The British legal and political climate has traditionally over-enforced public crime and failed to enforce private crime among spouses and co-habitees. Police have discretion in law enforcement and are reluctant to intervene in domestic violence, even though domestic violence often leads to homicide. Additionally, police often do not report spousal assault as crime, thus skewing statistics on the numbers of women suffering from domestic violence. Reports from women victims themselves indicate that many women suffer domestic assault and are in fear. While recent changes in British criminal justice law and policy would appear to be helpful to battered women, real progress cannot occur until societal perceptions of the role of women are modified, and women are protected by law from violence in their own homes.