‘Coercive control’ laws

SIR – The story about Anne Craig, a life coach and self-styled “teacher”, and the girls who allegedly cut off their families under her influence (Magazine, April 7) raises the need for legal constraints on coercive behaviour.

Controlling individuals and organisations use psychologically coercive methods, sometimes even unwittingly, to obtain compliant followers for their own exploitative purposes. These methods include isolation of the follower, engulfing them in the controlling relationship and arousing chronic levels of fear and stress while claiming that they, and they alone, are the sole remaining source of safety and comfort.

The existing 2015 law on “coercive control” describes these patterns well. However, the legislation is hampered by being limited to intimate or family relationships. We must remove this limit in order to protect young and old alike from coercively controlling individuals and groups. Alexandra Stein

Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Psychosocial Studies Birkbeck, University of London London WC1