Coercive control
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Key findings
The work of survivor-advocates and researchers has led to a growing public awareness in recent years of coercive control in the context of family and intimate partner relationships. Historically, family and domestic violence (FDV) was understood as physical and/or sexual violence, with a focus on single or episodic acts of violence. It is now seen to cover a wider range of behaviours and harms, including emotional abuse, harassment, stalking and controlling behaviours. Coercive control can be understood as a commonly occurring foundation for family and domestic violence (ANROWS 2021; Boxall et al. 2020; Hardesty et al. 2015).
The National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032 recognises coercive control as a key area of focus for addressing gender-based violence in Australia. However, widespread national reporting on coercive control is currently limited and this has been highlighted as a critical information gap (Standing Committee for Social Policy and Legal Affairs 2021).
This page discusses what is currently known about coercive control, the work being done to identify and respond to it, and how it is discussed in the AIHW FDSV reporting. While the AIHW’s FDSV reporting focuses on national quantitative data, some contributions from people with lived experience are included on this page to deepen our understanding of coercive control.
What is coercive control?
Coercive control is often defined as a pattern of controlling behaviour, used by a perpetrator to establish and maintain control over another person. Coercive control is almost always an underlying dynamic of family and domestic violence and intimate partner violence. Perpetrators use coercive control to deprive another person of liberty, autonomy and agency (Cortis and Bullen 2015; ANROWS 2021).
What does coercive control mean to you?
'It’s a pattern of behaviour by an abuser to control their partner/family member and create an uneven power dynamic in the abuser’s favour.'
Sanda
While some of the behaviours that contribute to coercive control can be considered acts of violence themselves – and may be recognisable as emotional abuse, harassment, financial abuse, stalking or technology-facilitated abuse – it is important to see coercive control as the overall pattern within a relationship that is ongoing, repetitive and cumulative in nature (ANROWS 2021).
What did coercive control look like for you?
'My lived experience of coercive control involved isolation from family and friends, gaslighting, name-calling, financial control, restricted autonomy, jealousy and threats of violence for non-capitulation. These behaviours resulted in psychological harm, and escalation from threats of violence into inflicting actual violence as he wanted to enhance the threat’s credibility.'
Sanda
'At the beginning of my abusive relationship, my partner put me on a pedestal and treated me like a queen – gifts, flowers; spoilt my son with gifts and treats. She took us on holidays, and we spent all our time together. After 3 months she moved into my home and slowly but surely started isolating me from my friends and family. She would send me messages when I was out with friends asking me when I would be home, or she would insist on coming everywhere with me because she “didn’t want to be without me”. As time went on, she had convinced me what I was experiencing was all in my head. She would lie to me all the time but had me convinced I was delusional. She told me if I went to the police, they would put me into a psychiatric institution and I would lose my son, our home and my family and friends.'
Martina
'I wasn’t allowed to make any decisions without him. My texts were read, he answered my emails. He was in the background telling me what to say on any phone calls. I was not allowed to go to the doctors because he said there was nothing wrong with me. It was a living hell.'
Maggie
Coercive control is not defined by specific incidents
Coercive control is not measured by specific incidents. Perpetrators can use many different types of abusive behaviour to exert power and dominance, and can integrate coercive controlling behaviours into everyday life as a means to manipulate others.
Physical and/or sexual violence do not need to be present for coercive control to occur, or for it to have harmful or traumatic consequences. Coercive control can involve subtle or covert behaviours that would be perceived as innocuous to an external observer, but would be experienced as abusive or controlling by the victim–survivor (Boxall and Morgan 2021). The effects of coercive control are pervasive, and cumulative rather than incident-specific.
What do people get wrong about coercive control?
'Because coercive control doesn’t leave bruises, the seriousness of it continues to be minimised. Our society still prioritises physical and sexual violence. This is despite research into physical and sexual violence identifying that it is psychological harm that is the hardest and takes the longest to recover from. It’s like we’re screaming into a void.'
Lily
Coercive control can also involve, or occur alongside, behaviours and harms commonly referred to as technology-facilitated abuse (TFA). TFA can take the form of stalking, surveillance, tracking, threats, harassment and the non-consensual sharing of intimate images. Perpetrators may misuse devices, accounts, software or platforms to control, abuse and track victim-survivors. In intimate relationships, TFA can enable violence to occur or continue. The overlap between TFA and intimate partner violence is discussed further in Intimate partner violence.
What do we know?
