The Australian Psychological Society welcomes the latest steps taken by the NSW Government towards the criminalisation of coercive control.
The Exposure Draft of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Coercive Control) Bill 2022 was released for comment in July 2022 and sets out the proposed new offence of coercive control.
Our submission on the Exposure Draft Bill addresses our concerns about two components of this proposed new offence:
- the ‘reasonable person’ test of whether the coercive conduct would lead to fear of violence or a serious adverse impact on the victim-survivor’s day-to-day activities, and
- what is needed over time for the coercive behaviour to constitute the ‘course of conduct’ required to establish the offence.
We believe that the proposed offence of coercive control fails to recognise that behaviours take place and are given meaning within the unique context and dynamics of an intimate relationship. As such, not all actions by a perpetrator are immediately identifiable by an objective outsider ‘reasonable person’ as being coercive. Without an opportunity for victim-survivors to demonstrate the harm that they have actually experienced, the current approach risks delegitimising or silencing victim-survivors. We therefore suggest that victim-survivors should be able to – but not be required to – show evidence of actual fear of violence or serious adverse impact from the perpetrator’s actions.
The APS also believes that the proposed offence focuses too much on the duration and repetition of the perpetrator’s coercive behaviour without proper consideration of the context and impact of these actions on the victim-survivor. We recommend that the offence be revised to recognise that even one-off or brief episodes of coercion can have a prolonged or even life-long impact on victim-survivors.
One of the defining features of coercive control – and one of the challenges of criminalising coercive control – is the insidious and often outwardly subtle nature of coercive behaviour. Such behaviours, however, can have substantial and lasting psychological effects. Evidence of this harm, including through psychological assessments of the victim-survivor, should be one pathway (but not the only pathway) to establishing that the perpetrator has engaged in coercive control.
The Exposure Draft Bill does not go far enough to recognise the psychological nature of coercive control. Our suggested amendments would make the legislation more effective in facilitating the prosecution and eradication of coercive control in our society.
View submission