After a DV report, who checks that protection reached home?
98,289 police consultations and related reports in 2025 are not unique victims or completed protection. Dividing 88 cases cleared for protection-order violations by consultations does not produce a protection-success rate. Distinguish institutional roles and agree safe contact arrangements.
TL;DR
- 98,289 police consultations and related reports in 2025 are not unique victims or completed protection.
- Dividing 88 cases cleared for protection-order violations by consultations does not produce a protection-success rate.
- Distinguish institutional roles and agree safe contact arrangements.
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What Is Happening
98,289 police consultations and related reports in 2025 are not unique victims or completed protection.
Receiving a domestic-violence report and delivering protection are different achievements. A consultation can reach an institution while the person seeking help still faces danger.
The National Police Agency recorded 98,289 consultations and related reports concerning violence from spouses in 2025, an increase of 3,352, or 3.5 percent, from the previous year. The measure is consultations and related reports, not a count of distinct victims. It does not directly show how many people received effective protection.
The increase therefore deserves careful interpretation. It may reflect changes in reporting, recognition, scope or the underlying incidence. The total alone cannot establish the contribution of each factor or whether coordination improved.
This article examines the institutional handoff using police statistics, the law and the government's basic policy. It does not attribute a particular death to a police information-sharing failure. Records of individual responses would be necessary to establish such a conclusion.
| 2025 measure | Count | What it does not count |
|---|---|---|
| Consultations / related reports | 98,289 | Unique victims / completed protection |
| Cases cleared for order violations | 88 | All protection orders issued |
| Related Penal Code / other special-law cases cleared | 8,358 | People whose safety was secured |
Consultations rose by 3,352 from 94,937 in 2024. Threat-counting scope expanded in April 2024. Dividing cases cleared by consultations does not give a protection-success rate.
Sources / editorial arrangement: National Police Agency, pp. 7 / 9
Background & Context
Dividing 88 cases cleared for protection-order violations by consultations does not produce a protection-success rate.
A report is an entry point
The domestic-violence law and the basic policy address responsibilities across institutions, including police and spousal-violence counseling and support centers. The work includes consultation, protection and support for subsequent living arrangements.
Those roles are connected, but referral to another organization is not automatically proof that assistance reached the person. An administrative handoff needs a recipient, a task and a way to establish what happened next.
The legal framework also has a defined scope, including provisions concerning former spouses in relevant circumstances. Legal categories should be checked instead of assuming that the everyday label “DV” identifies an identical legal procedure for every relationship.
More information is not always safer
Coordination may require sharing information about risk and required support. But unrestricted sharing can itself create danger if it reveals a person's location or a contact route to someone who should not receive it.
The relevant question is what each institution needs to act safely. Information sharing should be connected to responsibility, access limits and an appropriate purpose. “All parties have the information” is not an adequate description of protection.
An illustrative example is a routine call made at a time or on a device that the abusive partner can monitor. This is a design concern, not a finding about a specific case. A follow-up procedure needs to take account of whether contact itself is safe.
Statistics do not establish individual outcomes
The police series offers an important national view of recorded demand. Its unit needs to remain visible. Repeated contact by one person does not become several distinct victims, and a higher total does not directly measure the prevalence of violence.
Likewise, the statistics do not establish what risk assessment or protective action occurred in an individual case. Those questions require records and circumstances that an aggregate table cannot provide. The absence of such evidence should limit blame claims without preventing examination of the system's design.
Consultations and cases cleared cannot form a protection rate
Pages 7 and 9 of the police report list 98,289 consultations and related reports in 2025, 88 cases cleared for protection-order violations, and 8,358 cases cleared involving related Penal Code or other special-law offences. These count different events and populations.
The 88 cases are not the number of protection orders issued; the 8,358 cases are not the number of people who received protection. Cases cleared also do not mean that everyone was physically arrested. Dividing either figure by consultations does not produce a protection-success or abandonment rate. Following the same person from a report to usable assistance requires a different record.
The consultation total rose from 94,937 in 2024 to 98,289 in 2025, a reported increase of 3,352 or 3.5 percent. From April 2024, the scope also includes threats to freedom, reputation or property. Long-run comparisons crossing that change should state it rather than attribute the whole trend to one cause.
Distinguishing the measures makes it possible to describe more use of the reporting entrance, criminal enforcement and sustained safety separately. None should erase the question of what happened after a person first sought help.
Reading the Structure
Distinguish institutional roles and agree safe contact arrangements.