Given the complex nature of coercive control – the way it occurs repeatedly, subtly and sometimes over a long period of time – it can be difficult to measure the prevalence precisely. Coercive control can be experienced by anyone, but is entrenched in gender inequality, and predominantly perpetrated by men towards women (Buzawa et al 2017; ANROWS 2021). A growing body of international research highlights some of the key challenges with measuring coercive control (Box 1).
The measurement of coercive control currently relies on using survey instruments that capture non-physical forms of violent or controlling behaviour. While these survey data have limitations, they can be used to show the differences between prevalence rates for FDV when a broader range of behaviours – some of which may be used by a perpetrator to inflict coercive control – are taken into account or not.
National Violence Against Women Survey (United States)
In the United States, a study by Johnson et al. (2014) used data from the 1995–96 National Violence Against Women Survey to look at coercive control between previous partners. The aim of the study was to overcome the limitations of measuring coercive control between current partners, which may be underestimated because people are less likely to participate in surveys or disclose certain behaviours when they are currently experiencing coercive control. The survey was administered to a national random sample of 8,005 men and 8,000 women aged 18 years or older, and the Coercive Control Scale was constructed from a subset of twelve survey items that dealt with non-violent control tactics used by the respondent’s partner. The 12 items asked if the respondent’s partner:
- has a hard time seeing things from your point of view
- is jealous or possessive
- tries to provoke arguments
- tries to limit your contact with family and friends
- insists on knowing who you are with at all times
- calls you names or puts you down in front of others
- makes you feel inadequate
- shouts or swears at you
- frightens you
- prevents you from knowing about or having access to the family income even when you ask
- prevents you from working outside the home
- insists on changing residences even when you don’t need or want to (Johnson et al. 2014).
The study found that abusive relationships involving coercive control involve a wider variety of acts of violence, more frequent acts of violence, and more injuries and psychological distress compared with abusive relationships with isolated situational (or incident-based) violence (Johnson et al 2014).
Crime Survey for England and Wales
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) is an annual, representative victimisation survey of people aged 16 years and over in England and Wales. The survey interviews 46,000 people in a rolling annual program, and asks about crime victimisation in the 12 months prior to the interview. A study conducted in 2015 re-analysed the CSEW data to provide a measure of severity and typology of coercive controlling violence by intimate partners.
Respondents were characterised as having experienced coercive control if they said their partner had both:
- ‘Repeatedly belittled [you] to the extent that [you] felt worthless’ and
- ‘Frightened [you], by threatening to hurt [you] or someone close to [you]’.
These measures reflected that the abuse was ongoing, denigrating, perceived as threatening, and had caused a degree of fear (Stark and Hester 2019). By contrast, all other respondents who reported physical violence or acts of emotional or psychological abuse from an intimate partner were classified as only having experienced situational violence. The study found that abusive relationships involving coercive control had more severe and more frequent physical violence, that was more likely to persist over time, than those involving situational violence (Myhill 2015).
What national data are available to report on coercive control?
Data on coercive control in Australia are limited. Some existing data sources are available to report on specific (non-physical) harmful behaviours noting the limitations in using survey data to generate robust estimates for the prevalence of coercive control.
- ABS Personal Safety Survey
- ABS Recorded Crime – Victims
- Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network (ADFVDRN)
For more information about these data sources, please see Data sources and technical notes.
What do the data show?
Survey data available to date only show the prevalence of specific harmful behaviours, some of which may be used in the context of coercive control. The survey instruments used to collect these data are incident-based, so they are unable to capture the ongoing nature of, and more subtle forms of, coercive control in everyday life. Further, given the way coercive control can restrict a person’s autonomy and deny their personhood, self-reports of controlling behaviour are likely to underestimate true prevalence. The data presented in the following section should be interpreted alongside data about violence, abuse and harassment, and stories from people with lived experience.
Emotional abuse, economic abuse and coercive control
The 2021–22 PSS collects data about emotional abuse and economic abuse by current or previous partners. Partners are those that the respondent lives with, or has lived with at some stage. For a full list of behaviours that are considered economic abuse or emotional abuse, see Intimate partner violence.
Women are more likely than men to have experienced economic abuse and emotional abuse
Data from the 2021–22 PSS show that:
- 23% (2.3 million) of women and 14% (1.3 million) of men have experienced emotional abuse by a current or previous partner
- 16% (1.6 million) of women and 7.8% (745,000) of men have experienced economic abuse from a current or previous partner.
