Serious violence reduction

Understanding the serious violence duty.

Following the implementation of the Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Act 2022, every area has a statutory duty to reduce serious violence. This duty places the responsibility of reducing serious violence on local authorities, working in partnership within the statutory, voluntary and community sector. The aim being for the partnership to embed serious violence reduction into their existing work, so that it becomes business as usual.

West Berkshire continues to be an area with low levels of serious violence.

West Berkshire's Serious Violence Steering Group meets quarterly, and includes representatives from both statutory, voluntary and community sector partners, with support from the Thames Valley Violence Reduction Unit. They have worked together to develop the West Berkshire Partnership Reducing Serious Violence Strategy and delivery plan. The strategy sets out West Berkshire's partnership approach to tackling serious violence in 2024, will be reviewed and refreshed annually and takes into consideration the following sources of information:

West Berkshire building communities together needs assessment
West Berkshire serious violence needs analysis
Thames Valley Violence Reduction Unit's strategic needs assessment
Home Office duty guidance

What is serious violence?

Thames Valley Violence Reduction Unit define serious violence as:

"Serious violence includes specific types of recorded crime, such as homicide, grievous bodily harm, incidents that involve a knife, and areas of criminality where serious violence or its threat is inherent, such as in county lines drug dealing."

This is inclusive of all ages, location types (public / private) and domestic incidents, but excludes simple possession of a knife.

A sub-definition may also be used locally to enable us to focus on crimes which contribute to the threat, likelihood and understanding of the above offences. Analysis of these may result in future inclusion into the primary definition above. These are for local partnership monitoring, sharing and review. These crimes can increase as a result of improved awareness, reporting, recording, trust and other external factors and include:

all actual bodily harm (thus excluding 'other' violence with injury)
all drug supply / trafficking (thus excluding possession alone)
all sexual assault
all rape offences

This is not a legal definition.

West Berkshire Partnership Serious Violence Reduction Strategy

West Berkshire Building Communities Together Partnership have a vision where residents, businesses, and visitors in West Berkshire can live, work and enjoy leisure time free from serious violence.

The West Berkshire Partnership Serious Violence Reduction Strategy will detail the targets and aims to implement these in West Berkshire to reduce serious violence and encourages effective action to support those experiencing or affected by such violence.

Help and support if you are a victim of serious violence

How to call the police when you can't speak

If you are in danger and unable to talk on the phone, call 999 and listen to the questions from the operator and, if you can, respond by coughing or tapping on the handset.

Press 55 to make yourself heard if you are unable to speak on the phone and this will transfer your call to the police.

Pressing 55 only works on mobiles and does not allow police to track your location.

If you are deaf or can't use a phone

You can register with the emergencySMS. Text REGISTER to 999. You will get a text which tells you what to do next. Do this when it is safe so you can text when you are in danger.

Additional support relating to serious violence:

Ask for Angela - a scheme available in West Berkshire pubs and bars that supports people in asking for help to get out of an uncomfortable or unsafe situation when out socially
support from various drug and alcohol services
additional support in relation to cyber bullying
National domestic abuse helpline - telephone helpline is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: 0808 200 0247
Men's Advice Line - telephone helpline is available Monday to Friday from 9am, closing times vary: 0808 801 0327 - webchat is available on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday between 10am to 11am and 3pm to 4pm via their website
Flag DV - offers free legal advice for victims of domestic abuse - you can complete an online referral form on the Flag DV website
Karma Nirvana - supports victims of forced marriage and 'honour'-based abuse - telephone helpline is available from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm: 0800 5999 247 - if safe to do so, you can also email info@karmanirvana.org.uk