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Abstract: 

Recently Louisiana has embarked on a quest to rewrite the Civil Code to ensure that children and their survivor-parents are protected from the effects of domestic abuse. This effort comes nearly 30 years after the passage of the Post-Separation Family Violence Relief Act which, while a strong protection for survivors and their children, was dramatically underutilized. This paradigm shift represents the understanding that most highly litigated custody cases are actually domestic violence cases at their core. The Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence worked with the Louisiana State Law Institute to craft a statutory scheme that will ensure that children and survivor-parents are protected from exposure to domestic violence and ensure that survivor-parents are given the autonomy to parent their child without fear of interference from abusers. Now under consideration are revisions that would add explicit protections against “coercive control.” This article examines these proposed revisions.

Keywords: Coercive Control; Post-Separation Family Violence Relief Act

Affiliations:  1: Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence.