Debate contribution: Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Strategic Framework: Update
Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on .
- MLA
- Mrs Naomi Long
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 9 September 2024
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Ending Violence Against Women and Girls Strategic Framework: Update
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4511499
Read the official Assembly record
Text
That is a very important point, and it speaks to a recent conversation that I had not just with prison officers but with police officers about the level of abuse that is shown towards people in public service. It is almost taken as read that that is a norm when it should be the exception and treated seriously. If people are engaged in that kind of behaviour, particularly threats of sexual violence or racial abuse, they should be prosecuted. We have to take a zero tolerance approach in the prisons. The fact that somebody is in prison does not mean they cannot offend in that setting. We need to treat that as seriously as we treat violence against the police and others who provide a public service. One of the sentencing areas that I hope to bring forward in this session is an aggravator model to protect those who deliver a public service or are public servants. I hope that the aggravator model will allow us to reflect in sentencing the seriousness of threatening a prison officer, police officer, member of the fire service, shopworker, bus driver or whoever it might be. Making those threats is very serious, and making threats that would not be acceptable outside those environments to people who are working in the public sector should not be more tolerable; it should be less tolerable. Those threats affect those people's ability to deliver to and for society. The aggravator model will send out a very strong message.
250 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.05 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.93).
- The text criticises or condemns the framing or division (0.70).
- Subject area: Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.04 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.05 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.93 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.05 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing | 0.30 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it (chosen) | 0.70 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.29 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.27 |
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.16 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.15 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.12 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:58 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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