Coercive Control Detection Within Legal Processes: Structural Failures and the Need for Safeguarding Reform

Why coercive control remains difficult to detect in legal proceedings. Examining systemic gaps in family courts and safeguarding structures.

Coercive control remains one of the most difficult forms of domestic abuse for legal systems to detect.
Unlike physical violence, coercive control operates through patterns of psychological domination, financial restriction, intimidation, and strategic manipulation of institutions.

Although the UK criminalised coercive control under the Serious Crime Act 2015, detection within legal processes—particularly family courts, housing disputes, and civil proceedings—remains inconsistent and structurally weak.

This article examines the institutional barriers that prevent effective detection of coercive control within legal systems, and explores why safeguarding frameworks must evolve to address the procedural realities survivors face when navigating complex multi-agency environments.

COERCIVE CONTROL

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SURVIVOR PRESENTS THROUGH TRAUMA

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MULTIPLE SYSTEM CONTACT POINTS

(Police / Courts / Housing / Health / Social Services / Legal Teams)

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DETECTION FAILURES

- Incident-based assessment

- Fragmented documentation

- Trauma misread as inconsistency

- Poor inter-agency continuity

- Adversarial pressure

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DISTORTED LEGAL OUTCOMES

- Risk minimised

- Credibility undermined

- Abuse normalised

- Safeguarding weakened

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STRUCTURAL REFORM REQUIRED

- Trauma-informed protocols

- Pattern recognition models

- Documentation continuity

- Inter-agency governance

- Institutional accountability

• Serious Crime Act 2015, s 76 — creates the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour.

• Domestic Abuse Act 2021, ss 1–3 — defines domestic abuse broadly, including emotional and controlling behaviour.

• Domestic Abuse Act 2021, s 68 — amends the coercive control framework under the Serious Crime Act 2015.

• Equality Act 2010 — relevant where trauma, disability, discrimination, and unequal treatment within institutional processes are engaged.

• The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry (Macpherson Report), 1999 — especially for institutional failure, credibility, culture, accountability, and the need to examine systemic process rather than isolated incidents.