Emotional or economic abuse are characterised in nature by their intent to manipulate, control, isolate or intimidate the person they are aimed at, and are generally repeated (ABS 2023). They are also commonly used to control another person’s behaviour and cause them emotional harm or fear. These data cannot be used to show the prevalence of coercive control, but they can be used to raise awareness of non-physical forms of abuse and lead to greater recognition of harm.
How do physical and sexual violence overlap with other forms of abuse?
Based on the 2021–22 PSS, 1 in 5 (21% or 4.2 million) people aged 18 years and over have experienced violence, emotional abuse or economic abuse by a partner since the age of 15. The prevalence of violence and abuse by partners was higher for women than men:
- 27% (2.7 million) of women aged 18 years and over have experienced violence or emotional/economic abuse by a partner.
- 15% (1.5 million) of men have experienced violence or emotional/economic abuse by a partner (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Prevalence of partner violence, emotional abuse, and economic abuse since the age of 15, 2021–22
Type of abuse | Females | Males |
---|---|---|
Partner violence | 16.9% | 5.5% |
Partner emotional abuse | 22.9% | 13.8% |
Partner economic abuse | 16.3% | 7.8% |
Note:
- Components are not able to be added together to produce a total. Where a person has experienced more than one type of violence or abuse, they are counted separately for each type they experienced.
For more information, see Data sources and technical notes.
Source:
ABS PSS 2021–22
|
Data source overview
Emotional abuse often occurs repeatedly and as a range of behaviours during the course of a relationship. These may fluctuate over time and can be made worse by factors that affect the dynamic within a relationship or household (Box 2).
Between February and April 2021, the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) surveyed 10,000 women in Australia about their experiences of intimate partner violence since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample was limited to partnered women – that is, women who had been in a relationship at some point in the 12 months prior to completing the survey. The survey also used non-probability sampling and was conducted online (Boxall and Morgan 2021). This means that not everyone had an equal likelihood of being selected to participate in the research and results are specific to the women who participated in the survey and cannot be generalised to the wider population.
The survey asked women about their experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) in the last 12 months, including physical violence, sexual violence and emotionally abusive, harassing and controlling behaviour. The presence of coercive control was measured in 2 ways:
- the co-occurrence of different categories of non-physical abusive behaviours
- the co-occurrence of physical or sexual violence and non-physical forms of abuse (Boxall and Morgan 2021).
By looking specifically at the co-occurrence of non-physical abusive behaviours, the survey recognised that IPV can include patterns of ongoing violence and abuse, particularly in the context of coercive control.
More information about the study can be found at The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on experiences of intimate partner violence among Australian women.
Multiple forms of non-physical abuse were common among survey respondents during the COVID-19 pandemic
Data from the 2021 AIC survey summarised in Box 2 show that:
- 2 in 5 (42%) surveyed women who experienced any non-physical violence in the 12 months prior to the survey only experienced one category of abuse. The most common form of abuse experienced by women in this group was financial abuse (35%) followed by verbally abusive and threatening behaviours (27%).
- 3 in 5 respondents experienced more than one category of non-physical abuse (22% experienced two categories of abuse, 16% experienced three; 14% experienced four; and 6.1% experienced five (Boxall and Morgan 2021).
For more information about experiences of intimate partner violence during the COVID-19 pandemic, see FDSV and COVID-19.
What are the responses to coercive control?
Existing survey data indicate that non-physical forms of abuse are commonly and repeatedly used in abusive relationships, and often multiple forms are combined to inflict harm. It is not clear whether strategies designed to respond to physical and/or sexual forms of FDSV, can identify the presence of controlling behaviours or intervene to prevent these behaviours from recurring (Morgan et al. 2020).
Support services
Specialist services for victim-survivors of FDSV often use screening or risk assessment tools to identify and respond to FDSV. These tools are generally designed to gather information to determine the level of risk, as well as the likelihood and severity of future violence (Toivonen and Backhouse 2018). The National Risk Assessment Principles for domestic and family violence, developed by ANROWS in 2018 (see Toivonen and Backhouse 2018), emphasise the importance of including coercive control in all assessments of family and domestic violence risk. While most states and territories adopt common risk assessment tools, and these tools often involve the assessment of risk from coercive control and non-physical forms of violence, no national risk assessment data are available. Data from specialist FDSV services is currently a national information gap. For more information, see Key information gaps and development activities.
Identification of coercive control in other service settings, particularly in mainstream health and welfare services, may involve a number of challenges. Screening processes do not always take place, and when they do – in settings such as health services – they may rely on the identification of physical and/or sexual violence, which can overlook coercive control. Further, people experiencing coercive control may not be inclined to report it, or may face barriers to accessing services due to the micro-regulation of their lives by their perpetrators (ANROWS 2021; Boxall and Morgan 2021).
