence and the various and complex ways the violence of partition in Cyprus is perceived – in memory, across generations, and in the apparent absence of physical violence during the protracted stalemate of partition – were central to the themes of the podcast. Intergenerational trauma, but also the different ways this trauma might be narrativized and processed, was brought to the fore.
Recording the series during the fiftieth anniversary of partition added urgency to our reflections. Our guests spoke candidly about fatigue—the risk that the “comfortable conflict,” as one called it, becomes a way of life. Yet we also encountered hope in younger voices who approach Cyprus’s future not through nostalgia but through pragmatic curiosity. Their vision is less about erasing the line than about re-centering it: turning the border itself into a site of dialogue.
If the podcast offered us anything, it was the conviction that research, storytelling, and listening are political acts. The conversations we recorded were only a beginning; the work of unlearning and re-imagining continues.
Episode 1 of Partitioning for Peace is now available at The Lausanne Project, Partitioning for Peace, and features guests Professor AndrekosVarnavas and Beyza Kiziltepe.
Danielle Sharp is the founder and Chief Executive of the Centre for Safer Society, an organisation dedicated to supporting services in designing evidence-based responses to reduce violence, abuse, and harm. Through the Centre, Danielle conducts service evaluations, develops impact-driven strategies for organisations working to end violence and abuse, and serves as an Independent Chair for statutory Domestic Abuse-Related Death reviews – work that brings her face-to-face with the families of those who have been killed or died by suicide.
For most of her career, Danielle has worked in the domestic abuse and violence against women and girls (VAWG) sector. She began in frontline roles supporting young people and families before moving into strategic positions developing and commissioning evidence-based local responses to domestic abuse. Her work then expanded to national level at SafeLives, where as Head of the Knowledge Hub she led projects such as the Home Office One Front Door pilot, and Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC) national oversight.
It is through her work as an Independent Chair for Domestic Abuse-Related Death reviews that Danielle identified the practice challenge that will form the focus of her Practitioner in Residence (PiR) research at the Violence and Society Centre (VASC). In several reviews, a recurring issue has emerged: cases where practitioners identify ‘bi-directional violence’ or ‘dual-allegations’ between individuals. This creates significant difficulties in accurately assessing risk, determining whether there is a primary victim and primary perpetrator, and making informed safeguarding decisions.
With the support of VISION Co-Investigator and Senior Lecturer Dr Elizabeth (Lizzie) Cook, Danielle’s focus in the PiR programme will be to bridge the gap between research and practice by developing practical resources for professionals. These tools will equip practitioners with greater clarity and confidence when navigating cases involving dual-reports, ultimately improving risk assessment and decision-making.
Aisling Barker, Violence Against Women and Girls Workforce Development manager at Islington Council, and qualified social worker, is the latest practitioner to join the City St George’s University of London (CSGUL) Practitioner in Residence programme. She became aware of the programme through her work on teenage relationship abuse with co-Deputy Director of the Violence and Society Centre (VASC) at CSGUL and VISION consortium Senior Research Fellow Dr Ruth Weir.
Aisling and her team in Islington have been supporting professionals in their practice with adolescents for five years. They identified concerning trends in violence and abuse in relationships where the victim was as young as 13 years of age but the person causing harm was also as young as 14 or 15 years old. An alarming lack of support available for these young people was apparent – particularly those who were causing harm to their partners at that young age.
Aisling presented the work of her team at the first conference on Adolescent Domestic Abuse hosted by VISION in April 2024. Driven by curiosity the team began to analyse cases to understand where there were system strengths and gaps. They found knowledge and practice gaps in services responding to young people where there was harm in their relationships. They also found that young people often had good relationships with practitioners such as youth workers, gang workers and youth justice case workers. Identifying an opportunity for practice improvement, Aisling and her team developed a training and support package for services working with young people affected by criminality and offending behaviour. Aisling also presented the findings from their case analysis and a case study at the second National Working Group on Teenage Relationship Abuse roundtable in November 2024 also hosted by VISION.
With the support of Ruth and the VASC and VISION teams, Aisling’s focus as a Practitioner in Residence will be documenting and examining the impact of this training and support package as an innovative approach to the prevention and early intervention on violence against women and girls.
Blog by Dr Polina Obolenskaya, Merili Pullerits and Dr Niels Blom
The UK government is expected to publish its new Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy later this year. The strategy is part of a broader ambitious commitment to halve VAWG within a decade. A new combined measure of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and stalking, developed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), has been proposed to serve as the main benchmark for evaluating progress toward this commitment.
Here we outline three main concerns the VISION consortium has with the proposed approach.
Lack of historical continuity
To assess the effectiveness of the VAWG strategy, historical continuity is crucial. Rates of domestic abuse in England and Wales have declined in recent years (Figure 1). Therefore, any assessment of a decline or rise in VAWG needs to be placed in the context of broader declining violence rates. Without this historical continuity, the government cannot distinguish between improvements driven by their strategy and those resulting from long-term social changes that were already underway.
