Season 7 Episode 11: Why Coercive Control Laws Alone Won’t Protect Women and Children with Dr. Marsha Scott
About This Episode
A coercive control law can be groundbreaking and still leave survivors asking, “Why doesn’t life feel safer?”
David and Ruth are joined by Dr. Marsha Scott, CEO of Scottish Women’s Aid, to talk about Scotland’s hard-won reforms and the uncomfortable truth behind them: Legal change is only the beginning, and implementation is where domestic abuse reform succeeds or fails.
They dig into what makes Scotland’s coercive control framework so influential, including its course of conduct focus and why impact matters more than trying to read a perpetrator’s “intent.” Dr. Scott shares what the law has changed in public understanding and what has not changed yet in courts, sentencing, and survivor trust. Ruth, David, and Dr. Scott also get practical about what closes the implementation gap: infrastructure, better evidence, skilled supervision, and real accountability when systems keep defaulting to old habits.
Then they turn to family court, child protection, and child contact decision-making, where children’s rights can get lost and where poor documentation can make the perpetrator disappear while the survivor is judged through a deficit lens. They talk about reports, mental health models, and what it takes to pivot practice toward perpetrator patterns as parenting behaviours with measurable harm to kids.
Additional Resources
Safe & Together Institute’s domestic abuse–informed trainings
Safe & Together Institute’s upcoming events
David Mandel’s book Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence