Written By Gracie Dougherty L’27
A consistent theme in most cases of domestic violence is power and control. Often, people hear domestic violence and think about physical harm, which is frequently portrayed in the media, but there is a whole other side of domestic violence that is just as important to think about: coercive control. The United States’ Office on Violence Against Women defines domestic violence as,
“a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, psychological, or technological actions or threats of actions or other patterns of coercive behavior that influence another person within an intimate partner relationship. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.”[1]
This definition encapsulates the concept that there are many different types of domestic violence.[2]
Definitions in state codes are often at issue in legal conversations and legal battles. When a definition is ambiguous, it leaves room for things that were intended to be protected against to slip through the cracks. In the Virginia Civil Code, domestic violence is labeled family abuse, and is defined only in the section regarding protective orders as “any act involving violence, force, or threat that results on bodily injury or places one in reasonable apprehension of death, sexual assault, or bodily injury and that is committed by a person against such person’s family or household member.”[3] This definition lacks any mention of coercive control.[4] This gap in the Virginia Code then allows abusers to slip through the cracks and sometimes use the Code to further terrorize their victims.
Coercive control is a type of domestic violence in which the abuser gains control over their victim through tactics such as isolation, threats, and intimidation.[5] People experiencing coercive control are often isolated from all of their support systems and end up feeling like they are trapped in their relationship because of the barriers put up by the abuser.[6] Those barriers can take form financially, logistically, socially and emotionally.[7] Simply put, those who experience coercive control feel fear without physical violence.[8] Coercive control can last even after the relationship between the abuser and victim has ended.[9] Evan Stark, a sociologist known for his research on coercive control, writes in his book entitled Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life,
“Control may be implemented through specific acts of prohibition or coercion, as when a victim is kept home from work, denied access to a car or phone, or forced to turn over her paycheck. But its link to dependence and/or obedience is usually more distal than coercion and so is harder to detect, making assigning responsibility a matter of working back from its effects through a complex chain of prior events.”[10]
When an abuser takes total control of their partner’s life, especially financially and socially, it can force the victim to fall back into patterns, perpetuating the cycle of violence and leaving them feeling trapped.[11] To try and prevent the victim from falling back into the cycle of violence, courts should be more prepared to understand coercive control. When a survivor is trying to seek civil remedies such as a protective order, divorce, and custody of their children, the courts should be able to define coercive control and should be able to reward the survivor the legal remedy they need based solely on the coercive control they experienced. As the Code stands now it is unclear whether a court can do this. Power and control are at the root of most domestic violence cases. Including a statutory definition of coercive control in Virginia Civil Code would allow survivors the opportunity to escape before physical violence happens.
States such as Connecticut, California, and Hawaii have enacted bills to include coercive control in their civil codes. While other states have enacted amendments to their code, this blog post aims to focus on Virginia and how changes can be made in the Commonwealth. In 2023, VA HB 713 was proposed in the Virginia House of Delegates; this bill would have made coercive control a criminal misdemeanor. However, VA HB 713 did not pass, as legislators agreed combatting coercive control through the Civil Code would be more effective.[12] Since that bill was ultimately shut down by legislators, nothing new has been proposed to amend Virginia Civil Code.
The three areas of the Virginia Civil Code that a change in definition could be the most useful would be in the Codes surrounding divorce, custody, and protective orders. While these Codes do provide legal remedies to survivors of physical violence, there is no definition of coercive control in place and therefore, no guidance for courts to reward legal remedies based solely on evidence of coercive control. The Divorce Code states that where one party, the abuser, “has been guilty of cruelty”, their partner has grounds for divorce from bond of matrimony or from bed and board.[13] Cruelty is a term that could apply to many things that coercive control also applies to. That being said, in practice, courts may not view blatant coercive control as cruelty. Definitions allow for all parties involved to have the information to guide their decisions. The Custody Code and the Protective Order Code, both refer to the definition of family abuse given in § 16.1-228.[14] By amending the definition of family abuse to include coercive control, it would allow for courts to apply that to custody cases with best interest of the child considered, and it would allow for survivors of coercive control to have access to protective orders. Survivors should not have to wait until they have been physically abused to seek legal help. These amendments would also allow for clarity for all parties involved.
