Kimberley Harmer is CDG national Deputy chairman, CPF Regional Ambassador for Humber and Yorkshire, Senior Caseworker for Charlie Dewhirst MP. and a VAWG & Gender Based violence Advisor.
There is a sentence that many survivors of domestic abuse understand instinctively:
“The bruises fade. The words do not“.
The physical evidence may disappear. The broken possessions can be replaced. The doors can eventually be closed. But fear does not necessarily end when an abuser is taken away.
For some victims, the knowledge that their abuser is behind bars is the first real sense of safety they have experienced for years. They can begin rebuilding their lives, protecting their children and looking towards a future that does not revolve around the person who controlled them.
That is why Labour’s approach to early release should concern every Conservative who believes that the first responsibility of government is to keep its citizens safe.
This is not an argument against rehabilitation. It is not an argument that every prisoner should serve every day of every sentence in custody. Nor is it an argument that only women deserve protection.
Men can be victims of domestic abuse. Children can be victims. Domestic abuse does not discriminate, and neither should our justice system.
But we must be honest about the consequences when an offender who has terrorised a family is released earlier than the victim expected.
The Government has rightly recognised that some of the most serious sexual offences should be excluded from its new sentencing progression model. Rape, serious child sexual offences and grooming offences are now excluded, alongside further offences including unlawful killing and indecent assault.
That is welcome.
But domestic abuse is not a single offence.
It can involve assault, stalking, harassment, threats, coercive or controlling behaviour and other crimes. A perpetrator can cause years of fear and devastation without necessarily having been convicted of one of the offences now specifically excluded.
That is the gap we need to confront.
The Government’s own legislation recognises the problem. The Sentencing Act 2026 introduces a requirement for courts to formally identify when an offence involved domestic abuse, precisely because the criminal justice system has struggled to identify domestic-abuse perpetrators consistently.
If we now accept that domestic abuse needs to be identified more clearly, why should it not also be central to decisions about release and victim protection?
The prison-capacity crisis is real. Governments have difficult decisions to make. But the answer to pressure on the prison estate cannot be to transfer the cost of that pressure onto victims.
That is what many survivors fear is happening.
Consider a woman whose husband receives a ten-year sentence. For her, those ten years may represent something completely different from what they represent on a sentencing document. They may represent ten years in which she does not have to worry about seeing him in the street. Ten years in which her children can grow up without the immediate presence of their father’s influence. Ten years in which she can change her home, rebuild her finances, return to work, seek support and perhaps finally begin to believe that she is free. Then she learns that he may be released much earlier than she had expected.
What happens to that sense of safety?
It can disappear overnight. And this is where politicians and policymakers need to understand something fundamental about coercive control.
“We must highlight that control does not necessarily stop at the prison gates”.
An abusive person can attempt to maintain influence through telephone calls, correspondence, relatives, friends and, where children are involved, through contact and family relationships. They use the family courts to repeatedly drag the victim into court over custody or visitation battles. For a victim, every attempt to re-establish contact can be a reminder that the person who controlled them still believes they have a claim over their life.
The physical distance may have changed.
The power dynamic may not have.
This is particularly important where children are involved.
An offender may seek contact with children from prison. Relatives may pass messages. Children can become caught between competing loyalties. A victim who has spent years trying to protect them may suddenly find themselves dealing with renewed pressure from the person they escaped.
That is not necessarily the end of the abuse.
Sometimes it is simply the abuse taking another form.
The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has already warned about the implications of early-release measures for victims and called for domestic-abuse perpetrators to be excluded from early release. Her office has also stressed the need for affected victims and survivors to receive clear information and not be placed at further risk.
The Victims’ Commissioner has similarly warned that victim safety and confidence must remain at the heart of decisions surrounding the Government’s new release arrangements.
These concerns should not be dismissed as campaigners being soft on crime.
They are precisely the concerns we should expect responsible government to listen to.
Because there is another consequence that deserves much more attention: the chilling effect on reporting.
Imagine being frightened to report your abuser in the first place. Fighting the memories. Fighting to understand what they did to you.
We rarely highlight how the abuser has manipulated the victim to believe that it is all in her head. That the black eye or broken nose was because she tripped into a door frame. That he didn’t rape her while she was asleep, she had a condition where she initiated sex in her sleep. These cause the victim to question themselves. The trauma blocked the most horrific memories.
Your already be asking yourself the police will believe me. Whether the evidence will be enough. Whether the Crown Prosecution Service will prosecute. Whether their family will blame you. Whether your children will be dragged into the process. Whether the offender will retaliate.
