FOI reference: FOI-2025-2730
You asked
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I request the following information relating to offences under Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 (coercive or controlling behaviour in an intimate or family relationship).
Specifically, I request the following data for each calendar year from 2016 to the present (2025):
- Please provide statistical data or reports related to domestic abuse trends, including coercive control, since 2015.
- Provide any data on the prevalence of coercive control within the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
If possible, please provide the data in CSV, JSON or Excel formatting.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We publish data from two main sources: police recorded crime and the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). Data on trends in domestic abuse from both data sources are collated in our annual Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview.
All these data are published on a financial year basis (year ending March) rather than a calendar year basis (year ending December) in our Domestic abuse prevalence and victim characteristics dataset. Tables 3-5 contain CSEW domestic abuse trend data from YE March 2005 onwards and tables 8-9 contain trends in domestic abuse-related crimes and incidents recorded by the police.
Additionally, police recorded controlling and coercive behaviour from the year ending March 2021 onwards are published in our Crime in England and Wales appendix tables (Table A5a).
Alternatively, police recorded crime data on a calendar year basis are calculable from the police recorded crime open data published by the Home Office. For any questions about these data, you may wish to contact the Home Office, via crimeandpolicestats@homeoffice.gov.uk.
CSEW domestic abuse is broken down into different types of abuse, including non-physical abuse, but not coercive and controlling behaviour. A single measure of controlling or coercive behaviour has not been produced because we are unable to capture all the information required within the survey questions to align to the offence. For further information see our reports on redevelopment of domestic abuse questions:
Developing a measure of controlling or coercive behaviour (2019)
Redevelopment of domestic abuse statistics: research update December 2024
Data related to domestic abuse from the CSEW are created on a financial year basis, so we do not hold this information by calendar year.
If you have any crime-related queries in the future, please email crimestatistics@ons.gov.uk and we will endeavour to help.