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Reconceiving Coercion-Based Criminal Defenses, Stephen R. Galoob, Erin Sheley

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Coercing someone is sometimes wrong and sometimes a crime. People subject to coercion are sometimes eligible for criminaldefenses, such as duress. How, exactly, does coercion operate in such contexts? Among legal scholars, the predominant understanding of coercion is the “wrongful pressure” model, which states that coercion exists when the coercer wrongfully threatens the target and, as a result of this threat, the target is pressured to act in accordance with the coercer’s threat. Some tokens of coercion do not fit neatly within existing legal categories or the wrongful pressure model of coercion. For example, coercive control is a psychological phenomenon …