And then you look at the justice system and wonder:
“What happens when he gets out? What happens if CPS don’t take the case? Will I be punished for my trauma?”
That question could be enough to stop someone reporting. That is not theoretical.
Domestic abuse is already significantly underreported. If victims believe that reporting may result in an offender being imprisoned for a period that is subsequently reduced, while they remain exposed to the possibility of renewed intimidation, we should not be surprised if some decide that silence feels safer than justice.
That is a catastrophic outcome. Because when victims remain silent, perpetrators remain hidden. And when perpetrators remain hidden, future victims remain at risk. This is why the debate must move beyond the number of prisoners released.
We should be asking how many victims were notified. Whether individual risk assessments were undertaken. Whether domestic-abuse history was properly identified. Whether licence conditions are sufficiently restrictive. Whether contact with victims and children is being properly managed. Whether electronic monitoring is being used effectively where appropriate.
And, crucially, whether victims know exactly what will happen if those conditions are breached.
The Government has introduced new arrangements for the identification and management of domestic-abuse perpetrators, and there are standards for interventions with perpetrators of stalking and domestic abuse.
But standards on paper are not enough. A victim does not feel safe because a policy document exists. They feel safe when the system works.
That means a Conservative approach should be uncompromising on one principle:
“Victim safety must come before administrative convenience”.
If prison places are insufficient, fix the prison estate. If rehabilitation is failing, reform rehabilitation. If probation is overstretched, strengthen probation. If offenders are being released, manage them properly. But do not quietly make victims carry the risk created by failures elsewhere in the system.
This is not about being punitive for the sake of being punitive. It is about personal responsibility. The person who committed the crime should carry the consequences of that crime.
The victim should not be expected to change their home, their job, their children’s routines and their entire life simply because the state needs to manage prison capacity. There is also a fundamental Conservative principle at stake here.
We talk constantly about strong families. But a family is not strengthened by forcing victims to live in fear of the person who abused them. We talk about safer communities.But communities cannot be safe if victims are too frightened to report crime. We talk about personal responsibility. But there can be no meaningful accountability if victims lose confidence in the system and decide that remaining silent is the safest option.
And we talk about reducing the burden on the state. Yet every failure to prevent repeat abuse creates additional demands on the police, courts, NHS, social services, housing providers and welfare system.
Prevention is not soft. It is fiscally responsible and socially responsible.
And it is conservative.
There is a tendency in political debate to divide people into victims and offenders, as though the only moment that matters is the courtroom.
For victims, the story does not end with sentencing.
We must also remember the victims who have not yet reported. The woman sitting silently in her home tonight. The man who is too ashamed to tell anyone. The parent frightened of what will happen to their children. The person who has spent years being told that nobody will believe them.
They are watching us too. They are watching what happens when other victims speak. They are deciding whether the justice system is something they can trust. If the message they receive is that the state will protect them, supervise their abuser and take their safety seriously, perhaps they will find the courage to come forward.
If the message is that the prison system’s capacity problems come first, they may decide to stay silent.
That is why Labour must answer a simple question:
When an offender is released early, who is carrying the risk?
If the answer is the victim, then the policy is wrong.
The Government has taken steps to exclude some of the most serious offences from its new release arrangements. That is a recognition that public safety matters.
But the principle should go further. Where domestic abuse has been identified, the victim’s safety should be a fundamental consideration in release decisions, supervision and licence conditions. There should be robust risk assessment. There should be timely and clear notification, enforceable restrictions on contact where necessary. There should be effective monitoring. And there should be rapid intervention when conditions are breached.
Most importantly, victims should never have to wonder whether reporting their abuser was a mistake because the person they feared is back in their community sooner than expected.
Justice must mean more than putting someone behind bars. Justice means protecting the person who was harmed.
II believe Conservatives should be willing to say this clearly. We can believe in rehabilitation without being naïve about risk, in proportionate sentencing while insisting that victims are protected, support efficient government while rejecting the idea that victims should pay the price for failures in the prison estate. And we can support strong families while making absolutely clear that there is no family value more important than the safety of a child or an abused parent.
“The bruises fade. The words do not. Neither does the fear! Neither does the PTSD!”
If Labour wants victims to have the courage to report domestic abuse, it must give them something more than encouragement. It must give them confidence that when they finally speak, the state will stand between them and their abuser, and remain there when the prison gates open.
