Measures to encourage battered wives to come forward and report their husbands are included in a range of new community safety proposals unveiled in the North today.
In the last year there were 23,076 incidents of domestic abuse against men and women but the PSNI believes the real figure is much higher.
The draft Community Safety Strategy, which was unveiled by Criminal Justice Minister Paul Goggins in Belfast, has made tackling the issue a priority.
Other targets set out in the proposals include initiatives to reduce knife crime, anti-social behaviour and hate crime. Greater support for witnesses and victims of crime are also identified as priorities.
The strategy, which will now go out for a 12-week consultation, sets out key goals for all branches of the wider criminal justice system and highlights the need to increase community confidence in their work.
It builds on the work of the first Community Safety Strategy which ran from 2003 to this year — a period that witnessed a 15 per cent reduction (21,352 fewer criminal acts) in overall crime rates in the region.
Mr Goggins welcomed the drop in crime levels but said the authorities could not afford to become complacent.
PA