Seeing What is ‘Invisible in Plain Sight’: Policing Coercive Control
| Author | CASSANDRA WIENER |
| Published date | 01 December 2017 |
| Date | 01 December 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12227 |
The Howard Journal Vol56 No 4. December 2017 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12227
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 500–515
Seeing What is ‘Invisible in Plain
Sight’: Policing Coercive Control
CASSANDRA WIENER
Doctoral Researcher, School of Law, Politics and Sociology, University
of Sussex
Abstract: Coercive control has emerged as a key focus for researchers and activists
working in the field of intimate partner abuse. In England and Wales, the issue has
taken on a new urgency. On 29 December 2015, s. 76, Serious Crime Act made ‘coercive
or controlling behaviour’ a criminal offence. Implementation of the new offence has been
slow. The analysis of data generated by empirical work with police and survivors suggests
that police need to understand a working model of coercive control in order to adopt what
could be a transformative approach to policing intimate partner abuse.
Keywords: coercive control; domestic abuse; intimate partner abuse; police;
s. 76, Serious Crime Act 2015
Michael P. Johnson observed in 1995 that the argument between compet-
ing schools of research on the fundamental issue of the nature of intimate
partner abuse could be resolved in a novel way. A group of predominantly
feminist scholars and activists (referred to for these purposes as the ‘fem-
inist school’) describe abuse that is perpetrated almost entirely by men
against a backdrop of an imbalance of power and control (Dobash and
Dobash 1979; Dobash and Dobash 2004; Stark 2007, 2009). The ‘family
violence’ school, by contrast, measures abuse that is part of what they frame
as ‘conflict’ within families, and is perpetrated by women as much as by
men (Straus 1979; Straus and Gelles 1990). Both, according to Johnson
(1995), are ‘right’. They both measure ‘real’ phenomena. Crucially, they
measure different phenomena.
Johnson introduced typologies that clarify the findings from the differ-
ent research perspectives. ‘Situational couple violence’ is the gender neu-
tral ‘conflict’ measured by family violence researchers. ‘Intimate terrorism’,
on the other hand, refers to the phenomenon articulated by the feminist
school which is qualitatively and quantitatively different. It is highly gen-
dered, and embedded in a pattern of power and control. Johnson’s key
insight is that ‘in order to understand the nature of an individual’s use
of violence in an intimate relationship, you have to understand its role in
500
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2017 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The Howard Journal Vol56 No 4. December 2017
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 500–515
the general control dynamics of that relationship’ (Johnson 1995, p.5). In
other words, at the heart of the distinction between the feminist school’s
and the family violence researchers’ descriptions of intimate partner abuse
is the presence or absence of what Evan Stark has labelled ‘coercive control’
(Stark 2007, 2009).
Johnson’s recognition of different typologies of intimate partner abuse
is becoming accepted on both sides of the Atlantic (Myhill 2015; Myhill
and Hohl 2016). Perhaps partly as a result, recognition of the significance
and ubiquity of coercive control is no longer confined to a school of femi-
nist researchers and activists. Instead, local and central governments and
even, in Britain, the world’s longest running radio soap opera, are engag-
ing with coercive control as a difficult (and dangerous) social problem.1In
England and Wales, a successful campaign run by a coalition of women’s
groups2resulted in legislation that made coercive control a criminal
offence.
S. 76 of the Serious Crime Act (‘s. 76’) came into force in England and
Wales on 29 December 2015. The provision makes ‘coercive or control-
ling behaviour’ that has a ‘serious effect’ on the victim a criminal offence,
punishable by up to five years in prison. ‘Serious effect’ can be shown in
one of two ways: either that the victim has been made to feel, on at least
two occasions, that violence will be used against her; or, that the behaviour
has caused her alarm and distress such that it has had an impact on her
day-to-day activities. This ‘serious effect’ construct is modelled on existing
anti-harassment legislation with which police are familiar.‘Coercive or con-
trolling behaviour’, on the other hand, is an entirely new criminal justice
concept which is not defined by the Act.
Implementation of s. 76 has been slow. The most recent Criminal Justice
Statistics Bulletin recorded 59 convictions for controlling or coercive be-
haviour in the twelve months to December 2016 (National Statistics 2016).
By way of contrast, the annual Crime Prosecution Service (2016) Violence
Against Women and Girls Crime Report recorded 75,000 successful intimate
partner abuse prosecutions over a twelve-month period. The small number
of early successful prosecutions for coercive control, in the context of what
is now understood about its ubiquity and its significance, is disappointing.
S. 76 has the potential to change the way that criminal justice agencies
deal with intimate partner abuse for the better. As is explored in more
detail below, it is likely that a focus on coercive control could assist police
to make more informed decisions about risk, helping them to keep victims
safe. An understanding of the impact of coercive control on its victims
could also help police safeguarding teams better understand the challenges
that survivors face as they try to engage with the criminal justice process.
Further down the line, s. 76 allows the critical notion of coercion into
the courtroom and thus encourages survivors to reframe their stories of
abuse in a way that more accurately portrays both the wrong of the abuse
and the harms that they have experienced as a result (Burke 2006; Stark
2007; Tuerkheimer2003). This could, in turn, allow for less attrition in the
form of more successful prosecutions, and more appropriate sentencing in
intimate partner abuse cases (Hester 2006).
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2017 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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