Kimberley Harmer is CDG national Deputy chairman, CPF Regional Ambassador for Humber and Yorkshire, Senior Caseworker for Charlie Dewhirst MP. and a VAWG & Gender Based violence Advisor.
There is a sentence that many survivors of domestic abuse understand instinctively:
“The bruises fade. The words do not“.
The physical evidence may disappear. The broken possessions can be replaced. The doors can eventually be closed. But fear does not necessarily end when an abuser is taken away.
For some victims, the knowledge that their abuser is behind bars is the first real sense of safety they have experienced for years. They can begin rebuilding their lives, protecting their children and looking towards a future that does not revolve around the person who controlled them.
That is why Labour’s approach to early release should concern every Conservative who believes that the first responsibility of government is to keep its citizens safe.
This is not an argument against rehabilitation. It is not an argument that every prisoner should serve every day of every sentence in custody. Nor is it an argument that only women deserve protection.
Men can be victims of domestic abuse. Children can be victims. Domestic abuse does not discriminate, and neither should our justice system.
But we must be honest about the consequences when an offender who has terrorised a family is released earlier than the victim expected.
The Government has rightly recognised that some of the most serious sexual offences should be excluded from its new sentencing progression model. Rape, serious child sexual offences and grooming offences are now excluded, alongside further offences including unlawful killing and indecent assault.
That is welcome.
But domestic abuse is not a single offence.
It can involve assault, stalking, harassment, threats, coercive or controlling behaviour and other crimes. A perpetrator can cause years of fear and devastation without necessarily having been convicted of one of the offences now specifically excluded.
That is the gap we need to confront.
The Government’s own legislation recognises the problem. The Sentencing Act 2026 introduces a requirement for courts to formally identify when an offence involved domestic abuse, precisely because the criminal justice system has struggled to identify domestic-abuse perpetrators consistently.
If we now accept that domestic abuse needs to be identified more clearly, why should it not also be central to decisions about release and victim protection?
The prison-capacity crisis is real. Governments have difficult decisions to make. But the answer to pressure on the prison estate cannot be to transfer the cost of that pressure onto victims.
That is what many survivors fear is happening.
Consider a woman whose husband receives a ten-year sentence. For her, those ten years may represent something completely different from what they represent on a sentencing document. They may represent ten years in which she does not have to worry about seeing him in the street. Ten years in which her children can grow up without the immediate presence of their father’s influence. Ten years in which she can change her home, rebuild her finances, return to work, seek support and perhaps finally begin to believe that she is free. Then she learns that he may be released much earlier than she had expected.
What happens to that sense of safety?
It can disappear overnight. And this is where politicians and policymakers need to understand something fundamental about coercive control.
“We must highlight that control does not necessarily stop at the prison gates”.
An abusive person can attempt to maintain influence through telephone calls, correspondence, relatives, friends and, where children are involved, through contact and family relationships. They use the family courts to repeatedly drag the victim into court over custody or visitation battles. For a victim, every attempt to re-establish contact can be a reminder that the person who controlled them still believes they have a claim over their life.
The physical distance may have changed.
The power dynamic may not have.
This is particularly important where children are involved.
An offender may seek contact with children from prison. Relatives may pass messages. Children can become caught between competing loyalties. A victim who has spent years trying to protect them may suddenly find themselves dealing with renewed pressure from the person they escaped.
That is not necessarily the end of the abuse.
Sometimes it is simply the abuse taking another form.
The Domestic Abuse Commissioner has already warned about the implications of early-release measures for victims and called for domestic-abuse perpetrators to be excluded from early release. Her office has also stressed the need for affected victims and survivors to receive clear information and not be placed at further risk.
The Victims’ Commissioner has similarly warned that victim safety and confidence must remain at the heart of decisions surrounding the Government’s new release arrangements.
These concerns should not be dismissed as campaigners being soft on crime.
They are precisely the concerns we should expect responsible government to listen to.
Because there is another consequence that deserves much more attention: the chilling effect on reporting.
Imagine being frightened to report your abuser in the first place. Fighting the memories. Fighting to understand what they did to you.
We rarely highlight how the abuser has manipulated the victim to believe that it is all in her head. That the black eye or broken nose was because she tripped into a door frame. That he didn’t rape her while she was asleep, she had a condition where she initiated sex in her sleep. These cause the victim to question themselves. The trauma blocked the most horrific memories.
