Published August 18, 2026
New Hampshire House Bill 1522, signed by Governor Kelly Ayotte on July 2, 2026 and effective the same day as Chapter 230, expands the definition of abuse under RSA 173-B to include coercive control and nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images. The statute now authorizes courts issuing domestic violence protective orders to consider a pattern of conduct that manifests intent to threaten, intimidate, harass, isolate, coerce, control, or compel compliance and that causes the petitioner to reasonably fear for physical safety.
The legislative text supplies illustrative tactics and retains the traditional requirement of a credible present threat to safety. Operational meaning of pattern, weight given to multi-tactic breadth, handling of technological and financial evidence, and differentiation of protective from controlling conduct remain matters of judicial and expert interpretation. Systematic qualitative coding of longitudinal artifacts supplies a transparent method for those interpretive tasks.
Statutory Pattern Requirement and Operational Definition
RSA 173-B:1, II-a defines coercive control as a pattern of conduct. The statute lists examples but does not codify quantitative thresholds or multi-prong criteria for establishing pattern. Forensic analysis fills that gap through four concurrent elements: repetition, relatedness of tactics, continuity across time, and asymmetry between parties (Carlton, unpublished instrument, Version 16b). A recurrence floor further governs when any specific tactic qualifies as an established pattern element. The floor is calibrated to the temporal scope of the records under examination rather than applied as a fixed universal number. A short record may prove too narrow to support a pattern determination. A multi-year record may appropriately demand higher absolute counts distributed across more analytic periods. Calibration prevents both under-identification of sustained regimes and over-elevation of concentrated conflict bursts.
Pattern determination extends beyond the four elements and the calibrated floor. Range of tactics carries independent diagnostic weight. Control confined to one or two tactics differs in character from multi-tactic regimes that sweep across isolation, surveillance, economic restriction, degradation, use of children, and institutional leverage. Broader tactic range is more consistent with a customized strategy of domination tailored to the specific vulnerabilities of the target (Stark, 2007; Johnson, 2008).
Direct Mapping of Statutory Examples to Forensic Coding Categories
The acts enumerated in RSA 173-B:1, II-a align closely with established coding categories. Isolating the petitioner from friends, relatives, or other sources of support corresponds to restriction of contact and discrediting of the support network. Depriving the petitioner of basic needs maps to regulation and economic control. Controlling, regulating, or monitoring activities, communications, movements, finances, economic resources, or access to services, including through technological means, tracks surveillance, financial restriction, and micro-regulation codes. Compelling engagement in specific activity, including criminal conduct, aligns with coercion and rule-enforcement categories. Threatening to publish or actually publishing sensitive personal information corresponds to threat and institutional tactics. Any single act intended to produce the listed effects by harming or threatening a child, relative, or animal belonging to the petitioner falls under children-as-instruments and threat categories.
Because the statutory language already identifies these domains, systematic coding proceeds under explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria rather than ad hoc interpretation. Each coded instance receives documentation of the underlying artifact, temporal placement, and functional effect on the recipient’s autonomy or safety.
Multi-Source Artifacts Required by the Expanded Definition
Technological monitoring, financial regulation, isolation from support, and control of access to services generate evidence distributed across multiple record types. Messaging supplies one dense source. Financial records, technology logs, school and medical notes, provider communications, witness statements, and interviews supply complementary data. Pattern analysis joins every coded instance to a dated case timeline that marks separation, protective-order filings, monitored communication channels, and other inflection points. The method therefore examines the complete available longitudinal record under uniform criteria rather than privileging any single artifact class.
Testing for the Regime, Testing Against Over-Attribution, and Documenting Impact
Message-level and artifact-level coding precedes pattern analysis. Codes that meet the calibrated recurrence floor enter longitudinal examination for multi-tactic breadth, frequency and chronicity, asymmetry, escalation around autonomy moves, and cycle structure. A required negative-evidence check evaluates bilateral control tactics, conflict-bounded hostility, and each party’s density of genuinely prosocial communication. This step tests alternative explanations and guards against confirmation bias. Situational couple violence, marked by symmetrical hostility without breadth of controlling tactics, remains distinguishable from a unidirectional regime (Johnson, 2008).
The cumulative result of a sustained regime appears in the recipient’s response trajectory over time. Measurable shifts from overt resistance toward appeasement, compliance, or self-blame statements across successive phases document entrapment. This trajectory functions as an independent indicator of impact rather than a diagnostic of the recipient. The analysis tracks change in stance produced by the regime itself, supplying evidence relevant to the statutory requirement that the pattern causes the petitioner to reasonably fear for physical safety.
Masked Presentation in Protective-Order Proceedings
Protective-order litigation generates written records that parties recognize may reach a judge. Controlling functions often persist while surface presentation shifts toward civility, child-focused framing, expressed concern, or performative documentation. Politeness does not negate function. Forensic coding evaluates the illocutionary force of each communication: what the message does to the recipient’s autonomy, obligations, access to information, or decision-making authority. Surface tone remains secondary to demonstrated effect.
Single-Act Provision and Credible Present Threat
RSA 173-B:1, II-a(f) permits a single act directed at a child, relative, or animal to qualify when the act is intended to produce the listed controlling effects and causes reasonable fear for the petitioner’s physical safety. Systematic coding records the discrete act while simultaneously evaluating whether the act sits inside a broader multi-tactic regime or stands alone. The method reports what the data support rather than forcing every case into a pattern finding.
New Hampshire retains the requirement of a credible present threat to safety. Non-physical tactics of isolation, surveillance, economic restriction, and technological monitoring must therefore be linked to that threat through demonstrated cumulative impact and functional analysis. The combination of pattern identification, multi-source evidence, negative-evidence testing, and documented response trajectory supplies a transparent evidentiary pathway for that linkage.
Structural Alignment and Forensic Contribution
House Bill 1522 expands the grounds for civil protective orders under RSA 173-B by recognizing coercive control as a pattern of conduct while preserving the credible-present-threat standard. The statute identifies the relevant tactic domains and invites multi-source evidence yet leaves operational definition of pattern, assessment of tactic breadth, differentiation of protective from controlling behavior, and demonstration of cumulative impact to judicial and expert determination.
Systematic qualitative coding of longitudinal artifacts, performed under explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria, a calibrated recurrence floor, multi-tactic analysis, bidirectional testing, and documentation of recipient trajectory, supplies one rigorous response to those interpretive demands. Findings that rest on demonstrated patterns, tested against competing explanations, and linked to measurable impact advance both the protective purpose of the legislation and the reliability of determinations under the amended statute.
This article describes structural alignment between forensic methodology for pattern identification in longitudinal records and the expanded definition of abuse under New Hampshire RSA 173-B. The underlying coding instrument remains unpublished and is applied under controlled protocol with reliability standards. Nothing herein constitutes legal advice or a determination in any specific case.
References
Carlton, C. R. (2026). Codebook For Identifying Coercive Control In Longitudinal Artifacts (Version 16) [Unpublished research instrument].
Johnson, M. P. (2008). A Typology Of Domestic Violence: Intimate Terrorism, Violent Resistance, And Situational Couple Violence. Northeastern University Press.
New Hampshire House Bill 1522, Chapter 230, Session Laws of New Hampshire (2026). https://gc.nh.gov/bill_status/billinfo.aspx?id=1599
Stark, E. (2007). Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women In Personal Life. Oxford University Press.
Sweet, P. L. (2019). The Sociology Of Gaslighting. American Sociological Review, 84(5), 851–875. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419874843