Decision-making in child protection and public protection around perpetrators of domestic abuse, in London and South-East England

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I will analyse how child protection chairs, MARAC (multi-agency risk assessment conferences) chairs,social workers, probation officers and solicitors evaluate the risk posed by people who have abused apartner, and what emphasis they place on different factors.I will read key decision-making documents from local authority files, which outline the reasons behinddecisions about whether an abuser's children are still in danger, whether they require continuedmonitoring by MARAC or probation, and whether they need to be separated from their children. I willexamine the thought processes of the decision-makers, and analyse the content to see how they reachdecisions.I will conduct individual interviews with decision-makers: child protection chairs, MARAC chairs, andmanagers and lawyers from local authority children's services departments. I will also conduct anationwide survey of similar professionals about the factors they consider most significant in theirdecision-making.The strands of my data-gathering inform each other: my analysis of documents informs my interviewstructures; while my interviews will offer new themes or dynamics to incorporate.The project brings together current debates over whether a perpetrator of violence is still dangerous,with theoretical developments in the study of re-offending. The latter have moved from a narrow focuson past and current observed behaviour, to a more nuanced analysis of the internal mechanisms thatunderpin violent behaviour. This theoretical framework applies on two levels of my research: I willconsider it as an approach to assessing an offender, while also exploring the complex mechanismsunderpinning key decision-making