Two months after its launch, the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Meeting (MARAM) system had 74 high-risk domestic violence cases.
Through this system, a specialised team produce action plans to protect victims and their families. This was one of the recommendations of Judge Geoffrey Valencia in his inquiry into the femicide of Bernice Cassar – the mother-of-two who was shot dead on her way to work last November.
It later emerged that she had filed multiple police reports against her ex-husband Roderick, now charged with her murder. Bernice even underwent a risk assessment after she filed a police report, a few months earlier, alleging that her husband had placed a knife against her neck. Her level of risk ranked as medium.
Following her murder, the government appointed the inquiry that published its report on February 23. The inquiry established that the State system had failed Bernice because of a lack of resources and a heavy caseload. Valenzia also highlighted the lack of implementation of “countless” recommendations made over the years.
Among these recommendations – that kept cropping up over the years – was the revision or replacement of the risk assessment tool known as the DASH system ‒ Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Honour Risk Identification – that ranked Bernice as medium risk.
This has faced a build-up of criticism ever since it was introduced in Malta back in 2018.
Bernice Cassar had filed multiple police reports against her ex-husband Roderick, now charged with her murder
The score is based on the total number of ‘yes’ ticks following the disclosures made by the alleged victim to 27 questions. One to nine ‘yes’ ticks result in a standard risk, while 10 to 13 results in medium risk and 14 ticks or more indicate a high risk.
Initially, magistrates, prosecutors, defence lawyers and the police complained that many cases were being ranked as ‘high risk’, overloading the system.
Professionals flagged the fact that the tool could be easily abused by people wishing to ‘blow up’ their report.
But, on the other side of the spectrum, victims at high risk who were under stress when going through the assessment could get a lower score since results depended on their replies at the time.
Last December, police superintendent Johann Fenech, who heads the vice squad, said the tool alone did not provide an accurate assessment.
The police do not rely on the score but carry out their own background checks and investigations to determine how urgently to treat a case, he said.
Also, a government-funded report, completed a year before Bernice’s murder but published soon after, also recommended revising the DASH system.
Over the years we keep hearing this recommendation. Yet, until a week before the Valenzia report was published, a social welfare spokesperson said there were no plans to replace the system.
Now, last week, counselling psychologist Clarissa Sammut Scerri – who was commissioned by the Family Ministry to evaluate the DASH system – highlighted a system known as the Danger Assessment tool, which she described as the only risk assessment tool specifically designed to predict homicide, severe assault, or attempted femicide.
Sammut Scerri said a number of specialists are currently undergoing training focused on using it.
No tool will stamp out domestic violence, but the wrong tool will certainly not help.
For many years the writing has been spread across several documents in the form of ignored recommendations. Now the writing is on the wall. Will the State keep failing victims? Or will it finally listen?