Whilst pioneering partnership work first took place in the battered women’s or refuge movement in England and Wales, the response that came to dominate in the 1990s and 2000s mirrored that associated with crime prevention more generally and Home Office crime prevention in particular. This reflected the increasing positioning of domestic violence as ‘real crime’ and the moves at this time to view domestic violence through a ‘crime lens’. In the last 10 years or so, there has been a clear shift, with the prevailing approach now dominated by initiatives such as Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences, Independent Domestic Violence Advisors and Specialist Domestic Violence Courts. These initiatives have achieved considerable success in reducing risks to high-risk victims. Yet, in doing so, they establish a very particular framework for responding to domestic violence, positioning and promoting it as high-risk victimisation and moving to see it through an ‘exceptional risk’ lens. This paper examines shifts in the partnership response to domestic violence in England and Wales. It argues that, not only are the vast majority of lower risk women excluded from the prevailing framework but, in focusing on high-risk reduction, intervention within this framework fails to address women’s complicated and often contradictory needs in relation to abuse. The prevailing partnership response rests on a notion of safety as risk cessation rather than one which prioritises expansion of women’s space for action and freedom from the legacies of abuse. It concludes that, whilst partnership has huge practical and philosophical potential as a response to domestic violence, only by seeing domestic violence through the lens of diminished possibilities and with a broader conceptualisation of safety can a partnership framework support women to achieve theirs.

虽然开创性的伙伴关系工作首先发生在英格兰和威尔士的受虐妇女或避难所运动中，但在 1990 年代和 2000 年代占主导地位的反应反映了与更普遍的预防犯罪特别是内政部预防犯罪相关的反应。这反映了越来越多地将家庭暴力定位为“真正的犯罪”，以及此时通过“犯罪镜头”来看待家庭暴力的举动。在过去 10 年左右的时间里，发生了明显的转变，现在流行的方法由多机构风险评估会议、独立家庭暴力顾问和专业家庭暴力法庭等倡议主导。这些举措在降低高风险受害者的风险方面取得了相当大的成功。然而，在这样做的过程中，他们建立了一个非常特殊的框架来应对家庭暴力，将其定位和宣传为高风险的受害行为，并通过“异常风险”的视角来看待它。本文考察了英格兰和威尔士合作应对家庭暴力的转变。它认为，不仅绝大多数低风险女性被排除在现行框架之外，而且在关注高风险减少时，该框架内的干预未能解决女性在虐待方面复杂且往往相互矛盾的需求。普遍的伙伴关系反应建立在一种安全概念之上，即风险停止，而不是优先考虑扩大妇女的行动空间和免受虐待的影响。它的结论是，