Figure 1 Prevalence of domestic abuse in the last year among people aged 16 to 59 in England and Wales, 2004/05 to 2023/24
However, the new combined measure disrupts this continuity. This is due to changes to the question wording and structure of its composite measures. The new combined measure of VAWG consists of self-completion data from a newly developed Domestic Abuse module (piloted in 2022/23 and 2024/25, and fully implemented from 2025/26), as well as a combination of the old and new Sexual Victimisation module (piloted in 2025/26 and planned for full implementation from 2026/27).
The new Domestic Abuse module had undergone a complete redevelopment, with extensive negative repercussions for historical continuity, which we have outlined previously. While the sexual victimisation module is not being re-developed as considerably, the comparability of the new data to the previously collected data can only be assessed once the first round of results is available. This means a new stable and comparable measure will not be available in its final form until the 2026/27 data collection, despite the government’s strategy period beginning in 2025/26.
Without historical continuity, it will not be possible to produce long-term trends over time in the composite measure of VAWG for England and Wales for some years to come. Given the decline of some forms of violence in recent decades, it is important to examine whether any decline in VAWG is due to genuine policy success, or due to a continuation of pre-existing trends.
Incomplete scope of violence
While the government has indicated that it intends to supplement the new combined measure of domestic abuse, sexual victimisation and stalking with additional metrics, it is currently unclear what these supplementary measures will include or how they will be weighed against the main benchmark. In any case, the narrow scope of the new combined measure has been raised as a concern both among academics and others working in the sector.
Some of the limitations of the measure are due to the unavailability of certain measures in data it is based on – the Crime Survey for England and Wales. The End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW) has highlighted that the new measure fails to reflect the full spectrum of violence experienced by women and girls, omitting online abuse, child abuse, ‘honour’-based abuse and sexual harassment (EVAW blog) as well as Female Genital Mutilation (EVAW briefing). These exclusions, as EVAW argues, risk distorting the true scale and impact of VAWG. Additionally, given alarming rates of teenage relationship abuse (e.g. Barter et al., 2009; Fox et al., 2013), we consider its exclusion to be a serious oversight in measuring VAWG – including girls – effectively. Since the combined measure excludes experiences of girls under the age of 16, its use as a main tool to measure government’s ambition to half ‘Violence against women and girls‘ may be misleading.
While the gaps outlined above stem from the limitations of the Crime Survey for England and Wales, we also have concerns about the scope of the measure which could be addressed with the data already available.
Firstly, the new combined measure excludes other offences which count within the CSEW as ‘violent crime’ or violence against a person. While men are more likely to be victims of such offences, disregarding women’s experiences of these risks undercounting their overall risks and impacts of violence (Cooper & Obolenskaya, 2021; Davies et al., 2025). For example, while a substantial amount of VAWG is covered by domestic abuse, sexual violence, and stalking, women also experience violence in other aspects of life, such as at work or in public spaces. Accounting for the above offences significantly increases the proportion of people experiencing violence and more accurately reflects the extent of violence experienced by women and girls.
Secondly, the new combined measure omits broader violence-related offences, for which data are available in the CSEW. This includes threats of violence and other criminal offences which are coded as ‘non-violent’ by the ONS (due to a methodological process involving priority ordering of offences), even though they involve the threat or use of force or violence (Davies et al., 2025; Pullerits & Phoenix, 2024). These offences should be included in any overall measure of VAWG regardless of who is most affected. However, their omission is especially problematic given that they disproportionately affect women (Davies et al., 2025; Pullerits & Phoenix, 2024), meaning the headline measure is likely to underestimate women’s experiences even further.
Although the government has suggested that other metrics are planned to be used, separately, to assess progress towards halving VAWG, having a narrow main measure risks reinforcing outdated gender norms where women are considered to be more affected by what happens at home rather than outside of it. Such a perspective fails to capture emerging forms of abuse and fails to reflect the full spectrum of women’s lived experiences with violence.
Collected new Domestic Abuse data had not undergone statistical validity and reliability checks and had not been subjected to wider scrutiny (as raised by VISION previously) before the decision to replace the old module with it was finalised.
Changes to the Domestic Abuse and Sexual Victimisation modules appear to have been made independently from each other, with limited coordination across the survey modules. Given the similarity in the phrasing of a few questions across the modules, this lack of foresight and integration appears to have resulted in overlapping content that could lead to confusion both for respondents and for those interpreting the data.
The development process has lacked transparency and consultation with external stakeholders, as raised by EVAW.
Recommendations for improvement
The ONS’s new combined measure of VAWG risks oversimplifying the complex realities of violence against women and girls. Even with supplementary metrics, relying on such a narrow primary benchmark – which lacks historical continuity and is limited in scope – will not adequately support evidence-based policy development or serve the needs of those most affected by violence and abuse.
