Jennifers' Law, which adds coercive control to the definition of domestic violence in Connecticut, will go into effect July 1st, 2021 after Governor Lamont signed the bill this past Monday. Connecticut joins
Hawaii and California which have also passed legislation that includes coercive control as a form of domestic violence. This is a HUGE victory for survivors, victims and targets of coercive control and domestic abuse in that state! It is especially important for survivors who have children and are attempting to protect them in the family courts. Survivors in CT will have new protections never before available within the family court system that has been shown to be significantly biased against protective moms.
Watch this interview with Christine Cocchiola, a fellow student of coercive control studying at NYU, and Dan Cargill, of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence (CCADV), as they explain who needs to be trained on coercive control and why.
Woo Hoo! Great news (and not so great news)! Jennifer's Law passed The Senate in Connecticut in a landslide 35-1 vote!
Jennifer's Law is named after two Jennifers, Jennifer Dulos and Jennifer Magnano who were murdered by their spouse and ex-spouse after ongoing use of coercive control by their killers.
Unfortunately, Jennifer's Law has been absorbed into a larger domestic violence proposal known as SB 1091, and many consider this an insult to the women who lost their lives and the families they leave behind.
Rachel Wood, along with dozens of other victims and survivors of coercive control testified in support of Jennifer's Law. In a statement, Woods said, “Domestic violence survivors risked retaliation and harm to testify in support of Jennifers’ Law. Some even testified from hiding because telling their stories creates real danger. We call on legislators to honor all victims of domestic violence, including those who have not survived, by retaining the name of this legislation.”
I am grateful that coercive control laws are being proposed and passed in the US, but I am also deeply saddened by the minimization of women's value in our country and worldwide. Removing the name Jennifer's Law from the legislation says a lot about how sexism and patriarchy still predominate... even in 2021!
"Another deadly mass shooting" has become part of our daily headlines in the United States. However, the connection between coercive control, domestic violence and mass shootings is often ignored. The media often sweeps the connections between mass shooters and domestic violence abusers, especially those who use coercive control, under the proverbial rug. Shootings are news, but domestic violence and coercive control do not receive nearly the same press.
So, keeping weapons out of the hands of domestic violence perpetrators may play a big part in reducing mass shootings. And, I am all for stronger laws that do that. But I prefer to focus most of my energy on something that is rarely utilized in the domestic violence arena... PREVENTION. Sure, lots of organizations claim to be focused on domestic violence prevention, but what most of them are referring to when they talk about domestic violence prevention is secondary prevention. Secondary prevention of domestic violence is mainly focused on recidivism... or stopping the perpetrator from committing domestic violence AGAIN. And, in my book, that does not prevent domestic violence.
What I mean when I say prevention is primary prevention... preventing domestic violence before it ever happens. And hardly anyone is focusing on primary prevention. Why? Because it is a lot harder to stop domestic violence from happening than it is to "prevent" it after the fact. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. We try to prevent lots of other bad things from happening... plane crashes, mass deaths from natural disasters, bank robberies, drug and alcohol addiction, teen pregnancy (yes, some people think teen pregnancy is bad) etc. We pour billions of dollars every year into preventing these and other undesirable outcomes.
So, why don't we focus more on preventing domestic violence? Well, it's expensive, it's time-consuming and it's complicated. But so is preventing plane crashes and terrorist attacks. But the main reason we aren't focusing on primary prevention for domestic violence is that we are still using an outdated definition of what domestic violence really is.
The majority of domestic violence actually begins as coercive control. Coercive control is a pattern of coercive and controlling tactics that are designed to completely dominate the target. And, if the perpetrator can do that without physical violence, they often will. However, if non-physical forms of violence are not enough to keep a targeted person under the abusers control, they may escalate to physical violence. Coercive control has been found in 99% of domestic homicide cases. This means that identifying coercive control is the key to preventing intimate partner homicide and filicide... not to mention playing a part in preventing mass shootings. Not only can the identification of coercive control early on prevent murders, it can prevent less harmful forms of domestic violence, and it can help millions of victims trapped in non-physical violence escape as well.
But we aren't assessing for coercive control in the US. Coercive control, with the exception of two states, California and Hawaii, is not illegal in the US. And we cannot prevent what we don't assess for. We cannot prevent what we don't arrest and prosecute offenders for. Currently in the US we are WAITING for coercive control to escalate to physical violence before we do anything about it. This puts the targets at much greater risk of harm and/or death. It also puts perpetrators at greater risk of becoming more dangerous, because they continue their egregious behavior unabated and unaccountable. Human beings who benefit from something that makes them feel powerful and superior and get away with it will often continue to escalate those behaviors. And coercive control almost always gets worse over time.
