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Coercive Control and the implications for policing domestic abuse

Research output: Contribution to conference - Without ISBN/ISSN Conference paper

Published
Publication date6/12/2018
<mark>Original language</mark>English
Event31st Annual Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology conference: ‘ENCOUNTERING CRIME: DOING JUSTICE’ - University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Duration: 4/12/20187/12/2018
Conference number: 31
http://anzsocconference.com.au/2018-anzsoc-home

Conference

Conference31st Annual Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology conference
Abbreviated titleANZSOC 2018
Country/TerritoryAustralia
CityMelbourne
Period4/12/187/12/18
Internet address

Abstract

Coercive and controlling behaviours were criminalised in England and Wales as part of Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015. There has been consequent growing academic interest and critique of coercive control as a legislative concept (Walklate, Fitzgibbon & McCulloch, 2018; Walby & Towers, 2018). This paper aims to extend this discussion by exploring police responses to coercive control, informed by empirical data from the author’s N8 Catalyst funded project. The paper will consider how the idea of coercive control is utilised and understood in practice by police officers. Police responses to coercive control will be compared to violence against the person with injury cases, in particular ABH, to consider the similarities and differences. Most of the coercive control cases in the data-set analysed featured physical violence. The implications of this, both in terms masking actual levels of violence and the problems and possibilities of coercive control as a legal concept will be discussed.