Women's Fear and Risk Factors: Predicting Coercive Control From Police Domestic Violence Supplementary Forms

Using supplementary police reports from 700 intimate partner violence calls, risk factors and victim's condition of being afraid were investigated as predictors of charges indicative of coercive controlling behavior. Police-assessed state of women's fear was a good indication of the presence of several coercive control risk factors. Women's fear and 20 risk factors were related to coercive control-type and lethality-type charges laid. Using multiple regression analyses, women's state of being afraid, and risk factors of threats to harm/kill, escalation of assaults/threats, and threats/use of firearms were predictors of coercive control and lethality charges/behavior. The findings have implications for tracking and predicting potentially lethal behavior.