Preventive Coercion in English Law: Understanding the Phenomenon and the Urgent Need for Regulatory Rules

This article develops the conceptual framework introduced in my earlier work “Restraining the Nation: From “Rule, Britannia!” to “Obey the Order!” – The Hidden Genesis of British Preventive Justice (2024). It advances the argument that a distinct legal phenomenon — which I define as preventive–coercion — has emerged within the structure of English law, functioning as a self-sustaining domain with its own logic, procedures, and effects.Despite its steady expansion over the past three decades, and its potential to affect millions of individuals in the United Kingdom — up to 2.3 million annually in England and Wales alone, according to Parliamentary estimates — this domain continues to operate in the absence of explicit procedural rules or guiding principles. Its formation represents a structural anomaly: unlike other branches of law, which presuppose a proven act, demonstrable harm, or a defined dispute, the preventive–coercive domain deals with hypothetical risk. To address hypothetical harm — which may well never occur — preventive coercion provides real punitive measures: curtailment of rights, restrictions on movement, behavioural control, twenty-four-hour electronic monitoring with tags, even polygraph testing of thoughts and intentions, as well as public shaming and social stigmatisation.The long experience of its practical application (from 1996) has demonstrated that the traditional principles of justice and due process cannot be meaningfully applied within this framework; they are inherently inapplicable because they were designed to deal with real acts, proven facts, and tangible harm — not with hypothetical risks or anticipated emotional injury. As a result, a vast area of legal practice remains effectively unregulated and shielded from public scrutiny. The new preventive/restraining instrument — the DAPN/DAPO — is currently being piloted in three regions across the country in a “light” form. Once the DAPO is implemented in its full version as prescribed by the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, the scale of its impact is likely to expand dramatically. Unless this domain is properly regulated and clear procedural safeguards are introduced, the number of Britons subjected to wrongful arrest, deprivation of rights, and permanent surveillance — both through electronic tagging and through specially appointed third parties — may reach thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.