In advance of tonight’s episode of @ABCthedrum, I thought I’d address some of the misconceptions around criminalising coercive control.

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1. Coercive control being a red flag for intimate partner homicide is *a* reason for criminalisation, but it is not the *only* reason. These behaviours are very harmful and wrongful and therefore deserving of criminalisation in their own right.

2. Coercive control is not *separate* from physical and sexual abuse. Instead, physical and sexual abuse are two dimensions of coercive control, which also includes psychological, liberty/autonomy and economic abuse.

3. Relatedly, coercive control does not *lead* to physical abuse. Physical abuse is one aspect of coercive control. There is no linear pattern where non-physical abuse necessarily precedes physical abuse.

4. Coercive control laws are not gender-specific. Their policy intent is primarily to reduce men’s violence against women, but in the handful of exceptions where women perpetrate coercive control the law will still apply.

5. With proper resourcing, communications strategies and training, these laws will not proliferate the misidentification of women as primary aggressors. If anything they will reduce the risk of that occurring in other contexts.

6. Relatedly, coercive control laws are not panaceas. They are one important part of the systemic reforms required. Significant resourcing, training and communications strategies are indispensable components of reform, without which criminalisation is all-but redundant.

7. Yes, family violence perpetrators will go to jail for this offence. Jail is not typically a healing environment. But using this to argue against criminalisation is nihilistic. Why have a justice system at all if that’s the case?

8. There is no way to measure how many women’s lives are saved or improved from the introduction of a coercive control offence. You cannot measure what doesn’t happen.

9. Consultation is critical. There is no easy copy/paste between jurisdictions, especially in Australia’s unique context. Victim-survivors and Indigenous bodies should be heavily involved in drafting any laws.

10. Above all else, in the absence of criminalisation, women and other victims of coercive control will continue to bear this burden privately because the state only denounces it if they have an intervention order in place (which many don’t).

It's time 'coercive control' was made illegal in Australia. https://theconversation.com/its-time-coercive-control-was-made-illegal-in-australia-114817