What Counts as “Domestic”?: Family Relationships and the Proposed Criminalisation of Domestic Abuse in Scotland

‘Gold Standard' Legislation for Adults Only: Reconceptualising Children as ‘Adjoined Victims' Under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018

“…The restriction of the offence to intimate partner abuse was discussed by the Justice Committee and was justified on three interconnected grounds: the need to maintain consistency with other Scottish law and policy in this area; the benefits of a narrowly framed offence in terms of ensuring focussed and effective police responses and coordination between different agencies; and the fact that there is a very particular and gendered 'dynamic' to abuse that occurs between intimate partners (Scottish Parliament Justice Committee, 2017: 23). Although there is a difficult question over where exactly the line of relationship applicability should have been drawn (see Cairns, 2017), answering this is beyond the scope of this particular article. It is important to acknowledge, however, that recognising children as victims could have problematised the narrative put forward to justify limiting section 1 to partners and ex-partners.…”

The Moorov doctrine and coercive control: Proving a ‘course of behaviour’ under s. 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018

“…Even prior to proposals to create a distinct criminal offence capturing coercive control in Scotland, Scottish policy on tackling Violence Against Women and Girls embraced a gendered understanding of domestic abuse (Burman and Brooks-Hay, 2018: 63–64; Scottish Government, 2018), 88 which, in common with Stark’s work, positions domestic abuse as a cause and consequence of systemic gender inequality and power imbalance. Although the new Scottish offence is technically gender-neutral in terms of to whom it applies (both men and women can be prosecuted under s. 1), the notion that domestic abuse both sustains, and is sustained by, patriarchy and male power influenced the drafting of the legislation (for example, the need to maintain a gendered focus was advanced as the primary justification for limiting the offence to partners and ex-partners) (Cairns, 2017: 266). As Bettinson and Bishop have emphasised, the inextricable link between coercive control and structural gender inequality/normalised male dominance has evidential implications, making it difficult for those ‘involved in evidence-gathering to recognise it, and, at the same time, obscuring and minimising its harmful impact’ (Bettinson and Bishop, 2018: 8).…”

“…This definition is consistent with other Scottish domestic abuse legislation and policy. For analysis see Cairns (2017).…”