It is time to pass laws to #CriminalizeCoerciveControl in every state in the US. Until and unless we do, domestic violence will only get worse, as will mass shootings.
Coercive control doesn't exist only in intimate partner relationships it also perpetrated against children. Usually a coercive controller uses his children to harm the child's mother. Weaponizing children in this way is extremely harmful to both the mother and the child. Although for many years it has been thought that children only "witnessed" domestic violence, it is becoming more and more clear that children are often abused directly by coercive controllers hell bent on punishing their partner or ex-partner.
This video "The Timekeeper" created by Roz Davidson is a chilling example of the coercive control of children to harm the mother. It gets right to the heart of the matter while showing how incredibly damaging this subtle form of terror can be.
Although very few states in the US have coercive control laws, we are making headway. Countries that do have coercive control laws are seeing more arrests and prosecutions than ever before. And celebrities and public figures like India Oxenberg, Mark Vicente, Selena Gomez, Serena Williams, and now Ruth Dodsworth are speaking out against coercive control publicly.
Coercive and controlling behavior is becoming unacceptable to the general public. It may be happening slowly... but it IS happening!
You are invited to participate in a research study. The purpose of this research is to explore communication behaviors between victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) and their close friends of family members.
You are eligible to participate if:
Please note that this study focuses on the experiences of friends and family members of victims, not victims.
Participation in this study involves:
If you have any questions or would like to participate in this study, please contact abigailhazlett@utexas.edu
Coercive control is experienced by most survivors as devastating and overwhelming. Coercive control is a strategic pattern of terroristic tactics used to completely dominate another person. In coercive control, the target (victim) is subjected to terroristic and torturous psychological, emotional and, sometimes even, physical abuse. These highly manipulative and deceptive tactics work together to break down the target's sense of reality and personhood... robbing them of their dignity, agency and self-esteem.
The aftermath of coercive control can leave the target with years of severe physical, emotional and psychological symptoms. Survivors often spend years, or even decades, attempting to recover, and some never fully do. The fallout from coercive control can be so completely overwhelming that many survivors find it difficult to find adequate support from friends, family or even therapists. The symptoms caused by even short-term contact with a coercive controller require specialized knowledge in thought reform, brainwashing, coercion, abuse of power, trauma and coercive control to be effective.
For these reasons, and others, creative therapies can be a safer outlet to relieve some of the trauma as a survivor works through their coercive control aftermath and trauma.
Thanks to Rebel Studio Arts, I have provided an example of art that can be healing. Expressing one's experience through images, song or movement, can help process and release some of the survivor's pain in an environment that may be less likely to re-traumatize them. If you are a survivor of coercive control, you might want to consider singing, dance, photography, scrapbooking or other forms of artwork to work through your experiences.
If you have artwork you would like to share on this blog email: kate@endccusa.com
Predators use many of the tactics of coercive control to ensnare their targets, and pedophiles are some of the most adept predatory coercive controllers on the planet. They are masters of abuse in plain sight. They have to be in order to fool the people around their targets into seeing them as harmless and loving.
Jimmy Hinton, pastor, author, speaker and trainer on the hidden abuse of predators (especially pedophiles) released his new memoir today "The Devil Inside". Jimmy and his mother Clara have lived experience in the coercive control tactics used by predators to hide their abuse because they lived with a predatory pedophile in their own home. Their pastor, Jimmy's father and Clara's husband, turned out to have been sexually assaulting children in their own home and church, and neither of them were aware of what was happening. As a matter of fact, no one other than the predator and his targets seemed to know.
"The Devil Inside" tells the story of how Jimmy's father abused and molested countless children for decades with no accountability or even awareness of this wolf in sheep's clothing within his church, family and community. Jimmy made the excruciating decision to turn his father the predator in to the police, and he now trains, teaches, consults and speaks out against abuse in plain sight. Jimmy's mission is to help faith communities to understand the tactics of coercive control and sleight of mind that predatory coercive controllers use to deceive entire congregations and communities. Jimmy and Clara's "Speaking out on Sex Abuse Podcast" offers insight into not only the coercive control tactics that predators use, but also into the ways in which churches and faith communities collude with abusers to allow abuse to continue unabated.
"The Devil Inside" is a riveting must read for anyone dealing with a wolf in sheep's clothing!
I write a lot about language and terminology for domestic abuse, domestic violence and coercive control. I don't do this because I insist that people use MY language. Loading language is actually a red flag for undue influence and thought reform, other terms related to coercive control, so that is the last thing I would recommend. The recommendations I make for upgrading our terminology stems from my, and other survivors, frustration with misleading terms that have caused us pain. Any term that focuses responsibility for abuse on the target of that abuse, rather than the perpetrator, is harmful to survivors, and therefore, inaccurate.
