Introduction to the CWJ 10-step Manifesto

2026 update: First published in 2021, this manifesto remains urgently relevant today. Since then, further cases, reviews, inquiries and public scrutiny have reinforced the need for fundamental change in the criminal justice response to male violence against women and girls.

Male Violence Against Women And Girls: What Needs To Change In The Criminal Justice System?

In the wake of the Sarah Everard murder, the protests by women about safety on the streets and the subsequent revelations about the police officer murderer, Wayne Couzens, the government and police announced a range of kneejerk measures which failed to address the problem of the collective belief that women are not safe from male violence. In part this was because they failed to understand the depth and breadth of the problem. In some cases, it wasbecause they did not even understand the problem, for example when Dominic Raab, then Justice Secretary, astonishingly stated “misogyny is absolutely wrong, whether it’s a man against a woman or a woman against a man.”

At the time, the government proposed better street lighting and undercover cops policing night clubs. Later, it was more bobbies on the beat patrolling danger spots and advice to women to flag down a bus or passer-by if they feared a police officer’s motives. This was followed by an initiative in which women could speak to the control room to establish if a lone plainclothes officer really is an officer. The then Home Secretary, Priti Patel, also said the government would consider a new app that could track a women’s movements to ensure she reached her destination. These proposed “solutions” were not solutions at all. They failed to recognise that Wayne Couzens was a police officer, just as other perpetrators may be; they failed to see how these solutions would not assist some community groups such as minoritised and/or disabled women and ultimately they placed the onus on women to protect themselves, including with respect to the app, to give up their civil liberties just to live more safely.

“The truth is that those of us working on the ground know what the problems are and what needs to change.”

The Home Secretary’s limited inquiry, initially without statutory powers, to find out what went wrong to enable Couzens to remain in the police despite previous indications of sex offending, also did little to inspire confidence that anything would change. Furthermore, as we know from our work on police perpetrated abuse, Couzens was unfortunately, not as then Met Commissioner Cressida Dick suggested, a completely rogue “wrong ‘un”. Sadly there are far too many police perpetrators not being held to account. Subsequent reviews and scandals have only strengthened concerns about institutional misogyny, racism, poor vetting, and the failure to identify and act on warning signs within policing.

There is no doubt that we are living in a moment where there is heightened national awareness of the problem of male violence against women and the need for change. Centre for Women’s Justice, particularly given our extensive work on these issues, including on highlighting police perpetrated violence, have regularly been invited by both the media and political sources to comment and provide advice on what needs to be done.

The truth is that those of us working on the ground know what the problems are and what needs to change if women are not simply able to feel safe, but also able to live free from the fear of male violence that curtails our liberty and undermines our full participation in society. Many organisations, including our own, have been suggesting solutions for years. The State has not been listening, or where they are hearing us, they are wilfully ignoring what we are saying because the proposals are too challenging, too difficult or too expensive to implement.  

The problem, of course, is wider than criminal justice solutions alone can address and ultimately requires a war on misogyny and patriarchal culture. But as part of that revolutionary change, we at the Centre for Women’s Justice propose a manifesto for change in the criminal justice system. Although there are new laws and amendments to existing legislation that may help, one of the key problems is that existing laws and policies are not being implemented effectively or at all. Indeed that is one of the main reasons CWJ exists, namely, to hold the police and other criminal justice agencies to account when they fail to do what they are supposed to do or when they do something they most definitely are not meant to do, such as punish victims or discriminate against marginalised groups.