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Good practice Imported

The Caledonian System — Scotland's Integrated Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Programme

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Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 67% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A court-mandated two-year men's programme paired with parallel support services for women and children, delivered by Scottish local-authority criminal justice social work and coordinated nationally by Community Justice Scotland.

941+ men
Men who started the Men's Programme by 2016 (by 2016)
598 women
Women who took up the parallel Women's Service by 2016 (by 2016)
19 of 32 local authorities
Local authorities delivering the Caledonian System
~75% of Scotland's population
Population coverage
The Caledonian System — Scotland's Integrated Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Programme

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Community Justice Scotland (Caledonian Central Team)
Period
Piloted 2008; national rollout from 2011–present (evaluation published 2016)
Keywords
criminal justice, domestic abuse, social work, gender-based violence prevention

Context

The Caledonian System is a court-ordered, two-year Men's Programme for domestic-abuse perpetrators in Scotland, delivered alongside a parallel Women's Service (safety planning and support for [ex-]partners) and a Children's Service, coordinated nationally by Community Justice Scotland and now running in 19 of Scotland's 32 local authorities (roughly 75% of the population) under the 'Equally Safe' strategy.

Results

By 2016, at least 941 men had started the Men's Programme and 598 women had taken up the parallel Women's Service. A government-commissioned Ipsos MORI evaluation combining monitoring data with 86 interviews found caseworkers judged completing men to pose lower risk and women reported feeling safer through safety planning, but stated explicitly that it could not conclusively quantify the programme's impact on reoffending, and completion-rate data varied unreliably across regional hubs.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years)
Staffing & skills
Local-authority criminal justice social workers delivering one-to-one and group sessions for the Men's Programme, Women's Service staff providing safety planning and support to (ex-)partners, Children's Service staff addressing needs of affected children, Community Justice Scotland's Caledonian Central Team coordinating training and expansion nationally

Conditions for success

  • A court mandate to secure participation in the Men's Programme
  • Parallel, simultaneously resourced Women's and Children's Services, not just the men's intervention alone
  • National training and coordination via the Caledonian Central Team

Common failure modes

  • Completion-rate data varied considerably and unreliably across regional hubs
  • The commissioned evaluation was explicit that it could not conclusively quantify overall impact on reoffending

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes CERV — Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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