Your already be asking yourself the police will believe me. Whether the evidence will be enough. Whether the Crown Prosecution Service will prosecute. Whether their family will blame you. Whether your children will be dragged into the process. Whether the offender will retaliate.
And then you look at the justice system and wonder:
“What happens when he gets out? What happens if CPS don’t take the case? Will I be punished for my trauma?”
That question could be enough to stop someone reporting. That is not theoretical.
Domestic abuse is already significantly underreported. If victims believe that reporting may result in an offender being imprisoned for a period that is subsequently reduced, while they remain exposed to the possibility of renewed intimidation, we should not be surprised if some decide that silence feels safer than justice.
That is a catastrophic outcome. Because when victims remain silent, perpetrators remain hidden. And when perpetrators remain hidden, future victims remain at risk. This is why the debate must move beyond the number of prisoners released.
We should be asking how many victims were notified. Whether individual risk assessments were undertaken. Whether domestic-abuse history was properly identified. Whether licence conditions are sufficiently restrictive. Whether contact with victims and children is being properly managed. Whether electronic monitoring is being used effectively where appropriate.
And, crucially, whether victims know exactly what will happen if those conditions are breached.
The Government has introduced new arrangements for the identification and management of domestic-abuse perpetrators, and there are standards for interventions with perpetrators of stalking and domestic abuse.
But standards on paper are not enough. A victim does not feel safe because a policy document exists. They feel safe when the system works.
That means a Conservative approach should be uncompromising on one principle:
“Victim safety must come before administrative convenience”.
If prison places are insufficient, fix the prison estate. If rehabilitation is failing, reform rehabilitation. If probation is overstretched, strengthen probation. If offenders are being released, manage them properly. But do not quietly make victims carry the risk created by failures elsewhere in the system.
This is not about being punitive for the sake of being punitive. It is about personal responsibility. The person who committed the crime should carry the consequences of that crime.
The victim should not be expected to change their home, their job, their children’s routines and their entire life simply because the state needs to manage prison capacity. There is also a fundamental Conservative principle at stake here.
We talk constantly about strong families. But a family is not strengthened by forcing victims to live in fear of the person who abused them. We talk about safer communities.But communities cannot be safe if victims are too frightened to report crime. We talk about personal responsibility. But there can be no meaningful accountability if victims lose confidence in the system and decide that remaining silent is the safest option.
And we talk about reducing the burden on the state. Yet every failure to prevent repeat abuse creates additional demands on the police, courts, NHS, social services, housing providers and welfare system.
Prevention is not soft. It is fiscally responsible and socially responsible.
And it is conservative.
There is a tendency in political debate to divide people into victims and offenders, as though the only moment that matters is the courtroom.
For victims, the story does not end with sentencing.
We must also remember the victims who have not yet reported. The woman sitting silently in her home tonight. The man who is too ashamed to tell anyone. The parent frightened of what will happen to their children. The person who has spent years being told that nobody will believe them.
They are watching us too. They are watching what happens when other victims speak. They are deciding whether the justice system is something they can trust. If the message they receive is that the state will protect them, supervise their abuser and take their safety seriously, perhaps they will find the courage to come forward.
If the message is that the prison system’s capacity problems come first, they may decide to stay silent.
That is why Labour must answer a simple question:
When an offender is released early, who is carrying the risk?
If the answer is the victim, then the policy is wrong.
The Government has taken steps to exclude some of the most serious offences from its new release arrangements. That is a recognition that public safety matters.
But the principle should go further. Where domestic abuse has been identified, the victim’s safety should be a fundamental consideration in release decisions, supervision and licence conditions. There should be robust risk assessment. There should be timely and clear notification, enforceable restrictions on contact where necessary. There should be effective monitoring. And there should be rapid intervention when conditions are breached.
Most importantly, victims should never have to wonder whether reporting their abuser was a mistake because the person they feared is back in their community sooner than expected.
Justice must mean more than putting someone behind bars. Justice means protecting the person who was harmed.
II believe Conservatives should be willing to say this clearly. We can believe in rehabilitation without being naïve about risk, in proportionate sentencing while insisting that victims are protected, support efficient government while rejecting the idea that victims should pay the price for failures in the prison estate. And we can support strong families while making absolutely clear that there is no family value more important than the safety of a child or an abused parent.
“The bruises fade. The words do not. Neither does the fear! Neither does the PTSD!”
If Labour wants victims to have the courage to report domestic abuse, it must give them something more than encouragement. It must give them confidence that when they finally speak, the state will stand between them and their abuser, and remain there when the prison gates open.