The government delegate in Navarre, Alicia Echeverría, presented this morning the new model of police response to gender violence. It was accompanied by Estrella Lamadrid, director of the Coordination Unit against Violence against Women; Jesús González García, chief inspector of the provincial judicial police brigade and head of the UFAM, the Family and Minor Unit of the National Police; and Sub-lieutenant Óscar Silva, head of the EMUME, the Woman-Minor Team of the Civil Guard in Navarre.
The new model is based on two instruments: the VioGén 2 System, a newly designed digital platform that incorporates the most advanced technology in the field, and Protocol 2025, which brings together and updates all the innovations introduced by the successive instructions issued by the Secretary of State for Security since 2018.
The Ministry of the Interior created and launched the System of Comprehensive Monitoring of Cases of Gender Violence in July 2007, and provided it with a set of innovative technological tools to practice and manage risk assessments of women victims, as well as the necessary functionalities to carry out the monitoring of each case and the implementation of security and police protection measures in accordance with the resulting levels of risk.
Throughout this time, the VioGén System has been modified on numerous occasions to improve its operation and results, but in 2023 those responsible for the Gender Violence Area of the Secretary of State for Security concluded that the computer platform did not allow any more modifications and chose to design a new one, which has been tested for seven months in different National Police stations and Civil Guard headquarters.
The new VioGén 2 System incorporates technical and functional improvements at different levels that increase practical management, improve collaboration channels with other institutions and interconnect databases related to the fight against gender violence. Among these novelties, the following stand out:
• Incorporates new indicators in the risk assessment forms and a better calibration of the algorithms that determine these levels, which reduces the risk of error in the assessment made.
• Improves interconnection and interoperability and increases databases and other police applications that feed information into the system. VioGen 2 now integrates the following databases:
o National Signals Database (BDSN)
o Police Complaints System (SIDENPOL)
o Integrated Civil Guard Operational Management, Analysis and Citizen Security System (SIGO)
o Prison Computer System (SIP)
o Penitentiary Social Information System (SISPE)
o Judicial System (SIRAJ)
o Integrated Victim Care System (SIAV) of Catalonia
o Basque Country Women's Protection System (EBA)
o COMETA telematic tracking system
o Telephone Care and Protection Service for Victims of Violence against Women (ATEMPRO)
or ALERTCOPS
o National Office against Sexual Violence (ONVIOS)
• Improves the system’s responsiveness to new evolutionary, corrective or adaptive needs that may arise in the future, being designed to facilitate the incorporation of new software and applications.
• Improves the system’s ability to adapt and respond to the growth of users of the system and increases the speed of interconnection between them and the institutions operating on the platform.
• Increases system security and reduces the risk of security breaches.
• Provides advanced management of automated notifications, allowing users and institutions operating in the system to receive immediate information on new developments in open cases.
Protocol 2025
The operation of VioGén 2 is inseparable from the new Protocol for the Assessment and Police Management of the Level of Risk of Gender Violence and Follow-up of Cases through the VioGén 2 System (Protocol 2025), approved by the Secretary of State for Security to integrate, consolidate and update all the regulations and instructions issued in the matter since 2018.
Protocol 2025 addresses issues that affect the daily work of police units in the specific treatment of certain cases of gender violence, for which it classifies and structures both the mandatory police protection measures according to each level of risk and the elaboration of the Personalized Security Protection Plan.
The main innovations introduced in Protocol 2025 are:
• Defines specific guidelines for the correct creation, updating and management of cases of gender violence in the VioGén-2 System by personnel and police units, aligned with the standards established by the regulations on the protection of personal data, given that many of the data processed belong to special categories that require strict compliance with the principles of confidentiality and security.
• The ‘Unappreciated’ level of risk disappears, so cases are distributed into four levels of risk: ‘Low’, ‘Medium’, ‘High’ and ‘Extreme’.
o The ‘Low’ level is subclassified, for risk management purposes, into two levels by virtue of the existence or not of judicial measures in force.
• Police risk evolution assessments (VPER) reduce the time for processing after a new report and simplify actions to carry out periodic risk reassessments.
• In those cases identified by the system as being of greater risk to the victim, a longer period will be established for the agent in charge of implementing the protection measures to carry out the systematic reevaluation, in order to avoid a sharp and acute fall in the level of risk and guarantee a more effective protection.
• It specifies the actions of the police units and in particular the specific treatment of cases of gender-based violence of special relevance, with minors, with persistent aggressors or with victims reluctant to police intervention or very vulnerable. In these cases:
o Establishes a more rigorous and efficient monitoring of the protection of victims identified at some point with this qualified risk.
o Includes a specific section on measures of protection against the presence of children living in the home and includes the need to adopt specific strategies.
o Establishes cybersecurity measures in a context where the use of electronic devices and social networks may represent an additional risk.
The figures of Navarre
As of February 7, there are 1,956 active cases in VioGén in the Foral Community, affecting 1,897 victims and 1,912 perpetrators.
Of all these, 29 cases are of high risk, 355 cases are of medium risk, 781 cases are of low risk and 791, of unappreciated risk.
In 1,626 of these cases there is a restraining order in force.
In addition, 1,025 of the active cases are of special relevance, in 319 of the active cases there are minors in a vulnerable situation and in 118 of the cases there are minors at risk.