Australia: NSW considers crackdown on 'dominating' husbands

Article here. Excerpt:

'To reduce the stubbornly high number of women emotionally and financially abused by their husbands, NSW is considering a fundamental change in the way marriages are policed: by prosecuting spouses who control their partners' behaviour.

State Attorney-General Mark Speakman has, under pressure from domestic violence advocates and the Labor opposition, promised to fast-track a review by the NSW Department of Justice into laws that criminalise what is known as coercive control.

On Tuesday, Labor MPs agreed to propose their own bill that would make it a crime to engage in a "pattern of domination", including degrading, frightening or controlling someone, cutting them off from friends, relatives, doctors or lawyers, or monitoring their day-to-day activities.

The wording is designed to catch men who inflict psychological harm on women before relationships descend into violence. A review by the NSW Coroners Court found 99 per cent of domestic homicides were preceded by some form of coercive control.

The new law would allow police to prosecute men for patterns of behaviour, rather than individual assaults that are often regarded as minor by the criminal justice system.'