By Professor Silke Meyer, Griffith Criminology Institute
As of this week, coercive control – a key tool used by domestic violence perpetrators – is officially against the law in Queensland. The move marks a big week for victim-survivors in Queensland, and indeed Australia.
Queensland is only the second jurisdiction to criminalise coercive control in Australia. The new legislation introduces a standalone offence that recognises non-physical, patterned abuse, perpetrated by an adult aged 18 years or older, with a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment.
Queensland now follows New South Wales, which criminalised coercive control in 2023, though the Queensland legislation goes further, applying not only to current and former intimate partners, but also to family members and unpaid carers.
This is a significant day, particularly for victim-survivors, because it validates what so many have known and lived with for years: that domestic abuse is not only physical.
It often takes the form of insidious, long-term control, emotional, financial, spiritual, and psychological tactics that diminish autonomy and erode a person’s sense of self.
These behaviours, often subtle and difficult to identify – for both victim-survivors as well as informal and formal support mechanisms, have historically slipped through the cracks of our legal system. Now, they’re increasingly recognised as criminal due to the risk such behaviours indicate and the long-term harm they cause to victim-survivors.
While recognising non-physical forms of domestic and family violence as dangerous and criminal is a crucial step forward, we must be clear-eyed about what the legislation can and cannot achieve.
Coercive control is complex, hidden and devastating
Coercive control is not a single act. And it’s not black and white.
Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour, sometimes subtle, sometimes overt, that isolates, intimidates, and entraps. It includes financial abuse, restricting access to money, isolating someone from friends and family, spiritual or cultural coercion or isolation, and surveillance or monitoring of communications. Often, it continues after separation.
Victim-survivors may escape the relationship, only to face continued harassment, intimidation, and control, through court systems, parenting arrangements, or financial manipulation.
One of the most challenging parts of this new legal framework will be evidencing these behaviours.
Coercive control often manifests as dozens of small, seemingly inconsequential acts that, when taken together, have a devastating cumulative effect.
Alone, each act might not seem criminal. But together, they paint a picture of sustained abuse that causes real harm.
The law is a start, not a total solution
From a justice system perspective, this law is one piece of a much broader response that’s needed.
We must avoid putting all our hopes into the criminal justice process. The conviction rate for coercive control remains low, both in Australia and internationally. And the law has always had its limitations in the context of domestic and family violence more broadly, including the risk of over-criminalisation and misidentification among vulnerable populations including First Nations women, migrant and refugee women, women with a disability and women experiencing lasting mental health concerns in the aftermath of domestic and family violence
In England and Wales, where coercive control has been criminalised since 2015, between 1 – 2% of police-recorded offences result in a conviction.
According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, over 45,000 coercive control offences were recorded in the year ending March 2024, but only 745 resulted in convictions.
In New South Wales, early data show similar trends. In the first six months after coercive control was introduced as a standalone offence, police recorded 157 incidents. Only three led to charges, and only one of those resulted in a conviction. This data highlights the challenges associated with policing coercive control and the limitations of the law generating justice or increased safety for victim-survivors.
Policing and proof – what it looks like
So what does success look like?
If we define success solely by criminal justice outcomes, then we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment.
But if we look at increased reporting, victim-survivors feeling heard and believed, and more coordinated service responses, then that is’s meaningful progress.
The reality is that proving coercive control is difficult.
These cases rely on victims being able to articulate and document complex, ongoing abuse. It also requires police to identify patterns, rather than individual incidents, something that goes against the incident-focused model of policing and will require a cultural shift..
Where there are digital trails, such as abusive text messages, financial transactions, surveillance or stalking, cases will be easier to build.
But many victims won’t have that kind of evidence. We must acknowledge how emotionally taxing it is for someone to piece together months or years of abuse into a form that makes sense to someone else, particularly when that someone else is part of a system victim-survivors may not trust.
It’s a question of intent
Another hurdle is proving intent.
The legislation requires that the behaviour be intended to cause fear or harm.
But intent is hard to prove in any criminal case, and especially so with patterns of behaviour that perpetrators themselves may not perceive as abusive or may manipulate to appear as care of concern for their partner.
The definitions in the legislation, such as “emotional abuse” or “spiritual abuse”, aren’t always broken down into specifics.
That may be necessary for flexibility, but it also puts the burden on the courts to interpret what those terms mean in practice, and on victim-survivors to fit their experiences into those legal definitions.
More than harsh penalties needed
Some might argue that the harsher penalties in Queensland – up to 14 years – will act as a deterrent. If recent reforms towards harsher penalties for domestic and family violence offences and the persistently high prevalence rates of domestic violence have taught us anything, it is that we should be sceptical.
There is little evidence that higher penalties deter domestic violence.
For example, Queensland increased penalties for protection order breaches almost a decade ago. Yet this has not led to a significant drop in domestic violence offences.
But the legislation could have other positive effects. It may prompt more holistic and coordinated system responses.
It may lead to better training for police and intersecting service systems, including health, child protection and courts. If nothing else, the criminalisation debate over the last five years in Australia has increased public awareness. And perhaps most importantly, it sends a clear message to victim-survivors – that what happened to you matters, it’s real and it’s now a crime.
A call for broader change
Laws are symbolic, but they’re not a silver bullet.
If we truly want to reduce domestic violence, criminal justice reform must be accompanied by investment in frontline services, safe housing, early intervention to break intergenerational cycles of abuse, community education, and behaviour change interventions for people using domestic violence.
Criminalising coercive control is a milestone.
But if we leave it there, without support systems, without training, without listening to those most affected, then we risk failing the very people this law was meant to protect.
If you or someone you know is affected by domestic or family violence, contact 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) for confidential support.
