Coercive Control Field Check / SUR
Category 02
Surveillance and Monitoring
Converts the target's life into an object of continuous visibility: location, communications, activities, and routines, through accounting demands, device access, physical presence, investigators, and everyday technologies. Official New South Wales data recorded harassment, monitoring or tracking in 56 percent of coercive-control incidents between 2024 and 2025.
Dragiewicz et al. 2018; Harris & Woodlock 2019; Woodlock 2017; Turk 2025; Hocking et al. 2025; NSW BOCSAR 2026.
SUR-1
Demanding Accounting of Whereabouts, Time, and Activities
Interrogation about location, companions, schedule, or activities that goes beyond ordinary coordination and carries an accusatory or entitlement frame.
SUR-2
Accessing or Demanding Access to Devices, Accounts, and Passwords
Demands for passwords, evidence of having read private communications, installation or reference to tracking tools, or control over devices and accounts that enable ongoing visibility.
SUR-3
Stalking Behaviors and Engineered Presence
References to following, appearing uninvited, watching the residence or workplace, or knowledge that could only come from physical or technological surveillance.
Literature this family is drawn from
- Harris, B., & Woodlock, D. (2019). Digital coercive control: Insights from two landmark domestic violence studies. The British Journal of Criminology, 59(3), 530-550.
- Forensic linguistic evidence of psychological abuse and discursive manipulation in cyberstalking cases. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict (2026).
- Cal. Fam. Code § 6320(c), as amended by 2020 Cal. Stat. ch. 248 (SB 1141).
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-1(b) (Jennifer’s Law, 2021).
Carlton, C. (2026). Coercive Control Field Check: SUR Surveillance and Monitoring. Coercive Control Observatory. Last reviewed August 31, 2026.