Research has also shown that it is possible for the services and systems to be manipulated by perpetrators of FDSV to threaten, harass, and assert power and control over people (systems abuse).
More information about legal systems abuse can be found in Legal systems.
Criminalising coercive control
All states and territories have laws that respond to family and domestic violence. Recent discussion about ways to respond to coercive control has centred on the introduction of a specific criminal offence of coercive and controlling behaviour (Standing Committee for Social Policy and Legal Affairs 2021). There are wide ranging views about criminalising coercive control and a lack of consensus within the sector and broader community. Evidence on the success of criminal justice approaches to tackling coercive control is limited, both in Australia and internationally (Box 3) (ANROWS 2021).
In most Australian states and territories family and domestic violence is not a direct offence. Rather, FDV is recorded using existing criminal offences, such as assault, indecent assault, rape, sexual assault, attempted murder, stalking or intent to do grievous bodily harm. Criminalising coercive control would involve moving from an incident-based approach to an approach that criminalises ongoing abusive behaviour (ANROWS 2021).
Law reforms across Australia
- In New South Wales, the Joint Select Committee on Coercive Control was established in 2020 to inquire into and report on coercive control in domestic relationships. In November 2022, the NSW Parliament passed the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Coercive Control) Act 2022. From July 2024, coercive control will be a criminal offence in NSW when a person uses abusive behaviours towards a current or former intimate partner with the intention to coerce or control them. For more information see Coercive control and the law.
- In Queensland, the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce was established in March 2021 to examine coercive control, and review both the need for a specific offence of ‘domestic violence’ and the experience of women across the criminal justice system. In March 2024, the Queensland Parliament passed the Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023. Once commenced, coercive control towards a current or former intimate partner will be a criminal offence in Queensland
- In Western Australia, the Government has announced they will be taking a phased approach to the criminalisation of coercive control, commencing with legislative and systemic reform, and education and training, before a standalone offence for coercive control is introduced. Immediate reforms being introduced include amending the Restraining Orders Act 1997 to better reflect the patterned nature of coercive control and improving the application process for family violence restraining orders.
- In South Australia, the Government has drafted and consulted on the Criminal Law Consolidation (Coercive Control) Amendment Bill 2023, which creates a new criminal offence of coercive control. For more information see Coercive control in South Australia.
- In Tasmania, the Family Violence Act 2004 was passed in 2004 by the Tasmanian parliament and commenced in 2005 introducing 2 criminal offences for some coercive controlling behaviours – economic abuse (s 8) and emotional abuse (s 9). For more information, see Non-physical Violence.
International examples
- In United Kingdom, the Serious Crimes Act 2015 introduced a new offence of ‘controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship’.
- In the Republic of Ireland, an offence to respond to coercive control was introduced to the Domestic Violence Act 2018. The Irish definition of coercive control closely resembles the English and Welsh and commenced in January 2019.
- In Scotland, legislation to address coercive control was added to the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018. While it does not directly mention the words ‘coercive control’, the Domestic Abuse Act 2018 (Scotland) recognises the gendered pattern of abuse, and non-physical abuse.
For a summary of the measures in each jurisdiction, see ANROWS (2021).
More work is needed to understand the effectiveness of criminalisation, and other responses, to coercive control, including unintended consequences (ANROWS 2021).
National Principles to Address Coercive Control
The Australian Government has collaborated with all state and territory governments to develop the National Principles to Address Coercive Control in Family and Domestic Violence (the National Principles). The National Principles create a shared national understanding of coercive control, which is important for improving the safety of Australians, particularly women and children.
The Standing Council of Attorneys-General released the National Principles in 2023. The 7 National Principles focus on:
- a shared understanding of the common features of coercive control
- understanding the traumatic and pervasive impacts of coercive control
- taking an intersectional approach to understanding features and impacts
- improving societal understanding of coercive control
- embedding lived experience
- coordinating and designing approaches across prevention, early intervention, response, and recovery and healing
- embedding the National Principles in legal responses to coercive control.
The National Principles are designed to be used by government and non-government organisations involved in addressing coercive control.
For more information, see National Principles to Address Coercive Control in Family and Domestic Violence.
What is the impact of coercive control?
Coercive control diminishes a person’s liberty and can have devastating impacts on a person’s perception, personality, sense of self, sense of worth, autonomy and feeling of security (ANROWS 2021).
What does coercive control look like over time?
'Coercive control is particularly insidious as it’s done slowly over years. All the qualities the perpetrator found so attractive in the beginning are used as weapons against you. Over time, due to the constant emotional abuse, you start questioning your own sanity. Your independence – physically, emotionally, financially, religiously, sexually, verbally, and psychologically – is slowly eroded.'
Maggie
Coercive control can also be a risk factor for homicide, even in relationships without a history of physical violence.
Many female homicide victims had experienced a history of abuse
The Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network reports on deaths that occur in an FDV context, including information on the history of abuse, and characteristics of offenders and victims.
Between 1 July 2010 and 30 June 2018, there were 311 IPV homicides across Australia. Over 3 in 4 (77% or 240) cases involved a male killing a current or former female partner, with the vast majority (95% or 212) of those male offenders identified as primary abusers of the woman they killed.
For more information about FDV-related homicides, see Domestic homicide.
Non-physical forms of violence were common in these relationships
Of the 212 male primary domestic violence abusers who killed their current or former female partner:
- 82% (173) exhibited emotionally and psychologically abusive behaviours against the female partners they killed – behaviours employed to frighten, belittle, humiliate, unsettle and undermine a victim’s sense of self-worth.
- 63% (134) had perpetrated social abuse, which involves isolating the victim from support networks and controlling her movements.
- 42% (88) had stalked the woman they killed.
- 27% (58) used economically or financially abusive tactics to diminish the victim’s ability to support themselves and force them to depend on the abuser financially (ADFVDRN 2022).
These findings highlight the need for services and first responders to recognise the pattern of coercive and controlling behaviours that can be precursors to homicide.
For detailed findings from the ADFVRN, see Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network national data update.
Is coercive control the same for everyone?
No 2 people’s experience of coercive control is the same, and the harmful behaviours inflicted by perpetrators can be experienced differently across population groups, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, LGBTIQA+ people, refugee and migrant women, people with disability and younger women.
Additional research and improved data are required to address the information gaps. Expertise from people with lived experience is critical for informing our current understanding and for building the evidence base.
For more general information about data gaps, and work being done to address these gaps, please see Key information gaps and development activities.
ABS (Australian Bureau of Statistics) (2023) Personal Safety, Australia, ABS website, accessed 6 April 2023.
ANROWS (Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety) (2021) ‘Defining and responding to coercive control: Policy brief’, ANROWS Insights, 01/2021, accessed 12 October 2022.
ADFVRN (Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network) and ANROWS (2022) Australian Domestic and Family Violence Death Review Network data report: Intimate partner violence homicides 2010–2018, accessed 12 October 2022.
Boxall H and Morgan A (2021) ‘Experiences of coercive control among Australian women’, Statistical Bulletin, 30, accessed 30 August 2022
Boxall H, Morgan A and Brown R (2020) ‘The prevalence of domestic violence among women during the COVID-19 pandemic’, Statistical Bulletin, 28, date accessed 12 October 2022.
Buzawa ES, Buzawa CG and Stark E (2017) Responding to domestic violence: The integration of criminal justice and human services (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE publications.
Cortis N and Bullen J (2015) ‘Building effective policies and services to promote women’s economic security following domestic violence: State of knowledge paper’ (ANROWS Landscapes, 08/2015). Sydney: ANROWS.
Hardesty JL, Crossman KA, Haselschwerdt ML, Raffaelli M, Ogolsky BG and Johnson MP (2015) ‘Toward a standard approach to operationalizing coercive control and classifying violence types’, Journal of Marriage and Family, 77(4):833–843.
Hester M, Jones C, Williamson E, Fahmy E and Feder G (2017) Is it coercive controlling violence? A cross-sectional domestic violence and abuse survey of men attending general practice in England. Psychology of Violence, 7(3):417–427.
Johnson MP, Leone JM and Xu Y (2014) ‘Intimate terrorism and situational couple violence in general surveys: Ex-spouses required’, Violence Against Women, 20(2):186–207.
Myhill A (2015) ‘Measuring coercive control: What can we learn from national population surveys?’ Violence against women, 21(3):355-375.
Standing Committee for Social Policy and Legal Affairs (2021) Inquiry into family, domestic and sexual violence, date accessed 12 October 2022.
Stark E and Hester M (2019) ‘Coercive Control: Update and Review. Violence Against Women’, 25(1), 81–104.
Toivonen, C and Backhouse, C (2018). ‘National risk assessment principles for domestic and family violence’. ANROWS Insights, 07/2018 , accessed 12 October 2022.
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