CCChat-Magazine_5

CCChat Talks To:
Dr Jane Monckton Smith
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Jane Mockton-Smith is a Forensic Criminologist and Senior Lecturer at the
University of Gloucestershire specialising in homicide, coercive control and stalking
and Director of the Centre for Learning and Innovation in Public Protection at the
University, Chairs Domestic Homicide Reviews,, trains professionals in homicide
threat and risk, and works with a number of . She has published a number of books
focused on homicide, and is developer of the DART Reference Tool.
The system is old and clunky, and cannot cope with sexual offending,
domestic violence or cyber crime in the way it needs to in the 21st Century
Dr Jane Monckton Smith
Q: In your time working in domestic violence and homicide, what would you say has been the
most profound change?
I think there have been many changes, the most important of which, to me, were the introduction of
Domestic Homicide Reviews and the criminalisation of coercive and controlling behaviours. These
changes have not had an overnight positive impact and we couldn’t really expect that, given the
more fundamental changes needed within the criminal justice system, necessary to let these
innovations change things. However, what I am seeing with these changes is a growing realisation
that what we thought we knew about domestic abuse and Homicide is not quite so simple or true.
Q: What do you think still needs to be done and how might that be achieved?
We have still got so much to do. If I just focus on the criminal justice system for a minute. It needs
updating and a serious overhaul. First, victims have no real voice in the system as there are only two
parties in a trial - the State and the defendant. The Victim has no representation in the way the
defendant does. The State is held to a different set of standards and cannot be the victim’s warrior.
Second, the courts are designed not for victims, but for the professionals using them. Judges get far
more protection and privacy in those buildings than victims do. And third (keeping it short!) the
system is not coping with prosecuting offences which involve human relations or patterns of
behaviour. The system is old and clunky, and cannot cope with sexual offending, domestic violence
or cyber crime in the way it needs to in the 21st Century. Tradition needs to make way for
sophistication and innovation.
Q: Is there a message you’d like to share for 2018?
2018 started with high profile support for ending interpersonal abuses, and abuse of power. We
simultaneously see what appears to be a rise in anonymous online abuse and increasing intolerance
for the voices of women in public life, and minority and ethnic groups. But for the first time voices
against the abuse of power are louder. This could be the start of something big!
2018 is the Year For Making The Invisible Visible