Violence Prevention: The Nature of Coercive Control (Part 2)

Thanks to Press Forward Minnesota for a grant that enabled us to visit Greater Minnesota cities for story conversations like this one.

 

In 2024, three police officers responding to a domestic violence situation were killed in Burnsville by a man who had a long history of abusive behavior (who also was killed). The media attention was focused on the police officers who were killed — less about the impact on the seven children in the home at the time, healing strategies for the people who had been abused, or, eventually, the fact that it ended up being a year when Minnesota had more domestic violence homicides than ever before.

Earlier this year, the survivor who called the police that day was sentenced to four years for having bought the guns that were used to kill the police officers. The abuser had been restricted from buying guns, and he asked her to be the buyer — a “straw purchaser.”

A Star Tribune headline pre-sentencing read: “Prosecutors seek stiff sentence for woman who bought guns used to kill 3 Burnsville first responders.” The subhead named Ashley Dyrdahl as providing “a violent, depraved man with deadly weapons.”

As Violence Free Minnesota shared after the story was published August 25, 2025, “If you had no prior knowledge of the Burnsville shootings, you’d assume Ashley was the one who fired the lethal shots, not her abuser, Shannon Gooden.” They questioned why Gooden’s documented history of violence against multiple women going back to at least 2005 was barely referenced in the article. The fact that he killed the police officers, and the nature of coercive control, was not emphasized in the headline or the reporting.

 

At a conversation in Saint Cloud about the use of control to ignore or manipulate victims into silence — by family, law enforcement, and abusers — we talked with Elise Kloeppner, who studied the issue as part of her master’s degree in human rights at the University of Minnesota. “Control is not just abuse behind closed doors. It’s a public health issue, a justice issue, and above all, a human rights issue.”

She talked about the research of Evan Stark, who first conceptualized coercive control. “This is best understood not just as an isolated incident, but as a system of domination, where victims are trapped — not only by violence itself, but the tactics that control their choices in everyday behaviors. It erodes their sense of self and isolates them from their support systems.”

Kloeppner explained that Stark describes coercive control “as a cage with invisible bars holding women hostage in their own lives. These cages of inequality are designed and constructed by the most privileged members of society — men — and they’re so deeply ingrained that survivors often exhibit the same psychological behaviors as prisoners of war. Coercive control came from the prisoner of war research done in years prior; to me, the only difference is how we as a society respond to it. We would never tell a prisoner of war that they have a personal flaw or that they did something wrong. But that’s exactly what we tell survivors.”

Kloeppner recognized that coercive control was not studied in Minnesota, which is why she focused on it for her research.

Increasingly, she said, technology is also being used as a tool: “GPS tracking, answering texts [within] a certain time, not letting the phone ring more than three times without answering, looking through your internet history log to make sure you’re not doing something the partner doesn’t like. This type of monitoring creates fear and isolates women from friends, family, and anyone who can give her assistance to leave the relationship.”

Kloeppner also talked about reproductive and sexual coercion. “This includes sabotaging contraception, forcing a partner to have or end a pregnancy, engaging in forceful sexual contact, and restricting access to reproductive health care. This hits at the heart of coercive control, which is taking away autonomy from women.”

There are five core concepts, she said:

• manipulation and domination,
• isolation,
• threats and intimidation,
• control over resources, especially financial or physical resources, such as access to cars and bank accounts,
• deprivation

The latter, Kloeppner said, includes “horrifying stories of women being locked in or out of houses, not being able to move as they should, and not being able to live the life that would allow them to have any form of autonomy. A perpetrator will use many psychological tactics to assert dominance and gain power in a relationship” — including always moving the bar of what is acceptable behavior. “In intimate partner violence, your partner knows you very well as a person. They know your dreams, your hopes. They know exactly where to hit, where it hurts. They can try to turn your children against you.”

She added, “Coercive control is often the earliest and most overlooked warning sign of repeated escalating violence. It appears in teen relationships, long-term partnerships, rural and domestic areas.”

Through my research, I found that one in five Minnesota teens experience dating violence. This starts so early, and it is ingrained in our society in a horrific way. We need young women and girls everywhere to know that they deserve more. A lot of that is emulating good relationships to them and showing them that this is not something that should be.”

Kloeppner described a podcast interview with a woman impacted by coercive control. “The woman was a licensed family and relationship counselor. She kept saying, ‘How did I fall for this? How did this happen to me?’”

Seven states have explicitly defined coercive control in their state statutes on domestic violence. England, Wales, and Scotland have criminalized coercive control.

“In Minnesota, women are left to navigate these dangers on their own, unable to rely on the criminal justice system or many other systems for protection,” Kloeppner said. “Only Hawaii treats coercive control as a criminal matter. The other states recognize it through civil or family law, which can be used for restraining orders, custody battles, or noncriminal trials. That is helpful and is important, but I think we can go further and criminalize this behavior because of the escalation of violence we see right after it.”

Kloeppner hopes to see a growing awareness not only of “how coercive control operates, but also how we can respond to it, through law, through systems, and even through cultural change that centers survivor experiences.”

We cannot deepen our coverage of gender-based violence and action steps without your support:

---

Related Resources

Domestic Shelters article about 10 takeaways involving children and coercive control

From story about Hope Center conversation: “The panel stressed that to truly help victims, the community must stop asking, ‘Why didn’t she leave?’ and start recognizing domestic violence for what it is: a pattern of power and control that continues long after the physical violence stops. Erica Staab-Absher, director of the HOPE Center, stressed that domestic violence is not just about a momentary stressor or argument — it is a carefully executed pattern of control.”

Wendy Murphy, the chief assistant Rice County attorney, said that the calmest person in the room is usually the perpetrator. “That is one thing we are trying to train new officers is don’t go by what the calmest person in the room is telling you, because generally, the calmest person in the room is not the victim. The calmest person in the room that has not experienced so much trauma that what they’re telling you comes out really cohesively and sounds really logical.”

 

---

Talking Points: Nature of Coercive Control

Coercive control is a strategic, ongoing course of conduct that isolates a victim, exploits their vulnerabilities, and subordinates them to the abuser. It’s not a single incident; it’s a series of actions that create a climate of fear and dependency.

Key Characteristics

• Pattern of Behavior: It involves repeated, low-level acts of abuse — not just explosive events — that collectively strip the victim of their autonomy.
• Isolation: The abuser systematically cuts the victim off from their support network, including friends, family, and colleagues, making them entirely reliant on the abuser.
• Monitoring and Surveillance: This can involve constantly checking the victim’s phone, email, or social media, tracking their movements, or demanding they account for their time.
• Regulation of Daily Life: The abuser dictates seemingly small, everyday choices, such as what the victim wears, eats, when they sleep, or how they spend money (economic abuse).
• Threats and Intimidation: Abusers use explicit or implied threats to instill fear. These threats can target the victim, their children, pets, or other loved ones.
• Degradation and Humiliation: The abuser uses verbal abuse, insults, and public or private humiliation to destroy the victim’s self-esteem and sense of worth.

Why It’s Deadly

In the case of Mariah Samuels, a Minneapolis woman killed after a pattern of abuse, coercive control was evident when the abuser continued to violate an Order for Protection (OFP) by texting her about where she was and who she was with. Advocates emphasize that coercive control is the most significant risk factor for intimate partner homicide. When a victim attempts to leave a relationship defined by coercive control — as Samuels did — the abuser often escalates tactics to regain domination, making the time around separation the most dangerous period for the victim.

Overall Challenges

• Self-esteem: Coercive control is designed to destroy the victim’s self-esteem and self-worth. Years of degradation and constant criticism lead the victim to believe they are incompetent, unlovable, or deserve the abuse, eroding their confidence in their ability to survive alone.
• Financial abuse: The abuser often maintains complete control over finances (economic abuse), leaving the victim with no independent income, bank accounts, or access to essential documents (like ID, birth certificates, or passports). 
• Lack of Housing/Shelter: Victims may have nowhere safe to go. Emergency shelters are often full, and moving involves significant costs (deposits, moving fees) that they cannot afford. They may also be reluctant to disrupt their children’s lives or school.
• Employment Barriers: The abuser may have prevented the victim from working, or the constant stress and monitoring may have made maintaining a job impossible. 
• Safety of Children and Pets: Victims frequently stay to protect their children from the abuser or fear the abuser will gain custody and harm the children in their absence. Threats to kill or harm beloved family pets are also powerful coercive tools.
• Systemic Failures: Victims may not have faith in the system’s ability to protect them:
  • Lack of Police Trust: Victims may fear police inaction, disbelief, or the potential for police intervention to further provoke the abuser.
  • Court Failures: They may fear losing custody battles or having protection orders violated without consequence.
  • Cultural Barriers: Victims from marginalized communities may face additional barriers like racism, language issues, or fear of deportation.