Coercive Control Field Check / ECON
Category 05
Economic Control and Exploitation
Restrict, exploit, or sabotage the target's access to money, credit, employment, education, and other material resources so that exit becomes financially dangerous or impossible. A central mechanism is the creation and concealment of debt.
Hess & Del Rosario 2018; Stark 2007; Adams, Littwin & Javorka 2020; Littwin 2012; Postmus et al. 2012.
ECON-1
Controlling Access to Money and Financial Information
Restricting the target's ability to obtain, use, or understand joint resources and financial information.
ECON-2
Economic Exploitation, Unauthorized Use of Joint Resources, and Coerced Debt
Taking, spending, or generating financial obligations in ways that deplete the target's resources or create liability the target did not knowingly or freely authorize.
ECON-3
Employment and Education Sabotage
Interfering with the target's ability to obtain, maintain, or benefit from work or education.
ECON-4
Coercing Debt, Forcing Asset Surrender, and Destroying Resources
Pressuring or forcing the target to sign documents, take on new debt, or surrender assets, and the direct theft or destruction of the target's resources.
Literature this family is drawn from
- Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
- Pence, E., & Paymar, M. (1993). Education groups for men who batter: The Duluth model. Springer.
- Conn. Gen. Stat. § 46b-1(b) (Jennifer’s Law, 2021).
Carlton, C. (2026). Coercive Control Field Check: ECON Economic Control and Exploitation. Coercive Control Observatory. Last reviewed August 31, 2026.