Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) action plan - summer 2024 updates
9. Making places safer
We will identify high risk and high harm locations for VAWG. We will target resources to those places to improve the safety of women and girls in London’s public spaces.
Summer 2024 updates
Working harder to understand where women and girls don’t feel safe
As part of this update we are refreshing our offer to walk with women and girls where they live, work or study with a greater focus on problem solving and tracking results.
Find out more about our Walk and Talks.
Tell us if a place feels unsafe (via our StreetSafe app).
In March, we supported the release of preliminary analysis from a survey conducted by Women in Data called 'The Hidden Reality of Violence Against Women and Girls in the UK' (Women's Safety Preliminary Analysis: Women In Data Registration (swoogo.com). This aims to quantify and understand the gap between reported and unreported experiences. We will continue to work in partnership with Women in Data to utilise their expertise in how we can improve our service to women and girls.
More analysis to local leaders to make responses more effective
VAWG offences analysis is now routinely used in local (borough) and corporate (Metwide) tasking processes and enhanced governance is in place to identify and respond to potential linked offences. The changes to our Connect system will allow us to overlay data on predatory behaviour (not dependent on a particular crime type), once the data structure changes are fully embedded.
We are conducting detailed research on any offending involving masturbation as part of our response to the Angiolini Enquiry recommendations.
More joint safety planning for events and public spaces
Project Vigilant is an operation consisting of officer deployments to VAWG hotspots, predominantly night time economy areas using a mixed team of plain clothes and uniform officers. Vigilant tactics include:
- behavioural detection methodology as part of early disruption
- intervening and challenging predatory behaviour
Project Verona operates alongside Project Vigilante but with officers in uniform.
Since roll out, there have been:
- 243 new officers trained
- 259 Vigilant and Verona deployments
- 219 stop and search
- 75 arrests
- 137 disruptions of individuals subject to orders
- 5,566 reassurance engagements
We continue to utilise all skilled Met officers to tackle VAWG including via our Protective Security Operations team who use Counter Terrorism hostile reconnaissance tactics to disrupt VAWG predators. Some of their recent work includes intelligence led deployments into public spaces. This is to target, monitor and disrupt registered sex offenders to prevent further sexual offending.
We continue to work in partnership with Transport for London (TfL) to install CCTV in bus shelters, using data to target places where there are higher reports of crime against women and girls. We are moving into phase two of the 12 month pilot with the introduction of 15 additional cameras and locations. In addition to assessing the effectiveness of CCTV for crime prevention and investigation, TfL will gather feedback from customers and stakeholders throughout the trial to assess the feeling of safety and security for customers using the TfL bus network.
More partners making their premises safe for women and girls
Since September 2023, there have been 12 Welfare and Vulnerability Engagement (WAVE) training sessions for licenced premises involving over 300 hundred people covering over 70 businesses. We have started working with gyms as well as night time economy venues.
With the National Business Crime Centre, we are rolling out the Safer Spaces initiative across retailers and in our planning for major events and festivals. We encourage festival organisers to create something similar to Safer Spaces in their ticketed events where people can find personal space and support if they need it.
The Strategic Intentions for Festivals 2024 have been set up. These place emphasis on the importance of VAWG prevention work, both by police and festival organisers, as a standard part of the Gold and Silver strategic intentions, including Ask for Angela. We use Project Vigilant and Safer Spaces tactics at Notting Hill Carnival and New Year’s Eve.
During the last year, we have delivered Operation Makesafe (identifying and reporting signs of child exploitation) to nearly 2000 individuals and 300 businesses and venues.
We have intensified our work on spotting and stopping spiking. Since 1 January 2024, licencing teams have visited and trained 145 venues, of which:
- 86% were pubs and bars
- 7% were night clubs
- the remaining venues include five restaurants, football clubs, and a brewery
Training needs analysis has been completed by Learning and Development to build a training programme for new joiners and existing Met staff.
Improving our response to the threat of Online Tech Enabled VAWG
In March, we held a multi-agency 'StratHack' focusing on the threat of online tech enabled VAWG and how we can work with others to improve our response to this rapidly developing area. During the day, seven teams identified 56 ideas ranging from data and artificial intelligence (AI), to training and policy influence. These were honed down to seven key solutions, including an AI-powered assistant for frontline officers and a victim journey tool.
The analysis, together with solutions from the day, highlight the complex, broad nature of online and tech-enabled abuse. This represents a challenge in various ways for policing and wider society. The themes from the StratHack engagement are the beginning of a longer and broader set of related activities we are working through with tech partners and wider policing.