‘Six of one’: conflict vs control in the policing of intimate partner violence

Abstract

ABSTRACT Challenging the historical attitude that intimate partner violence (IPV) is not police business has been identified as key to effective police response. This attitude draws on the wider cultural assumption that IPV is situational and based on interpersonal conflict – a belief compounded by media coverage and certain theoretical approaches. The coercive control model counters this view, framing the majority of IPV as a power differential established through a deliberate pattern of threat and control. Coercive and controlling behaviour (CCB) was criminalised in England and Wales in the Serious Crime Act 2015. The offence describes a pattern of behaviour – rather than the discrete incidents – and subverts ingrained beliefs about the causes of IPV. This qualitative research draws on in-depth interviews with officers and victim-survivors in a force in the north of England. Critical discourse analysis examines police attitudes and culture as embedded within the wider context. A key finding is that police response officers commonly approach IPV as situational and arising from mutual conflict rather than investigating for evidence of CCB. The lack of nuanced understanding of control mechanisms and their effects often leads to exasperation with repeat callers and failure to ‘dig deeper’. However, officers who recognise the subtleties of CCB contribute to an empowering effect on victim-survivors, an outcome not formally recognised by policing processes. To equip officers for effective and supportive response, officer development should address the embedded assumption of conflict and focus on CCB as underlying the majority of IPV rather than existing as a distinct offence.