From Enforcement to Intervention: What works in tackling Violence Against Women and Girls in place-based settings

In this long-read, Phoebe Preece, Consultant, argues that tackling violence against women and girls requires more than enforcement alone. Drawing on her front line policing experience, she explores why local systems need to move further towards prevention, partnership and shared ownership of risk.

Across policing and the wider public sector, whole-system approaches have become

central to how we talk about tackling violence against women and girls.  National strategies consistently emphasise prevention, early intervention, partnership working and integrated local services. Yet from my experience in policing settings, where violence against women and girls was a persistent safeguarding concern, the reality often looked very different.

Every organisation I worked alongside, from paramedics to outreach services, was committed to protecting vulnerable people and reducing harm. Individual organisations fulfilled their organisational responsibilities; however, responsibility for what happened following incidents was often fragmented, resulting in vulnerable individuals continuing to fall through the gaps in the system.

Whether I was policing major events around the London Stadium or working alongside outreach organisations to support street-based sex workers, these experiences reinforced that preventing violence against women and girls requires moving beyond talking about whole-system approaches and designing services that genuinely work collaboratively and operate as one.

Vulnerability in place-based settings

Working within the night-time economy and at London Stadium events highlighted how quickly vulnerability can emerge in place-based settings. Football matches and concerts created fast-moving environments shaped by alcohol, large crowds, limited visibility and transient interactions. Women experiencing harassment, abuse, stalking or sexual violence were often reluctant to report incidents or unsure whether what had happened justified speaking to security, let alone reporting it to the police.

Throughout my career, it was clear that safeguarding depended on far more than policing. Stewards, venue operators, transport providers, medical teams and outreach services all influenced whether someone felt safe enough to seek help. Factors such as training, welfare spaces, lighting, public messaging and communication between organisations often had as much impact on safeguarding outcomes as visible enforcement.

By the time police intervention became necessary, opportunities for prevention had often already been missed. The most effective responses came from organisations working as one system, recognising that preventing harm depended on shared ownership rather than separate organisational responsibilities.

When the system does its job, but people still fall through the gaps

This became even more clear through work supporting street-based sex workers in North East London. Many of the women we encountered were experiencing overlapping issues including exploitation, substance misuse, homelessness, trauma and long-term disengagement from statutory services. Enforcement remained critical where criminality existed, but it didn’t address the reasons why these people kept coming into police contact.

What struck me wasn’t just the vulnerability these women faced, but how often I saw the same individuals move repeatedly through police custody, safeguarding referrals, healthcare and support services without anyone maintaining long-term ownership of what happened next. Each organisation acted appropriately within its own remit. Referrals were made. Reports were completed. Cases were closed.

Yet a few days or weeks later, many of the same individuals were back in contact with emergency services. On the front line, it was easy to become frustrated by completing the same arrest paperwork and safeguarding referrals for the same people time and again. But over time, I realised that frustration was misplaced. The real frustration was realising that systems designed to protect people were still allowing them to remain trapped in cycles of exploitation and vulnerability, with too little changing to prevent them returning to crisis. Every organisation could do its job well, and the system would still fail the people it was designed to protect.

Across policing, performance is still often measured through arrests made, stop and searches conducted, investigations progressed, and reports completed. However, those measures tell us very little about whether we have prevented someone from further harm.  

Our systems are still largely organised around organisational boundaries rather than people's lives, and until that changes, the same individuals will continue to come into contact with services and move between them without the sustained, coordinated support needed to prevent repeat harm.

These women weren't experiencing policing, housing, healthcare and safeguarding as separate systems. However, services often responded as though those experiences could be divided neatly between them.

Moving from enforcement to prevention

Some of the most effective interventions I was involved in came from consistent outreach, relationship-building and multi-agency partnership working rather than punitive measures and enforcement. Working alongside specialist charities and voluntary organisations helped build trust with people who had little confidence and trust in policing. Often, it was small, sustained interactions rather than major interventions that created opportunities for safeguarding and longer-term support.

Across public services, we often talk about whole-system working and this not only means bringing services together but also designing services around how people experience vulnerability rather than around institutional responsibilities and performance measures.

It means recognising that no single organisation can prevent violence against women and girls alone. It means ensuring that someone remains visible within the system after the immediate incident has passed, rather than assuming another organisation has taken responsibility. It means shifting success measures beyond arrests and organisational performance indicators.

Sustainable prevention also looks like earlier identification of vulnerability, stronger engagement with support services, reduced repeat demand and greater trust in local safeguarding systems. Those outcomes are harder to measure, but they are ultimately what determine whether people become safer.

The opportunity for local systems

The Government's ambition to halve violence against women and girls within a decade presents an important opportunity and a shift towards partnership, prevention, and a whole system approach. The challenge now is ensuring those principles are reflected in how local services are designed and delivered across communities.

Importantly, the approaches that make the greatest difference already exist across many communities, including trauma-informed practice, targeted outreach, strong voluntary sector partnerships and integrated safeguarding. These evidence-based approaches have been proven to work, so the challenge is not generating new ideas but redesigning local systems to deliver these interventions consistently and at scale.

Women and girls should not have to navigate fragmented services while experiencing interconnected forms of harm. If we want to move from reacting to violence to preventing it, we must start designing and operating services as one system around the people who need them.

If you'd like to talk more about the issues shared in this article or how MV might be able to support your organisation, please contact Phoebe.Preece@mutualventures.co.uk or Morgan.Nasir-Finlayson@mutualventures.co.uk