The Criminalization of Coercive Control in Canada: Conceptualizations, Cautions, and Caveats – Psychiatry AI: Real-Time AI Scoping Review

AI Summary

Criminalising coercive control risks reproducing the ideal victim trap and may not substantively improve legal responses to intimate partner violence.
Two landmark self-defence cases remained incident-centred, illustrating courts' limited sociolegal recognition of coercive control despite expanded discourse.
Argue for a trauma and violence informed approach, building on Wathen and Varcoe, and delay criminalisation until cross sector services exist.

AI Summary

This paper critically examines whether criminalizing coercive control in Canada would improve legal responses to intimate partner violence or reproduce/perpetuate the "ideal victim" trap.

Using Evan Stark's conceptualization of coercive control and Nils Christie's "ideal victim" concept as lenses, we conduct a theory-informed case study of two landmark self-defence cases to examine the sociolegal recognition of coercive control.

We argue for a trauma and violence-informed approach (building on the work of Wathen & Varcoe), and, should coercive control be criminalized, we recommend delaying implementation until adequate cross-sector social service infrastructure is in place.

Basic summary

Violence Against Women. 2026 Jul 8:10778012261465656. doi: 10.1177/10778012261465656. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

This paper critically examines whether criminalizing coercive control in Canada would improve legal responses to intimate partner violence or reproduce/perpetuate the “ideal victim” trap. Using Evan Stark’s conceptualization of coercive control and Nils Christie’s “ideal victim” concept as lenses, we conduct a theory-informed case study of two landmark self-defence cases to examine the sociolegal recognition of coercive control. Despite expanded discourse, the decisions largely remained incident-centered. We argue for a trauma and violence-informed approach (building on the work of Wathen & Varcoe), and, should coercive control be criminalized, we recommend delaying implementation until adequate cross-sector social service infrastructure is in place.

PMID:42417087 | DOI:10.1177/10778012261465656

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