What Is Coercive Control? How You Can End Up in Jail Without Raising a Hand

Most people picture family violence as hitting, or the threat of it. But there is a kind of abuse that leaves no bruises, often goes unnoticed by friends and family, and is now a criminal offence in parts of Australia carrying up to 14 years in jail. It is called coercive control, and you can be charged with it without ever raising a hand.

This guide explains, in everyday terms, what coercive control is, what the law now says about it, and what it means if you are separating and heading into mediation — whether you are worried about how you have been treated, or worried about how you have been behaving.

What coercive control actually is

Coercive control is a pattern of behaviour, over time, that is designed to take away another person’s freedom and independence. No single act needs to be dramatic. The harm is in the accumulation: a hundred small controls that, together, leave someone frightened, isolated and unable to make their own decisions.

It usually looks like some combination of the following.

• Controlling the money — keeping the household accounts in their name only, giving you an “allowance” or demanding receipts, spending their own income freely while yours has to cover all the shared costs, stopping you from working, or running up debts in your name. Couples arrange money in all sorts of ways; it becomes control when the arrangement is imposed rather than agreed, and leaves you dependent or without money of your own.
• Isolating — discouraging or stopping you from seeing friends and family, sulking or punishing you when you do, moving you somewhere far from your support network.
• Monitoring — checking your phone, demanding your passwords, tracking your location, needing to know where you are and who you are with at all times.
• Micro-managing daily life — rules about what you wear, what you eat, when you sleep, how the house is kept, with consequences for getting it “wrong”.
• Threats — to leave, to take the children, to hurt themselves, to report you to police, child protection or immigration, to share private photos of you.
• Degrading — constant criticism, humiliation in front of others, being told you are stupid, crazy, a bad parent, or that nobody else would put up with you.
• Using the children — undermining you as a parent, making the children the go-between, threatening to keep the kids or to use the court to get sole parental responsibility.

Some of these behaviours happen in ordinary relationships from time to time. What makes it coercive control is the pattern, the intention behind it, and the effect: one person ends up living in fear or with their life shrunk down to what the other person allows.

Why “without raising a hand” is now the point

For a long time the criminal law only really recognised family violence when there was a physical act to point to — an assault, a broken door, a threat to kill. Coercive control without violence could support a protection order, but it was not itself a crime.

That has changed. New South Wales (since July 2024) and Queensland (since May 2025) now have standalone criminal offences for coercive control. South Australia and Victoria have passed their own laws, which will start once each government sets a date. The ACT has a bill before its parliament and Tasmania is consulting on one.

The details differ from state to state, but the core is the same everywhere: an adult who engages in a pattern of abusive or controlling behaviour towards a current or former partner, intending to control them, in a way that would be likely to cause harm or fear, commits a crime. The maximum penalties are serious — seven years in NSW and South Australia, ten in Victoria, and fourteen in Queensland. Queensland’s law also covers family members and carers, not just partners.

Two things in these laws surprise people:

• The victim does not have to prove they were harmed. The prosecution only has to show the behaviour was likely to cause harm or fear.
• The behaviour has to be intentional. Being thoughtless, controlling out of anxiety, or simply a difficult person to live with is not the offence. Deliberately setting out to control someone is.

If you want the detail, our companion article for practitioners, Coercive Control Is Now a Crime in Four States, compares the laws side by side.

Why the law treats it so seriously

Parliaments did not criminalise coercive control only because of the harm the behaviour does day to day, real as that is. They did it because of what it predicts. When the NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team examined every intimate partner homicide in the state over eight years, it found coercive and controlling behaviour in 111 of the 112 cases — 99 per cent — and in many of them there was little or no history of physical violence beforehand. Coercive control is the single strongest warning sign we have.

The most dangerous time is separation. That is the moment the control is challenged, and the point at which the risk of serious harm rises sharply. It is why safety planning matters, and why this article sits in a series about separation rather than somewhere else.

It is also why, if you are separating, you should make sure you are working with an accredited family dispute resolution practitioner — not just anyone who calls themselves a mediator. Accredited FDR practitioners hold postgraduate qualifications in family dispute resolution, are trained to screen for family violence and coercive control, and have a professional obligation to keep that knowledge current. You can check whether someone is accredited on the Australian Government’s Family Dispute Resolution Register.

“I think this is happening to me”

If you read the list above and recognised your own relationship, you are not imagining it and you are not overreacting.

