Coercive Control is a behavioral pattern of threatening, humiliating, or intimidating actions that seek to take away a person’s freedom and strip away their sense of self. There is an important conversation happening throughout the country: advocates and survivors are actively debating whether and to what degree coercive control should be codified in the criminal, protection order, or family laws of their state. 

In the fall of 2021, we established this Special Project, working with advocates, coalitions, systems professionals and survivors across the country to develop an organizational position on the codification of coercive control.

Services

Our team specializes in providing technical assistance, information, collaboration, and consultations. 

As we continue to develop resources (including episodes of our podcast, Taking Back Control) our priorities will be to:

  • Determine how coercive control shows up in young people’s relationships;
  • Help advocates better understand how coercive control is impacting survivor’s lives;
  • Offer coercive control-related points for policymakers and state coalitions to consider;
  • Assist prosecutors in drafting victim impact statements;
  • Give probation officers mechanisms they can use for a victim/witness assessment when coercive control may be present;
  • Provide a way to gather evidence in support of a claim of coercive control on social media platforms;
  • Help judges in ascertaining whether coercive control is present in Domestic Violence Protection Order cases.

Over the spring and summer of 2022, we’ll develop tools that help policymakers and professionals better understand coercive control. We will publish separate policy briefs on coercive control codification in criminal, Domestic Violence Protection Orders, and family courts. 

THIS WEBSITE IS SUPPORTED IN WHOLE OR IN PART BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, GRANT # 90EV0528, 90EV0517, and 90EV0548. THE VIEWPOINTS CONTAINED ON THIS SITE ARE SOLELY THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE AUTHOR(S) AND DO NOT REPRESENT THE OFFICIAL VIEWS OR POLICIES OF THE DEPARTMENT AND DO NOT IN ANY WAY CONSTITUTE AN ENDORSEMENT BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES.