Met's V100 cuts VAWG harm by half, study finds
Independent research has found that the Metropolitan Police Service’s V100 programme has reduced harmful offending by London’s most dangerous perpetrators of violence against women and girls (VAWG) by more than half.
The study, conducted by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, examined the impact of the V100 programme on more than 25,000 offenders over nearly two years.
It found that those targeted under the scheme committed 54 per cent less overall harmful offending and 53 per cent less violent offending than predicted rates. After six months, offenders showed a 50 per cent reduction in overall offending and a 44 per cent reduction in violent offending compared to projected levels.
Launched in 2023, V100 uses crime report data to identify the 100 individuals causing the most harm to women and girls in London each month, screening around 60,000 people through the system monthly. Officers then select tactics aimed at disrupting offending or removing individuals from the streets, including pursuing other offences, theft, assault and similar, as a faster route to custody where VAWG charges are harder to secure.
The research found that the top 10 per cent of offenders identified through the programme caused more total harm than the remaining 90 per cent combined.
The Met secured its 200th V100 conviction in April, with sentences totalling more than 676 years, alongside 157 court orders including Domestic Violence Prevention Orders, Sexual Harm Prevention Orders and Stalking Protection Orders.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ben Russell, who leads the programme, said the findings confirmed what frontline officers had long suspected, adding that V100 relies on the bravery of victim-survivors and the dedication of officers building strong cases.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said the programme had been made possible by record City Hall funding, alongside a £277 million investment in victim and survivor support and a new £6 million fund targeting tech-enabled abuse.