Is it coercive control? / THR
Category 06
Threats and intimidation
Explicit or implied threats of harm to the target, children, family, pets, or the abuser's own life. Threats to kill are among the strongest predictors of lethality-type charges. Controlling behavior is present in the large majority of intimate partner homicides examined in Australian death reviews, including many cases with little prior physical violence.
Stark 2007; Hovey, Rye, Chambers & Scott 2026; Monckton Smith 2020; Boxall et al. 2022.
THR-1
Threats to harm or kill the target
Explicit or implied statements that the abuser will physically harm or kill the target.
THR-2
Threats involving children, family, pets, or others
Threats to harm children, other family members, pets, or third parties as a means of controlling the target.
THR-3
Threats of self-harm or suicide used as control
Statements that the abuser will harm or kill himself or herself if the target leaves, resists, or fails to comply.
THR-4
Intimidation through displays of force, property destruction, or implied presence
Non-verbal or indirect actions that communicate the capacity and willingness to cause harm without an explicit verbal threat.
THR-5
Veiled, conditional, and coded threats
Ambiguous, conditional, or coded statements whose threatening meaning is intelligible primarily through the relationship's shared history.
THR-6
Non-verbal weapon intimidation
Displaying, handling, cleaning, loading, or otherwise referencing a firearm or other weapon in the target's presence or in a message as implicit intimidation, without an accompanying verbal threat.
Literature this family is drawn from
- Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
- Stark, E., & Hester, M. (2019). Coercive control: Update and review. Violence Against Women, 25(1), 81-104.
- Pence, E., & Paymar, M. (1993). Education groups for men who batter: The Duluth model. Springer.
- Dutton, M. A., & Goodman, L. A. (2005). Coercion in intimate partner violence: Toward a new conceptualization. Sex Roles, 52(11-12), 743-756.
- Monckton Smith, J. (2020). Intimate partner femicide: Using Foucauldian analysis to track an eight stage progression to homicide. Violence Against Women, 26(11), 1267-1285.
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.
Carlton, C. (2026). Is it coercive control?: THR Threats and intimidation. Carlton Research Instruments. /codebook/thr. Last reviewed August 31, 2026.