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More than 11 thousand cases of domestic violence were registered by the PSP in the first nine months of the year, according to data released today that point to a decrease of around 9% compared to the same period last year.
From January 1 to September 30, 2020, the PSP registered an average of 40.5 cases per day, totaling 11,100 crimes of domestic violence
“Such record shows, even so, a decrease of 8.58% in relation to the same period of 2019,” said the Public Security Police (PSP) in a statement.
Between the first half of March and the second half of April, “the largest gap was observed between the registrations of 2020 and 2019, with a decrease in 2020”, says the PSP, adding that “the dates in question are antecedents and coincide with the three periods of state of emergency in Portugal ”due to the covid-19 pandemic.
According to the PSP, the number of domestic violence crimes reported by the police in the months after periods of state of emergency follows the figures reported in 2019, “without record peaks.”
“Thus, and contrary to the possibility considered that the mandatory confinement has contributed to cover up violence practices, the return to (almost) normality did not materialize in an increase in complaints, despite the PSP campaigns and the intensification of direct contacts with the aforementioned victims ”, he underlines in the statement.
The data indicates that the number of victims of domestic violence requiring driving and hospitalization had “an average decrease of 60% from 2019 to 2020”, following “the same strong downward trend during periods of state of emergency.”
“The decrease in marital violence (between spouses and former spouses) was the main cause of the decrease in occurrences, and there was also a decrease in psychological violence, usually inherent in situations of parental authority regulation, eventually facilitated by the period suspension of academic activities and travel restrictions within the national territory, ”says the PSP.
During this period, the PSP made 440 arrests for the crime of domestic violence, an average of 1.6 per day, of which 274 were made in flagrante delicto (average of one per day).
In the same context, the PSP seized 192 firearms which, despite not having been used to carry out the crime, were referenced in the risk assessment carried out by the PSP and apprehended with caution.
The use of alternative reporting channels, namely email. [email protected], experienced “special relevance” and use during periods of a state of emergency, with 25 requests up to July 15, more than double the complaints filed electronically (11).
Despite the breakdown of the facts, the PSP maintained “a strong commitment to preventing and combating this crime”, which led to the study and presentation of various “protection measures”, namely, the development of 32,024 plans of individual security (average of 117 / day) and 18,885 proposals to reinforce, with the victim, the information on support resources (average of 69 / day).
10,549 proposals were also made to apply a measure of coercion to the offender, an average of 38.5 per day and 8,219 proposals for the signaling of minors to the Commission for the Protection of Children and Youth at Risk (average of 30 / day) .
The PSP adds that “the atypical nature of the experience, social and economic, dictated by the current pandemic crisis, has raised several relevant questions, namely, about the effect of confinement on victims’ ability / possibility to report.”
It also reinforces the alert about the need for victims and witnesses to report these situations, “minimizing the risk that victims suffer extreme levels of violence.”
“All the situations mentioned are immediately subject to risk assessment, in the sense that the security measures to protect the victim that are urgent for each specific case are quickly adopted,” he stresses.
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