Coercive Control: Patterns in Crimes, Arrests and Outcomes for a New Domestic Abuse Offence

Abstract

Critics of the criminalization of coercive control warned that the criminal justice system was ill-prepared for a conceptualization of domestic abuse that relies on victim accounts of fear and manipulation rather than on evidence of violence. Using data obtained through Freedom of Information requests to police forces and aggregated police records, this paper presents police force-level and nationwide patterns in recorded crimes, police arrests and crime outcomes for this new crime and shows that, nationally, the number of recorded crimes and arrests rose steadily in its first three years, but there was significant variation in these patterns between police forces. Analysing police outcomes, we demonstrate that coercive control crimes face greater procedural challenges and are far less likely to result in prosecution than domestic abuse crimes in general. We discuss the implications of these trends and findings for the policing and criminalization of coercive control.

The Use of Chemical Control Within Coercive Controlling Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse

“…Coercive controlling abuse can be more devastating and salient to victims than physical violence ( Stark, 2012 ) yet coercive control crimes remain far less likely to be prosecuted than domestic abuse crimes in general ( Brennan & Myhill, 2022 ). Using chemical control in the ways illustrated in this paper can mean that perpetrators do not necessarily need to use physical violence to coerce and control the victim, which would be more likely to bring them to the attention of the authorities.…”

“…To date, research suggests criminal justice professionals may still be missing key opportunities for identifying patterned abuse and that the coercive control offence is not being used to its full potential ( Barlow et al, 2020 ; Brennan & Myhill, 2022 ). A qualitative review of 18 cases prosecuted under s.76 found that the law on coercive control was being correctly applied to historical patterns of abuse that included multiple elements of coercion and control; that prosecutors were tapping repetitive physical and sexual abuse to show the “serious effect” required by the law; and that the vast majority of convicted offenders have received significant time in prison, up to a maximum of 6.6 years ( Stark and Hester (2019) .…”

“…While the number arrested under the offence is increasing, by 2019 fewer than 700 cases had been prosecuted under s.76 in England since its inception. Brennan and Myhill (2022) , in a wider analysis of coercive control cases being processed by the criminal justice system in England and Wales by 2019, suggest that despite increases in reporting and arrests by the police the prosecution of such cases was even fewer than for domestic abuse crimes in general.…”