However destructive this behavior may be, it is not often treated by law enforcement or courts as improper on its own, reinforcing the belief that victims need to be cared for and hospitalized before their accounts can be taken seriously. Doubts about how the justice system would treat them are not unfounded: About 88 percent of the survivors surveyed by the ACLU said police do not believe them or blame them for the abuse.
The new legislation to address coercive behavior has raised concerns from lawyers who are concerned that the standard of proof may be too high in court proceedings that lawyers in the field are already facing survivors, especially if officials do not have the tools. to identify and prove patterns of risky behavior. “Researchers understand coercive control as something that can help predict the outcome of a dangerous situation that becomes fatal,” said Rachel Louise Snyder, author of the book ‘No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us’ of 2019, can give a prediction. But, she added, “law enforcement does not necessarily recognize it.”
Coercive control has been illegal in England and Wales since 2015, but according to the BBC, there have been the highest number of homicides related to domestic violence in five years. The Center for Women’s Justice, a British watchdog group, filed complaints in 2019 and 2020 about the “systematic failure” of police to protect victims. “Officers on the ground do not understand” coercive control, said Harriet Wistrich, director of the center. Although there was training, she stressed that the police, social workers and the courts must have a shared understanding of how emotional abuse can become criminal in order to make the law effective.
Others are concerned that the adoption and implementation of new laws in the United States could derive resources from the urgent logistical needs of the survivors, or from other avenues of justice. A growing fraction of advocates say the best response lies not in the criminal courts, with their racial and economic inequalities, but in dialogue-based alternatives such as restorative justice.
Judy Harris Kluger, a retired judge in New York who is executive director of the nonprofit Sanctuary for Families, said she agrees that coercive control is important as a concept. As a judge, however, I would rather ‘give energy to enforce the laws we have,’ she said, ‘but also to focus on other things besides lawsuits to address domestic violence’, such as funding for prevention, housing and work programs. for survivors.
Supporters say the legal recognition of how harmful the problem is will make it easier to fight – and will help force a settlement on its generality.
They point to Scotland as a potential model. The Domestic Abuse Acts enacted in 2019 focus on coercive control and include funding for training; a majority of its police and support staff have taken compulsory courses to understand the case, said Detective Superintendent Debbie Forrester, police chief in Scotland. The judiciary also received lessons. In addition to a public campaign explaining that the control of behavior is illegal, authorities have warned the abusers that they will be investigated: ‘We will talk to previous partners’, a police statement warned.