Looking Beyond Domestic Violence: Policing Coercive Control

Abstract

The current policy, legal, and criminal justice response to partner abuse is based on a “violent incident model” that equates abuse with discrete assaults and gauges severity by the degree of injury inflicted or threatened. Although application of this model by police has reduced serious and fatal partner violence, it has not significantly improved the long-term prospects of battered women. This article argues that the limited effectiveness of the criminal justice response stems less from failures in policing than from a large gap that separates the violent incident model guiding the current response from the pattern of coercive control that drives most victims to seek police or other outside assistance. This article identifies the flawed assumptions that underlie the violent incident model, shows why application of this model by law enforcement has failed abused women, describes the pattern of coercive control research shows to be typical of abusive relationships, and outlines how adapting the coercive control model would improve the police response.

KEYWORDS:

• Coercive control
• violence model
• battered women
• entrapment
• micromanagement

Notes

1. In my home state of Connecticut, well over 95% of domestic violence cases are nolled or dismissed. At best, the offending men are referred for counseling. In the neighboring state of Massachusetts, where the law requires a much higher level of violence, only a small proportion of incidents prompt arrest, though the proportions punished is much higher.

2. As part of the Yale Trauma Studies, Dr. Anne Flitcraft and I reviewed the medical records of all rape victims who had used the hospital in the previous year. We found that over a third of the rapes were committed by partners or former partners, and if the rape victim was over 30, the proportion jumped to more than half (Stark & Flitcraft, 1996).