Coercive control is hard to see from the inside, and that is by design. The pattern works by slowly undermining your free will. Gaslighting, emotional manipulation and psychological pressure are used deliberately to make you doubt your own memory, judgement and feelings, so that you end up believing the problem is you.

It is also hard for anyone else to see. Some of the behaviours are obvious; others only make sense as part of the pattern. Either way, what keeps a person trapped is the fear that hangs over all of it — and that fear has more grip where the other person holds power over you because of dependent children, disability, financial dependence or cultural obligations, or, in the case of elder abuse, family ties and loyalties.

Outside validation is difficult too. By the time you go looking for it, the relationships with friends and family who might have noticed have often been made distant or cut off altogether. If you find yourself thinking “nobody would believe me” or “maybe it really is me”, that is a sign of the pattern, not evidence against it.

You do not have to decide today whether it is “bad enough” to be a crime. Talking it through with someone who understands the pattern is the first step. 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) is available 24 hours a day, by phone or online chat, and is confidential. If you are in immediate danger, call 000.

If you are separating, tell your family dispute resolution practitioner at intake. It changes how they run the process — see below.

“I think this might be me”

Some people read that list and feel a jolt of recognition about their own behaviour. That is uncomfortable, and it is also the most useful moment you can have. Controlling behaviour is learned, and it can be unlearned — but not by pretending it is not there.

Now that these laws exist, more people who have never been physically violent will find themselves facing charges or court-ordered programs. Getting ahead of that matters — for your own future, and for your relationships with your partner, your ex and your children.

There is confidential help, and it is not about being judged:

• MensLine Australia — 1300 78 99 78, 24 hours, phone or online. Counselling for men who want to understand what is driving their behaviour, what continuing it will cost them, and how to change the way they are in relationships.
• Men’s Referral Service — 1300 766 491. The specialist service for men who use, or are worried they are using, controlling or abusive behaviour. It can connect you with behaviour-change programs in your state.

If you are a woman who recognises this pattern in your own behaviour, the honest position is that there is less support on offer. Funding has gone overwhelmingly into preventing violence against women and children, because that is where the evidence shows it is most prevalent. That does not mean there is nothing for you. Some areas run programs for women who use force or control in their relationships, and individual counselling with someone experienced in family violence is a good option wherever you live. Your GP can refer you, and 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) will talk to anyone who is worried about their own behaviour and point you to what is available near you.

If separation is coming and cannot be avoided, be honest with yourself: it is going to be hard, and losing control of the situation is exactly when this pattern escalates into dangerous territory — for you and for your family. That is the time to have support already in place, not to try to get through it alone.

What it means for mediation and family dispute resolution

Before family dispute resolution starts, an accredited practitioner meets each person separately and asks about family violence. Those questions now include patterns of control — using money to coerce, monitoring, isolation, threats — not just whether anyone has been hit. Answer honestly. It is not a test, and it is not used against you.

Depending on what they hear, the practitioner might run the mediation differently: separate rooms or separate online sessions so you never have to face each other, a support person beside you, shorter sessions, or a lawyer present. In some cases they will decide mediation is not safe or fair to go ahead with, and will issue a certificate that lets you go to court without mediating first. That decision is theirs to make and is designed to protect you.

One more thing worth knowing. Family dispute resolution is confidential, but the law allows a practitioner to disclose information in limited situations, including to prevent a threat to someone’s life or health, or to report a serious offence. How that applies to coercive control disclosures is still being worked out, so if it worries you, ask your practitioner directly before you start.

Where to go from here

• Need to talk to someone now — 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, 24 hours. In an emergency, 000.
• Worried about your own behaviour — MensLine Australia on 1300 78 99 78 (24 hours) for counselling, or the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 for behaviour-change support.
• Separating and need a family dispute resolution practitioner — check they are accredited on the Family Dispute Resolution Register, or search the Mi directory for accredited FDR practitioners. All of them screen for family violence before family dispute resolution begins.
• Cost is a barrier — Interact Support offers means-tested low-cost family dispute resolution online, and Family Relationships Online lists government-funded Family Relationship Centres and services.
• Want to understand the process first — read Parenting Arrangements after Separation and What is Mediation?

This guide is general information to help you understand coercive control and prepare for mediation. It is not legal advice. The law is stated as at 30 September 2026.

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