Here are a few terms that regularly re-traumatize survivors.
For these concepts I prefer the term trauma-coerced attachment. It's not that codependence and trauma-bonding do not occur under some circumstances. (Stockholm syndrome may be the exception. The first woman "diagnosed" with Stockholm syndrome claims it was created to discredit her - a female hostage who had legitimate anger and fear toward the police in charge of protecting her.) The problem with using these terms in connection with domestic abuse, domestic violence and coercive control is that they frame the survivor's response to abuse as the problem or part of the problem, rather than making the abuser 100% responsible.
Trauma-coerced attachment, on the other hand, accurately describes the situation when a target of abuse loses their identity, agency and decision-making ability over time, but does so without making it the target's fault. The attachment that is created in trauma-coerced attachment is a "coerced" attachment. It is a deceptive and manipulated attachment (or bond) that was created purposefully by the perpetrator against the target. Trauma-coerced attachment is like psychological rape and enslavement. It is never the fault of the target!
Codependence, in contrast, is viewed as the target's problem. Therapists, friends and family members regularly expect targets of abuse to "set better boundaries" or "work on their codependency issues". Some clients may actually have boundary or codependency issues. However, it is critical to separate out these issues from abuse. If a person is always acting in codependent ways with everyone in their life, maybe they do need to set better boundaries and be less concerned about what others think of them. However, if they are in a relationship where they are being threatened, isolated, humiliated, retaliated against, punished, deceived and/or controlled by an abusive partner, the likelihood that their actions are caused by a character flaw on their part is extremely low! Even if a target of abuse has some boundary or codependency problems, if they are in an abusive environment, especially a coercively controlling one, their actions to protect themselves ought to be celebrated... not condemned. They can be taught to hold better boundaries once they have reached true safety. Until then, expecting targets to hold boundaries with a coercive controller not only creates a cruel double-bind for them, it could also be quite dangerous!
Victim is another term I have come to avoid. Again, not because it is necessarily inaccurate. People who have been targeted by abusers are victims. They have been victimized. The reason I don't care for the term is that it carries assumptions and provides perpetrators another weapon to use against them. To be survivor-focused, it's important we do everything possible to empower them toward safety, agency and dignity. The word victim does not do that. Much of society hears victim and either, 1. feels sorry for them, 2. blames them for being victimized, or 3. judges them against some ideal version of a "victim" they define in their thinking. All of these responses re-traumatize targets of abuse. They re-create the humiliation, terror, indignity and oppression of coercive control.
The term target, by contrast, points to the predatory nature of coercive control. Anyone can be a target of abuse. As a matter of fact, many targets are chosen specifically because they have super traits, or high levels of empathy, cooperation and conscientiousness. These highly conscientious individuals would be the last people to "play the victim", a common refrain covert abusers use to turn the tables when their target outs them to others.
Terms like high conflict are also problematic. Labeling a divorce case that includes a coercive controller high conflict is like labeling a terrorist attack high conflict. Were the Twin Towers hit because of the victim's "conflict" with the terrorists? Of course not! So, why do we use the mutualizing language of high conflict to describe a target attempting to escape a perpetrator of coercive control? Coercive control is terroristic in nature. If we wouldn't hold a victim of a terrorist attack responsible for the "conflict", we shouldn't hold a target of abuse responsible either. But our family court system frames coercive control cases this way regularly, creating an environment rife with re-traumatization for targets.
So, the language we use is important, not because survivors need to control professional jargon. It is important because the jargon was created within an inaccurate model, that didn't fully understand the malevolent pattern of coercive control. Now that we have the term coercive control to frame the most harmful type of domestic abuse, we can begin to shift our thinking AND our language to better detect and prevent it.
If the site looks a little different, it's because we have a completely new web site and blog. End Coercive Control USA's new platform will allow us to offer courses and lots of other important resources for coercive control professionals and survivors online. Woo Hoo!
As founder and CEO of ECCUSSA, much of my understanding of coercive control has expanded over the past 14 months of writing and studying the psychology of coercive control. So, rather than migrating over all of my blog posts, some of which contained limited understandings, I opted instead to select some of the most popular posts to include from the previous blog.
I continue to research and study coercive control, intimate partner violence, domestic abuse, and the systems within which coercive control is able to thrive. This new blog will be an ongoing refinement of that knowledge and experience.
Thank you for joining me. I am glad that you decided to stop by. 🙂
