What is serious violence?

Serious violence is the term used to describe violence that causes life-changing harm or death. It includes specific crimes such as homicide, knife crime, and gun crime. It also can include types of criminality that involve serious violence, such as gangs and county lines drug dealing.

In Cornwall, we have agreed that we will focus on the issues that have the most impact in our communities.

The Serious Violence Duty

The Government’s new Serious Violence Duty published here sets out the requirements for every local area to have a dedicated focus and plan for tackling serious violence. The Duty was introduced by the Government as part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021.

The Duty applies to specific organisations, described as the specified authorities. These organisations are: Devon and Cornwall Police, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Integrated Care Board, Cornwall Council, the Probation Service, Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Youth Justice Service and Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service.

The specified authorities must work together to publish a strategy and strategic needs assessment which sets out what they are doing to tackle serious violence in their area and to show that they understand what the main issues are.

All of the specified authorities are members of Safer Cornwall so this partnership is the lead on delivering the Duty in Cornwall.

What are we doing about it?

Safer Cornwall have set up a multi-agency Serious Violence Reduction Partnership to co-ordinate and monitor the work that’s being carried out by partners.

In January 2024, Safer Cornwall published our first Strategic Framework to prevent and reduce violence in our communities. The framework brings together existing strategies that target different types of violence. It shows the work that services are doing to address the risk factors of violent behaviours. It also describes what we could do better with a joint approach.

We have also undertaken a local needs assessment that helped us to understand key information about violence in Cornwall.

Safer Cornwall serious violence strategic needs assessment

From this we have prioritised the following types of violence and people and places:

Our priority themes are:

• Domestic abuse and sexual violence
• Violence against women and girls  
• Drugs and alcohol      
• Complex needs, multiple vulnerabilities   
• Exploitation     
• Youth justice    
• Reducing reoffending

Our priority people and places are:

• Pre-birth and children aged 0-5
• Children at risk of suspension/exclusion
• Families at risk of going into temporary housing
• Geographical areas of deprivation / disadvantage

Serious Violence Prevention Programme (SVPP) Evaluation Summary

This evaluation covers the first two years of the funded programme, which delivered the Breaking the Cycle strategy. Following this initial phase, the programme advanced into a second phase, with the SVPP as the core of the Serious Violence Prevention Strategic Framework for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.

SVPP Evaluation 2022-2024 Summary Report

Valuing young people’s voices

Our Youth Participation Framework engaged with over 300 young people, nearly half with lived experience of violence. We will explore how we can use this work more effectively across our partners in 2026.

The framework that they created sets out how we can involve young people meaningfully in designing and improving services, including trusted ways to share their experiences and value their input.

Speak…Prevent Violence – our Young People Participation Framework Speak…Prevent Violence – Our contract with young people