Risk Refraction: Thoughts on the Victim-Survivor’s Risk Journey through the Criminal Justice Process

The limits of inter-agency understandings of risk in the context of intimate partner violence are well documented. Informed by Hester’s (2011) ‘three planet’ analogy and using empirical data in one police force area in the south of England, this paper offers an exploration of intra-agency operations, focusing on police risk assessment practices. Exploring the policing risk lens and the victim-survivor journey together, findings highlight police operate with at least three risk assessment moments (call hander, front-line and Safeguarding Hub) and point to the tensions that result when failing to centralise victim-survivors’ own assessment of their risk. Using complexity theory, this paper examines the complex interplay of risk that occurs when the victim-survivor risk journey intersects with the policing aspect of the criminal justice process.