Culpability, defences and mitigation for the coercively controlled defendant

Vanessa Bettinson

Chapter 27 in Research Handbook on Gender, Violence and Law, 2026, pp 441-455 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores how experiences of coercive control in intimate and family relationships are often integral to the offending behaviour of women. It supports arguments for a broader conceptualization of domestic abuse beyond coercive control through a social and systems entrapment lens. Using this approach, the courts can take into account a defendant or offender's reduced culpability in relation to their criminal actions, which is the result of the erosion of their space for action, rather than insisting on the medicalization of women victim-survivors of domestic abuse. The social and systems entrapment approach could have significant benefits to the interpretation of the existing criminal law defences framework and inform future defence reforms. The chapter also highlights the importance of sentencers and probation officers’ ability to identify coercive control and its impact on offending and explores how sentencing guidelines could assist in this endeavour.

Keywords: Coercive Control; Self-Defence; Duress; Sentencing; Vulnerable Defendants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035319398
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