As of the first of July 2024, coercive control is a criminal offence in New South Wales. Government resources say that the offence is when a person uses abusive behavior towards a current or former intimate partner with the intention to coerce or control them. It is repeated patterns of physical or non physical abuse used to hurt, scare, intimidate, threaten or control someone. Traditionally, criminal law surrounding domestic violence has been understood to be an incident or series of incidents of physical violence. But researchers have said for decades that abuse can involve far more than acts of physical violence. Between 2000 and 2018, the New South Wales Domestic Violence Death Review team found that in 97% of intimate partner domestic violence homicide cases, the victim had experienced coercive and controlling behaviors before being killed. So where did this term coercive control come from? Whilst the language of coercive control may be new to a lot of people, its principles and behavior certainly aren't. The term was popularized by sociologists Evan Stark, who labeled coercive control as a pattern of behavior which seeks to take away from the victim's liberty or freedom to strip away their sense of self, that it's not primarily a crime of violence. It's first and foremost a liberty crime. So what are the red flag behaviors under these new laws was coercive control is not limited to a list of specific acts. People who have experienced coercive control say that these behaviors can involve physical abuse, sexual violence and coercion, monitoring, stalking and surveillance, regulation and micromanagement for example, being told how to dress restrictions on freedom and independence, verbal abuse, emotional and psychological abuse, for example, gaslighting, cultural, spiritual and religious abuse, reproductive coercion and abuse, animal abuse, and threats of self harm and suicide. It's important to note that behaviors in every situation can look really different. Victim/survivors often use the analogy of a spider web - that to someone experiencing coercive control, it feels like they are tied to the abuser in a trap. There can be so many parts that make up the pattern of the web, and it's sometimes hard for themselves and others to see.