Based on empirical work funded by the N8 PRP during 2022-23, this paper will explore the complex ways in which victim-survivor experiences of coercive control and policing responses to those experiences converge and diverge, and the questions an appreciation of this complexity raise for the role of victim-survivors voices for what might count as justice. In order to do so, this presentation falls into three parts. The first provides a brief overview of the experiences of policing responses to coercive control provided by the victim-survivors who participated in this project. These voices articulated the ongoing presence of ideal victimhood, the presence of alcohol and incident-based responses, resulting in a loss of faith in the police. The second provides a brief overview of the views of police officers who participated in this project. These voices point to the need to prioritize safe-guarding and the need to ‘dig deeper’. Where these voices converge is in recognizing the manipulation of the system by perpetrators and the problem of misidentifying the primary perpetrator. Where they diverge is in relation to misunderstanding what actions have or have not been taken by the police and in mis-communicating those actions. However, there is another layer to this complexity. When police officers ‘dig deeper’ they can bring patterns of perpetrator behaviour to the surface not recognized as problematic by the victim-survivor. This finding raises questions about the role of the police and the role of victim-survivor voices in informing each other alongside criminal justice responses to coercive control.

Dr Charlotte Barlow is a Reader in Criminal Justice and Policing at the University of Central Lancashire, where she is a member of the Connect Centre for Research on Violence & Harm and Policing Strand Lead for the Centre for Criminal Justice Partnerships. She is elected Vice President of the British Society of Criminology. Charlotte researches gender-based violence, in particular domestic abuse. Her work focusses on policing, criminal justice and legal responses. Recent externally funded projects have explored domestic violence disclosure schemes/ Clare’s Law, coercive control, court systems and domestic abuse, including integrated domestic abuse courts and Family Drug and Alcohol courts, interventions for children who experience domestic abuse, rurality and domestic abuse and multi-agency working. Charlotte has published widely in this field, including two monographs, an edited collection and journal articles in high impact factor journals, including the British Journal of Criminology and Feminist Legal Studies.

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