How is the Police and Crime Commissioner working to tackle address perpetrator behaviours and prevent reoffending?

The Commissioner’s work to tackle perpetrator behaviours is focused on domestic abuse and sexual offending.   

In 2022-23 the Commissioner secured £417,000 in funding from the Home Office to support a range of domestic abuse perpetrator projects being led by Community Safety Partnerships across the peninsula. These programmes work with people who cause harm to address their offending behaviours and prevent future victimisation.  

The Commissioner is committed to improving the focus on behaviour change and has recruited a new Domestic Abuse Behaviour Change Strategic Lead to develop and lead a new partnership perpetrator strategy. The Commissioner will continue to seek to maximise funding from new government initiatives to support work in this area and will be submitting a bid for funding for 2023-24 and 2024-25 to the Home Office in February 2023 following the launch of a bidding process in January 2023.  

The Commissioner also commissions two bespoke services that work with sexual offence perpetrators.  Since 2015 the Commissioner has funded Circles SW to work with those individuals considered most at risk of reoffending. Circles SW provides an internationally acclaimed community approach to work with sex offenders by creating a team (circle) of community members who support and challenge the referred individual as they move post-conviction to being reintegrated into society. To date 75 circles have been funded. In 2022-23 the Commissioner engaged the SW Community Chaplaincy service to work with sex offenders who no longer fall under the auspices of the National Probation Service. This is a mentoring service which provides practical help, as well as behavioural challenge to these individuals, who are referred directly by Devon and Cornwall Police.