Make responsibility after referral visible
A useful evaluation distinguishes receiving a report, arranging assistance and checking whether the person can access that assistance safely. This is a proposed framework for reading institutional performance, not an assertion that every case follows one fixed sequence.
Depending on circumstances, urgent measures may need to occur before administrative coordination is complete. The framework should not create a procedural obstacle to immediate protection. Its purpose is to keep unfinished responsibilities visible.
Counts of referrals or meetings show activity. Outcome questions concern whether the relevant organization accepted responsibility, whether support could be used and whether further risk was identified. This article has not measured those outcomes.
Safe follow-up differs from routine follow-up
A system that records every attempted call as completed follow-up could miss whether it reached the person safely. Contact method, timing and the person's ability to respond matter. A lack of reply should not automatically be interpreted as absence of danger or lack of interest in help.
At the same time, additional contact should not be imposed without regard to the person's wishes and circumstances. The challenge is to provide a dependable route while avoiding contact that increases exposure. This is why protection cannot be reduced to information volume or the frequency of administrative checks.
Capacity matters across the whole route
An institution may identify a need that the next service lacks capacity to meet. Housing, income, transport and childcare can affect whether a protective arrangement is usable. Their relevance does not mean the sources establish a particular nationwide shortage or causal effect.
It does mean that an evaluation should follow assistance beyond its referral label. If a service is unavailable, the unfinished need should remain visible rather than disappearing when the first organization closes its task.
The institutions are parallel routes, not a single queue
The legal explanation and basic policy distinguish police responses to danger, consultation and protection-related support, court protection orders, and assistance with housing or employment. A person does not necessarily move through all institutions in that order; necessary work can proceed in parallel.
Wishes, risk conditions and safe contact
| Institution | Distinct role |
|---|---|
| Police | Responding to danger / investigating offences |
| Support centers, etc. | Consultation, protection-related help and coordination |
| Court | Protection orders on application |
| Welfare / housing / employment support | Conditions for maintaining life after immediate protection |
Simplified roles, not a mandatory sequence for everyone. Sharing and contact require attention to safety, wishes and legal conditions.
Sources / editorial arrangement: Cabinet Office, legal explanation
The basic policy discusses combining procedures and accompaniment. Even when using a common form, it calls for limiting entries to basic matters needed by the relevant procedures, with appropriate information management. Reducing repeated explanation and restricting shared information belong in the same design.
A useful handoff record could identify the requested action, receiving institution and agreed safe contact method, rather than merely the sending date. This is a proposed evaluation approach, not a finding that those records are collected nationally.
Non-response should not immediately be recorded as rejection of help: a person may have changed contact arrangements for safety. Equally, extra contact may increase exposure. Wishes and safe-contact conditions should precede a target for administrative processing speed.
Support for an order application may still leave housing or living-cost needs unresolved. Separating urgent action from sustaining daily life can show completed work and continuing needs without treating closure of a consultation as the end of assistance.
Questions that remain
Examine assistance and continuing responsibility after referral while preserving safe contact conditions.
Higher consultation counts invite examination of access to support, but do not show whether necessary protection or practical assistance subsequently arrived. Combining them with cases cleared for protection-order violations does not create a linked record of individuals or a protection success rate.
Following outcomes also involves a tension. Information sharing may reduce repeated explanations, while additional recipients and contact routes add conditions that must be managed. Failed contact does not establish whether support stopped or someone changed communication methods for safety. Evaluation should prioritize the person's wishes and safe contact conditions over filling gaps in a record.
A proposed review of coordination could distinguish the requested response, receiving organization, assistance that could be confirmed and continuing needs. Emergency protection, housing and living-cost assistance should be considered as potentially parallel activities. Public aggregation would need to consider identification risks, while unobserved outcomes should not automatically count as failure or refusal. These are evaluation proposals, not evidence that such tracking exists nationwide. Once one organization closes its intake, who remains responsible for assistance the person still needs, and can that responsibility be confirmed without creating further risk?
Sources
令和7年におけるストーカー事案、配偶者からの暴力事案等への対応状況 — 警察庁 (2026)
配偶者暴力防止法 — 内閣府男女共同参画局 (2026)
配偶者からの暴力の防止及び被害者の保護等のための施策に関する基本的な方針 — 内閣府等 (2023)
For methods, see the public-data literacy guide（このサイトの記事）.
Further reading
Statistics cited in this article
- 1警察庁（2025） Open source
Questions to Reflect On
- Can reporting distinguish consultations received from assistance actually accessed, while protecting privacy and safe contact?
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