Sandra Walklate on ‘Clare’s Law; What’s in a name?’

Over the last thirty years it has become increasingly popular to name laws after a victim. This is often based on the presumption that it was the absence of such a law that contributed to their demise; if the law had been in place they would not have been victimized. Using victim’s names in this way in fraught with problems. Such laws might act as a means of memorializing them as individuals but in so doing reduces their lives to the act of victimization they were subjected to. Such laws can erase the complexities of people’s lives. In addition, the campaigning voices which often push policy makers to respond to particular high profile events can succeed in their campaigns on the crest of the emotional wave that frequently occurs in the aftermath of such events. This was the case with Clare’s Law. Led by her father, a high-profile campaign succeeded in the introduction of domestic violence disclosure schemes in the absence of any evidence that such schemes could, or would, offer a route to safety for women who might find themselves with serially violent partner. Despite this absence interest in these schemes has travelled the globe. They have been introduced in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Saskatchewan (Canada) and have risen up the policy agenda in a number of states in Australia. The question is: why?

Part of the answer to this question lies in appreciating the ever-increasing presence of victim’s voices in general in policy-making processes. In England and Wales victim-centred justice took a firm hold in criminal justice policy with the 2004 Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act. In many ways this legislation was simply the culmination of at least two decades of earlier initiatives concerned to re-focus criminal justice towards the victim of crime.  Another part of the answer lies in the increasingly globally connected world in which not only do movements like #metoo take root, policymakers, (and politicians looking for votes) are, also increasingly interconnected in ways which were not thought of a few decades ago. A further part of the answer lies in the increasing public profile being given to violence against women particularly when that violence resulted in murder. This was, of course, what happened to Clare. Following the discovery that the man who killed her (and then went on to kill himself) had a record of previous violence, the assumption was made that if only this knowledge had been shared, her death could have been prevention.

This shone a light on what the police knew about her attacker and what they could or could not have done in the light of that knowledge. The review of the events up to her death also revealed that her relationship with her attacker had been an ‘on and off’ affair for some time not dissimilar to many other relationships that women find themselves in. And here is the rub; when might it have been best to intervene, who might be best placed to do that, and at what point would Clare herself have been happy to agree to such an intervention? Interestingly in a context in which there was increasing public concern about violence against women as a feature of a highly gendered unequal society, Clare’s Law was introduced with little thought given to these questions of what ignoring them might say about women and empowerment. 

Contemporarily much is made about Clare’s Law being a route to empowering women in their relationships. On what basis are these claims made? In this project we want to look beyond the name, Clare’s Law, and really understand how, if at all, this ‘Law’ can help those women who are living with violence or are maybe concerned about their partner’s previous use of violence. What lies behind the name? Empowerment? For which women, when? Or is this another well-intentioned intervention that just misses the mark in understanding women’s lives and if this kind of intervention is appropriate, when and for whom?

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