Portugal Sees Fewer Domestic Violence Arrests Despite Growing Reports

Living in Portugal often feels blissfully safe, yet the latest police data tell a more complex story of what happens behind closed doors. Domestic abuse still prompts dozens of emergency calls every single day, and although arrests dipped in the first half of 2025, authorities insist the fight is far from over. For internationals who may be navigating the Portuguese system for the first time, understanding where the risks, protections and ongoing reforms stand is essential.

Reports Climb While Arrests Recede

After several years of steady growth, the Polícia de Segurança Pública recorded 11,445 domestic-violence complaints between January and June 2025—roughly 63 reports every day. Yet officers detained only 306 suspected aggressors in that period, a sharp drop from 460 in the same months of 2024. Police commanders attribute the decline in custody cases to earlier intervention tools that stabilise situations before they spiral into a crime scene, but victims’ groups warn it may also reveal persistent under-policing of intimate-partner cases. The figures remain provisional, and officials concede an updated tally could still move upward once late investigations are logged.

Two Police Forces, Two Very Different Track Records

Foreign residents often discover that Portugal’s uniformed presence is split: PSP patrols larger towns, while the Guarda Nacional Republicana oversees rural areas. That institutional divide produced contrasting numbers this year. PSP’s 306 arrests were overshadowed by the GNR’s 767 domestic-abuse detentions, lifting the national total to 1,073 suspects taken into custody during the semester. Experts note that the urban-rural disparity is not only about geography; GNR units traditionally work more closely with family-court prosecutors, and their officers are empowered to make immediate rural-house calls where neighbours are scarce and calls for help arrive later.

A New Risk-Meter Arrives in Police Stations

On 1 July, forces nationwide adopted the Risk Assessment Tool for Domestic Violence – Revised (RVD-R), mandated by Portaria 228/2025/1. The four-tier grid—low, medium, high, extreme—incorporates age-specific and elder-abuse indicators, as well as red flags unique to fílio-parental violence. Police now complete the checklist digitally within hours of a report, triggering automatic referrals to shelters or electronic-bracelet orders when risk scores top the ‘high’ threshold. Early trials in Lisbon suggest the software has cut decision time on restraining orders from 72 hours to under 24, an improvement social workers say can be life-saving.

Who Are the Victims and the Suspects?

The semester’s snapshot identified 12,628 victims, of whom 8,456 were women and 4,172 men. Among the 12,391 suspected aggressors, 9,666 were male and 2,725 female. Contrary to common belief that most violence is partner-to-partner, the largest slice of incidents involved a child or step-child attacking a parent (3,734 cases). Current partners accounted for 3,521 complaints, while ex-partners triggered 1,699. Judges imposed 54 pre-trial custody orders, often the toughest preventive measure available under Portuguese law. These numbers rarely make headlines, but consular officers remind expats that male victims and elderly parents increasingly surface in case files, and that Portugal’s justice system prosecutes domestic crime regardless of gender or residency status.

Where Foreign Residents Can Turn for Help

Victims can dial 112 for immediate police response or ring the national hotline 800 202 148, which now offers English-language assistance. The nonprofit APAV maintains multilingual staff on 116 006, and the PSP’s Victim Support Desks (EAPVVD) exist in every district capital. Many embassies also advise registering for the Tele-Assistance panic-button service, activated more than 5,600 times in late 2024 alone. When a court imposes exclusion zones, police fit aggressors with GPS bracelets, the most common use of electronic monitoring in Portugal and one that covers over half of all tagged offenders.

EU Pressure and National Ambitions

Lisbon’s policy timetable is racing to meet the new European Directive on combating violence against women, adopted in 2024. Domestically, the National Strategy for Victims’ Rights (2024-2028) targets better multilingual outreach—a point of keen interest for Portugal’s foreign-born population, now topping 10%. Legislators are also debating mandatory rehabilitation courses for first-time offenders to curb the 16.8% two-year reoffending rate identified by the prison service. Police leaders insist the softer arrest numbers do not indicate complacency; instead, they point to 19.4% more safety plans drafted for victims in the same six-month window. Whether those additional precautions translate into fewer tragedies will become clear only when next year’s statistics roll in, but for now the message to newcomers is unambiguous: help is available, and the system is adapting—use it before violence escalates.