Joint statement: Safety depends on support, not criminalisation
10 September 2026
Coercive control is a defining feature of family violence, involving patterns of behaviour with the purpose of isolating, dominating, controlling and instilling fear in another person over time. While coercive and controlling behaviour causes profound harm and must be addressed, a standalone criminal offence is unlikely to deliver the improvements in safety and accountability that victim-survivors deserve.
As we have reiterated throughout consultations, a standalone coercive control offence is a blunt instrument that carries significant risks.
At best, it will create expectations that the legal system may struggle to meet. Victim-survivors could be asked to endure lengthy investigations, cross-examinations and court processes to prove patterns of behaviour that are often subtle, cumulative and difficult to establish beyond reasonable doubt.
At worst, an offence risks entrenching existing system failures in Victoria, including systems abuse and misidentification of victim-survivors, resulting in further harm to the very people it is intended to protect.
Lasting change depends on investing in what we know works: helping people leave violence safely and addressing the financial, housing, parenting and legal consequences of family violence. We need police, courts and frontline services that can recognise coercive and controlling behaviour earlier and take effective action through existing legal and family violence systems that are better equipped to respond to risk, protect victim-survivors and prevent further harm.
The Victorian Parliament has voted to introduce a standalone coercive control offence. The work cannot stop there. Strengthening Victoria’s response to coercive control: Whole-of-system reforms for safety and accountability provides a roadmap for improving safety, accountability and access to justice for victim-survivors.
Risks of criminalising coercive control
Victoria’s legal framework can provide protections against coercive control through the Family Violence Intervention Order (FVIO) system, which is civil, preventative and focused on safety. The FVIO framework is better suited to responding to cumulative patterns of coercive and controlling behaviour than a standalone criminal offence, as it prioritises early intervention, flexibility and victim survivor protection, rather than punishment.
A criminal coercive control offence presents significant practical and systemic risks. The high criminal standard of proof, combined with policing practices that tend to focus on discrete incidents, makes such offences difficult to investigate and prosecute. This places an undue burden on victim-survivors to evidence a pattern of abuse over time and requires substantial resourcing to operate effectively. Experience in other jurisdictions shows low charge and conviction rates for criminal coercive control offences, creating a real risk of retraumatising victim-survivors whose expectations of protection and accountability cannot be met.
While we welcome the government’s decision to limit the coercive control offence to people over the age of 18 to prevent the criminalisation of children, there is still significant risk that a coercive control offence would exacerbate systems abuse and misidentification, where victim-survivors are wrongly identified as the predominant aggressors, a problem already occurring at alarming rates in Victoria.
These harms are likely to be disproportionately experienced by First Nations women, women from culturally and racially marginalised communities, women on temporary visas, LGBTIQA+ people, people with disabilities, and those who are already over-policed or criminalised, undermining trust in the legal system and deterring help seeking.
Whole-of-system response to coercive control
We believe the following reforms would strengthen the identification, prevention and response to coercive control across Victoria’s family violence and legal systems. These reforms are essential to ensuring that any offence – civil or criminal - operates within a system capable of responding to family violence effectively and safely.
An independent, First Nations and lived-experience-centred taskforce should oversee the implementation and evaluation of any coercive control offence or related program to ensure accountability and meaningful consultation. Evaluation must combine system-wide publicly reported quantitative data with qualitative research that includes victim-survivor experiences, to assess effectiveness and prevent misuse or unintended harm.
We recommend that the Victorian Government:
- Strengthens primary prevention and improve community understanding of coercive and controlling behaviour through the rollout of targeted statewide campaigns led by Respect Victoria, Aboriginal Controlled Community Organisations (ACCOs), multicultural, LGBTIQA+ and disability-led organisations. These campaigns should be implemented alongside sustainably funded education, primary prevention and engagement initiatives for communities most affected by family violence, supported by accessible and multilingual resources.
- Introduces a mandatory and ongoing training program on coercive and controlling behaviour as central to family violence, accompanied by organisational change strategies for new and existing police, prosecutors, magistrates and court staff, and other professionals working across the legal and family violence systems.
- Expands capacity building for frontline workers and introduces continuing professional development in family violence for lawyers, to ensure effective identification and responses to coercive control across legal and family violence systems.
- Establishes public monitoring and strengthens legal and data systems across police, courts, child protection and other government agencies to prevent, identify and rectify the misidentification of victim-survivors as the predominant aggressors in family violence matters.
- Improves police responses to coercive control and the enforcement of Family Violence Intervention Orders (FVIOs) by establishing dedicated police contact points for victim-survivors, while exploring and carefully piloting complementary community-based family violence first responder models. Any pilots should include specific consideration of their effectiveness for, and impact on, Aboriginal people in Victoria, and be supported by defined safeguards, ongoing monitoring and independent evaluation.
- Expands specialist family violence services and legal assistance services, including Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), to strengthen and scale their existing work in responding to coercive control, so that more victim-survivors can access support as early as possible.
- Amends the law to require courts to prioritise victim-survivors’ views and safety considerations when determining applications to vary or extend FVIOs in both civil and criminal justice processes, and consideration of factors that indicate misidentification.
- Improves recognition and support for children who experience family violence, with additional funding and resourcing to support their recovery needs.
- Increases equitable access to critical social and economic supports and resourcing to enable victim survivors to escape family violence and rebuild their lives. These supports should include accessible and culturally appropriate housing, employment, mental health, financial assistance, and education supports.
- Resources the co-design, development and delivery of distinct, non-punitive pathways for children and young people under the age of 25 who use violence. Responses should be developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed, and recognise their own experiences of violence, victimisation and structural disadvantage, with the aim of addressing the drivers of violence early, reducing unnecessary criminalisation, and maintaining appropriate protections for victim-survivors.
- Expands access to appropriate, effective and accessible programs for people who use family violence, including respondents to FVIOs and people charged with family violence offences, to reduce risk, prevent further harm and strengthen victim-survivor safety.
This joint statement is endorsed by the following organisations:
- Federation of Community Legal Centres
- Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights
- intouch Multicultural Centre Against Family Violence
- Jesuit Social Services
- Law and Advocacy Centre for Women
- No to Violence
- Safe and Equal
- Youthlaw
- WIRE
- Women with Disabilities Victoria
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