To ensure more meaningful monitoring, we have three key recommendations to the ONS:
Prioritise historical continuity in Domestic Abuse data collection: We urge the ONS to revert to a Domestic Abuse module that aligns more closely with the previous version to ensure data continuity. While we welcome the inclusion of new questions on coercive control and family-related violence, we strongly believe these additions could be integrated into the long-standing existing framework without disrupting the historical comparability of the data. If a full reversion is not feasible, we recommend that theONS takes steps to ensure meaningful assessment of change and continuity using the new measure. These steps should involve: publishing clear comparability assessments between old and new measures; providing bridging data where methodologically possible; and maintaining transparency about limitations.
Broaden the scope of the ‘combined’ measure and make it explicit that it does not fully reflect the experience of girls: the definition of violence against women and girls should be expanded by using existing CSEW data to include “violence against the person” offences, as well as, possibly, other incidents where violence or threat of violence took place but that are not coded as “violent crime” by ONS. The CSEW currently provides insufficient coverage of technology-facilitated and online abuse, which should be a development priority going forward, given the increasing prevalence of these forms of violence both within domestic contexts but also outside of them. Additionally, since the combined measure does not capture violence experienced by girls under the age of 16, the government needs to make it clear that the headline measure, should it be used in the strategy, reflects only experiences of (young) women, not girls.
Enhance transparency and accountability in survey development: we call on the ONS to address technical and transparency concerns regarding their measures and commit to greater openness in their approach. Any new module should be subject to timely, transparent analysis and external scrutiny of it before it becomes a permanent change in the survey.
If the government is genuinely committed to halving violence against women and girls within a decade, it must first ensure its measurement approach is comprehensive, meaningful and methodologically sound. Relying overwhelmingly on a narrow headline measure risks presenting an incomplete picture of the problem of VAWG, and risks undermining both accountability and progress.
Cooper, K. & Obolenskaya, P. (2021). Hidden Victims: The Gendered Data Gap of Violent Crime, TheBritish Journal of Criminology, 61(4): 905–925. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azaa100
Davies, E., Obolenskaya, P., Francis, B., Blom, B., Phoenix, J., Pullerits, M. & Walby, S. (2025). Definition and Measurement of Violence in the Crime Survey for England and Wales: Implications for the Amount and Gendering of Violence, The British Journal of Criminology, 65(2): 261–281. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azae050
Fox, C. L., Corr, M. L., Gadd, D., & Butler, I. (2013). Young teenagers’ experiences of domestic abuse, Journal of Youth Studies, 17(4), 510–526. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2013.780125
Pullerits, M. & Phoenix, J. (2024). How Priority Ordering of Offence Codes Undercounts Gendered Violence: An Analysis of the Crime Survey for England and Wales, The British Journal of Criminology, 64(2): 381–399. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azad047
How can researchers meaningfully and ethically involve people with lived experience of the criminal justice system in data analysis?
This is the question myself, a group of VISION colleagues (Lizzie Cook, Polina Obolenskaya, Sian Oram, Les Humphreys and Sally McManus), Dani Darley (University of Sheffield) and a group of Revolving Doors’ (Home – Revolving Doors) lived experience members, explored via a face-to-face workshop in May and online feedback session in July, funded by City’s Participatory Research Fund.
These broad principles on doing participatory research are useful and have guided my approach to multiple recent projects. But something I noticed is that there is generally less guidance on involving people from marginalised groups, particularly those with lived experience of the criminal justice system, in the data analysis stage of research projects specifically. Despite the analysis being at the heart of the research process. Essentially, activating the “co” in co-analysis is still somewhat of a mystery. And whilst a definitive “how-to” guide to collaborative data analysis alongside stakeholders would be at odds with the flexibility and relational grounding that are the beauty of co-analysis, a little guidance could make the process smoother and more enjoyable for everybody involved. Without this, quite a lot of angst can be caused repeatedly asking yourselves: Are we trying to do too much? Are we doing enough? How much can we afford to do? How much do people actually want to be involved? How can we make this happen?
Ironically, a fair bit of time in our workshop to co-produce some best practice principles for doing co-analysis was spent going round in circles tackling questions around how to do it. Ultimately, the best approach to co-analysis depends on various factors, including the type of data being analysed, people’s individual experiences and preferences and access to resources etc. Nevertheless, addressing these questions openly and collaboratively, welcoming and respecting everybody’s perspective and actively thinking about all the factors that need to be considered, made for an enlightening and productive discussion. From which themes have been identified and are currently being transformed into principles (watch this space).
A few spoilers:
Lots of ‘p’ words are involved, including planning, preferences, perfection, practicality and power
Transparency and avoiding tokenism are two of the most important principles for our participants in determining whether they found co-analysis enjoyable or not
Ethical standards and institutional processes need reframing if they are to authentically support participatory projects involving co-analysis
Co-analysis is messy, heavy and can’t just be squeezed in as an extra; the emotional labour that goes into both managing and participating in co-analysis must be valued
Co-analysis can also be fun. People with lived experience want to have fun with it, and it’s nice for them when academics can even have a bit of fun as well
