Coercive control and risk in intimate partner violence: are Canadian police prepared to assess?

ABSTRACT

Coercive control is an ongoing pattern of abuse that is intended to isolate, humiliate, degrade, and micro-regulate the everyday life of a victim; often found amongst intimate partner violence (IPV) situations yet may not present with physical evidence. Police officers are called to respond to these conditions, yet are limited by training, legislation, and risk assessment tools that often concentrate primarily on the presence of physical violence alone. An online survey was distributed to police officers across Canada to understand how they explore, and respond to IPV and coercive control, and what they consider to be the most pertinent risk factors when assessing the severity of a situation. Findings reveal that police officers continue to emphasise perpetrator behaviours that involve physical violence and serious physical harm. As Canada is currently considering the possibility of criminalising coercive control, results highlight that further training and improved risk assessment tools will be necessary in order for police to be able to effectively respond.

KEYWORDS:

• Coercive control
• risk assessment
• policing
• intimate partner violence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics

This study was approved by the Research Ethics Board at the University of New Brunswick, REB #2021-068

Notes

1 According to Statistics Canada (2022, 2023) the current total of police officers in Canada is approximately 70,000, with 77% male and 23% female. Ontario and Quebec have the highest concentrations (37% and 23% respectively). While we note that female police officers in our study were over-represented compared to the national average, this could be equated to provincial specific data; for example, female officers in Quebec make up 28% of their personnel, higher than the national average.

2 Some risk factors adopted from the Ontario DVDRC list were merged for the purpose of the survey. For example, depression, depression-professionally diagnosed, and other mental health/psychiatric problems were listed once as Perpetrator’s depression, mental health or psychiatric problems. Prior threats with weapon and prior assault with weapon were also combined.

3 The ODARA was originally validated for use with couples who currently, or have in the past, resided together. However, recent research (Mcewan et al. 2023) questions some of the inclusion criteria as definitions of intimate partner abuse have shifted over the years. In 2022, the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care, which contains researchers involved in the development of the ODARA, issued a fact sheet indicating that it is now considered acceptable to use the ODARA in cases of dating violence, no longer requiring cohabitation (Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care 2022).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Partnership Development Grant [890-2019-0003].