Controlling or Coercive Behaviour to become a crime

A new domestic abuse law reached the statute books earlier this year amidst some controversy.

Although not yet live, Section 76 Serious Crime Act 2015 soon will be, bringing with it a new crime of “controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship”.

Coercive control is far from new. It’s a range of behaviours that fall within domestic abuse and it features all too often in the family courts, especially in disputes about children.

Coercive control often starts out subtle but gradually escalates. This changing nature means the abusive behaviour, and your response to them, become a kind of ‘new normal’.

With that in mind, here’s a summary of typical coercive control behaviours. It’s not a definitive list and if you are concerned about your relationship you should talk it through with specialist support agency. We have included some local and national contact details at the end.

If you are concerned about your relationship you should talk it through with specialist support agency. We have included some local and national contact details at the end.

Recognising coercive control

The college of policing says:

Controlling or coercive behaviour can take a range of forms but often involves micro-managing the victim’s daily life in an identifiable pattern.
In many relationships, there are occasions when one person makes a decision on behalf of another, or when one partner takes control of a situation and the other party has to compromise. The difference in an abusive relationship is that decisions by a dominant partner can become rules that, when broken, lead to consequences for the victim. Abusers can be imaginative in the ways they control their partners and in the consequences to disobeying.
The behaviour is usually personalised; it means something to the victim, even when the meaning is not apparent to anyone else.

The main characteristic of coercive control is that it involves a pattern of continuing and repeated abuse. This abuse often appears routine and so-called low-level but, taken as a whole over time, it can cause the build-up of constant anxiety and fear.

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It can also create an environment in which increasingly harmful conduct is accepted as normal by the victim. It’s sometimes compared to grooming a child. If the level of control is sufficiently high, the victim may actually believe that allegations made against the perpetrator are false.
One way of viewing controlling or coercive behaviour is to see it as a form of bullying in the relationship, with the victim experiencing a generalised sense of fear.

The college gives the following examples:

Constant criticism.
Humiliation.
Jealous or possessive behaviour, e.g. frequent phone calls to check where the victim is and what they are doing, or checking activity on the victim’s phone or social networking accounts.
Controlling family finances and withholding money from the victim.
Isolating the victim by not allowing them to visit friends and family.
Restricting a victim’s movements, e.g. confining them to a room.

Dictating what a victim wears or how they do their hair.

Dictating a victim’s routine or schedule, e.g. timing school runs or shopping trips.
Preventing the victim from working outside the home or monitoring them at work.
Restricting access to communications, e.g. phone or computer.
Manipulating the police, e.g. scene-setting or getting into character before they arrive, reinforcing the victim’s fear that they will not be believed.