This blog post proposes that this problem could be solved by defining coercive control in § 16.1-228, which defines family abuse. After amending § 16.1-228, a reference to that definition could be added to the Divorce, Custody, and Protective Order Codes so that courts have guidance on how to handle coercive control in these circumstances. For example, the language of the Divorce Code should state “[…] Where either party has been guilty of cruelty, coercive control as defined by § 16.1-228, caused reasonable apprehension of bodily hurt […].”, while the Custody Code should state, “[…] Any history of (i) family abuse, including coercive control, as those terms are defined in § 16.1-228; […]”. Finally, the Protective Order Code should state, “A protective order issued under this section may include any one or more of the following conditions to be imposed on the respondent: 1. Prohibiting acts of family abuse, including coercive control as defined in § 16.1-228, or criminal offenses that result in injury to person or property; […]”. These modifications, although small in wording, can make life saving changes for survivors. The purpose of these amendments would be for courts, lawyers, and the public to know that there are civil remedies for survivors of coercive control. The clarity that this would bring would provide many with the tools needed to survive.
It is important to think through these changes with great care, specifically noting any potential unintended consequences. The main concern in the domestic violence space is the potential for any new statutory inclusions to backfire and be used against survivors.[15] For instance, when protective orders were expanded to include more than just domestic violence, many judges began to demand a higher standard of evidence than before.[16] This ended up making it harder for survivors to get the protective orders they need, as some judges are now more conscious of possibly handing out too many protective orders.[17] Also, something to consider is the way some abusers use legal remedies meant for survivors, against them. If an abuser knows the system well and knows what to say and do in order to falsify evidence that they have actually been the victims, this will potentially make it easier for them to do that.[18] Especially with the Custody Code, it is possible abusers would frame victims for coercive control in order to receive custody and further control the scenario. By putting thought into these risks when creating the language that will go into Virginia Civil Code, hopefully the changes these amendments make are more helpful than harmful.
To mitigate the risk of these potential adverse consequences, judges should have to attend special training sessions in order to understand what coercive control is and why it is important to combat it as early as possible. Those training sessions would put judges in a better position to discover abusers who are taking advantage of this amendment. It could also help judges spot coercive control even before a survivor knows they have been experiencing it. Another way Virginia could mitigate these risks is by continuing to fund advocacy groups in the Commonwealth, like the court advocates in Henrico County, in order to educate survivors on their rights.
Overall, with access and knowledge comes power. If survivors are given the avenue to protect themselves from continued coercive control, in addition to potential eventual physical violence, they should have the ability to take it. The legal community needs to address this issue head on, these changes to our statutory language must be made. Judges and attorneys must be properly trained on the dangers of coercive control. Virginians deserve the chance to protect themselves from their abusers and these legislative amendments could be that chance.
—
Illustration of a person’s mind being controlled, in Anna Sydor, Spotting The Signs of Coercive Control: The Role of Healthcare Pro., Cardiff Univ. Blog (May 10, 2024), https://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/innovation/2024/05/10/spotting-the-signs-of-coercive-control-the-role-of-healthcare-professionals/.
[1] Domestic Violence, Department of Justice: Office on Violence Against Women, https://www.justice.gov/ovw/domestic-violence.
[2] Id.
[3] Va. Code Ann. § 16.1-228 (2025).
[4] Id.
[5] Melissa E. Dichter et al., Coercive Control in Intimate Partner Violence: Relationship with Women’s Experience of Violence, Use of Violence, and Danger, Psych. of Violence, 1, 2 (Jan. 11, 2018), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6291212/.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Evan Stark, Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life 283-4 (2nd ed. 2023).
[11] Id.
[12] H.B. 713, 2023 Sess. (Va. 2023) https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20231/HB713/text/HB713#:~:text=A%20BILL%20to%20amend%20and,abuse%3B%20coercive%20control%3B%20penalty.&text=Be%20it%20enacted%20by%20the,1.
[13] Va. Code Ann. § 20-95 (2025).; Va. Code Ann. § 20-91 (2025).
[14] Va. Code Ann. § 20-124.3 (2025).; Va. Code Ann. § 16.1-279.1 (2025).
[15] Lisa Fontes, How Mutual Protection Orders Harm Victims and What to Do, DomesticShelters.org (Feb. 24, 2025), https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/protection-orders/how-mutual-protection-orders-harm-victims-amp-what-to-do.
[16] Courtney Cross, Civil Protection Orders: Increased Access and Narrowed Enforcement, 18 UDC L. Rev. 191, 200 (2015).
[17] Id.
[18] Lisa Fontes, How Mutual Protection Orders Harm Victims and What to Do, DomesticShelters.org (Feb. 24, 2025), https://www.domesticshelters.org/articles/protection-orders/how-mutual-protection-orders-harm-victims-amp-what-to-do.