Recorded incidents of coercive control have increased across the Northern Rivers in the second year of NSW’s new coercive control laws, with 30 incidents recorded in the Richmond-Tweed region since the offence came into effect.
New figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (BOCSAR) show the region recorded 13 incidents in the first 12 months of the laws and 17 in the second.
Across the two years to June 2026, Richmond-Tweed recorded a coercive control rate of 11.4 incidents per 100,000 people, compared with a NSW rate of 8.0.
However, the local rate remained below the regional NSW average of 15.2 incidents per 100,000.
The figures cover the broader Richmond-Tweed statistical region, which includes Byron, Ballina, Lismore and Tweed.
Across NSW, police recorded 682 coercive control incidents in the two years since the offence was introduced on July 1, 2024.
On average, each incident involved four distinct controlling behaviours.
The most commonly recorded were harassment, monitoring or tracking, which occurred in 59 per cent of incidents, followed by threats or intimidation at 55 per cent, financial abuse at 54 per cent, and shaming, degrading or humiliating behaviour at 47 per cent.
Women accounted for 95 per cent of victims, while 93 per cent of incidents involved a female victim and male alleged offender.
Almost half of victims had previously been recorded by police as victims of domestic and family violence, including 31 per cent who had previously experienced domestic violence involving the same alleged offender.
Sixty per cent of coercive control incidents were accompanied by at least one other offence, most commonly domestic assault or intimidation and stalking.
The local figures come against a backdrop of persistently high domestic violence offending across the Northern Rivers, with domestic violence offences regularly accounting for around a quarter or more of weekly arrests in the Tweed-Byron and Richmond police districts.
When the coercive control laws were introduced, former local magistrate David Heilpern described them as ‘a framework that criminalises something that we’ve all known is wrong and is a precursor to physical violence’.
‘From a legal perspective, emails, texts, and comments on social media are ways to prove coercive control,’ Professor Heilpern said.
‘But in the absence of that it is very difficult to prove.’
Despite the number of incidents recorded statewide, relatively few coercive control charges have reached court.
Forty-two charges were laid in the two years to June, with 32 still pending. Four had been proven after guilty pleas, while six were withdrawn by the prosecution.
BOCSAR Executive Director Jackie Fitzgerald said last year that ‘the small number of charges highlights the complexity of investigating and prosecuting this form of abuse’.
The median time between a coercive control event being recorded and a charge being laid is now 187 days.
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