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.
Hovey et al. (Tue,) studied this question.