Is it coercive control? / CHI / CHI-3
CHI-3
Custody and child-welfare threats as ongoing control
Definition
Invoking family court, custody modification, or child-protective reporting as a standing threat to enforce compliance or punish resistance.
How it operates
Threats to seek custody modification, to report the target to child-protective services, or to use the children's statements against the target in court.
Function
Keep the target under continuous legal and emotional threat.
Harm
For the target: chronic fear of losing the children and forced engagement with the abuser through litigation. For the children: instability, exposure to ongoing conflict, and the risk of being placed in unsafe arrangements.
Why this is coercive control
Legitimate, one-time concerns about a child's safety raised in good faith without a pattern of control. The conduct here keeps the target under continuous legal and emotional threat.
Constructed example
“My lawyer says judges love mothers who miss exchanges. Keep it up.”
Fictitious. Written to illustrate the behavior. Not a case.
Sullivan et al. 2024; Douglas 2018; Katz 2022; Stark 2007.
Literature this family is drawn from
- Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
- Katz, E. (2016). Beyond the physical incident model: How children living with domestic violence are harmed by and resist regimes of coercive control. Child Abuse Review, 25(1), 46-59.
- Douglas, H. (2018). Legal systems abuse and coercive control. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 18(1), 84-99.
- Miller, S. L., & Smolter, N. L. (2011). “Paper abuse”: When all else fails, batterers use procedural stalking. Violence Against Women, 17(5), 637-650.
- Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018.
Identifying a behavior described here does not establish a pattern of behavior and does not establish coercive control. A tactic is not a regime. The instrument consolidates peer-reviewed literature so a reader can check when in doubt. The instrument is not a coding manual. Carlton Research does not provide the instrument as a weapon.
© 2026 Carisa Carlton.
Carlton, C. (2026). Is it coercive control?: CHI-3. Carlton Research Instruments. /codebook/chi-3. Last reviewed August 31, 2026.