BOSTON – At least 77% of all incarcerated women in today’s America report having experienced some form of abuse, be it domestic or sexual, according to a 2023 report by Human Impact Partners.
The recently proposed Massachusetts Survivors Act is a bill before the Mass legislature that seeks to provide legal protections for survivors of abuse and assault. It will give these victims the ability to seek retrials or reduced sentencing for crimes committed as a result of their trauma, as well as improve how future cases go.
The core of the bill would allow domestic violence survivors to serve shorter and fairer prison sentences when their abuse history is a significant factor in the crimes they committed and their severity.
Most women in state prisons are indeed serving sentences for nonviolent offenses, but for the women who are imprisoned for violent offenses, which are mainly murder and manslaughter, studies show that these women had suffered from IPV (intimate partner violence) within a year before the killing.
The criminalization of survivors is a major problem in the American penal system, according to coalition groups. This shows the underlying gender discrimination and inequality faced by women.
The system treats women who fight back against their abusers as criminals, not as people who practiced self-defense to save themselves.
Sponsored by a coalition led by State Representatives Brandy Fluker-Reid (D-Boston) and Christine P. Barber (D-Somerville), as well as State Senator Michael F. Rush (D-Boston), the bill is seen as a major priority in the state senate, where it is currently referred to the Senate Committee on Ways and Means.
Major domestic violence survivor advocacy groups throughout Massachusetts are working together to give this bill more exposure. With Jane Doe Inc. being one of the more prominent ones due to its history of amplifying the voices of victims and survivors and fighting for a fairer justice system in the state.
Two JDI advocates, Policy Director Nithya Badrinath and Policy & Systems Advocacy Manager Cenee Enriquez, spoke with BINJ and emphasized how deeply important it is to women in prison today to have legislators understand the history of the survivors of domestic abuse in their ranks.
They noted that the current two-year session marks the first time the Survivors Act has been introduced to the Massachusetts legislature.
Although, according to Badrinath, “our legislative process is a little bit slower,” she knows that momentum is needed to make an impact, and that’s what she and her colleagues are working toward right now.
There’s a strong sense of urgency about this bill among survivors’ advocacy groups. Badrinath talked about how “it would be a huge win for Massachusetts to pass something like this and actually recognize survivorship.”
The bill could bring Massachusetts in line nationally with states like Georgia, Oklahoma, and New York, which have significant movements that seek to address the criminalization of victims.
Oklahoma, where around “56.7% of women have experienced any form of domestic violence in their lifetime,” according to the World Population Review, offers an important example of how histories of abuse are making lawmakers rethink how they treat survivors who go on to commit abuse-related crimes.
Badrinath noted how important this is for her organization’s cause, “Oklahoma, which is a deep red state, was able to get a version passed, which is huge.”
This bill can have major effects on the Massachusetts criminal justice system, but this is impossible to be achieved without the help of coalition groups.
In an interview with Mallory Hanora, the executive director of Families for Justice as Healing, a Massachusetts-based prison abolitionist organization, she gave some background on the bill and what it could look like moving forward.
“The women we work with often faced years of coercion, control, and violence before acting.” These victims are brought to their breaking point after enduring harsh treatment at the hands of loved ones, people they trusted.
By the time the legal system does, the systems that are designed to intervene, resources like police and courts, have already failed them.
Hanora emphasized this, “prisons don’t offer real rehabilitation for survivors.” Modern penitentiaries don’t have sufficient mental health and recovery resources; victims are left to navigate the long-term psychological effects of abuse on their own.
She said that Massachusetts, as a progressive state, is “moving in the wrong direction when it comes to women’s incarceration.”
Hanora also explained how the Healey-Driscoll administration, months back, proposed a major renovation plan for MCI-Framingham, the state’s primary women’s prison.
With the plan’s cost at around $360 million, she said the problem is not the building’s physical condition, but the system it represents. She believes that, when implemented, the Massachusetts Survivors Act can “correct this problem,” giving survivors justice rather than abandoning them.
This legislation, in her view, “can fundamentally shift the way the legal system sees survivors.” Courts will consider the entire context of a victim’s case, and not judge their actions as an isolated crime.
The way advocates fight for justice for domestic abuse victims is changing, and if passed, this bill will mark an important step toward having a system better equipped to handle the complexities of these cases and ensure that justice is truly being served.
Caitlin Glass, a lecturer and clinical instructor at the Boston University School of Law, also emphasized that point when asked about the importance of the bill, she added that “It opens the door to someone who’s been incarcerated for a long time to bring a post-conviction motion to get their sentence reduced.”
The bill is important not only for future cases, but also for people who are currently incarcerated and could fall under the survivor category—and get the justice that was promised to them.
Glass sees this as “taking one small part of the system that’s gone wrong and trying to mitigate that harm.” The act isn’t the only step in the process, just the first. It’s a much-needed start toward solving the issue.
One of the most important problems the bill addresses is mandatory minimums, where “the judge has no capacity to consider the mitigating circumstances at all.” This leaves very little room in the legal system to consider the victim’s background and context before sentencing.
Without this bill, there’s no way for a court to consider someone’s abuse history, because the sentences are mandatory.
Even with the self-defense exceptions that some victims will try to argue, Glass explained that “self-defense is just a very, very narrow defense, covering only someone’s act in response to the threat of imminent harm.”
A lot of victims who stand up against their abusers don’t do it immediately after the first incident; there’ll be months or even years of fighting against the abuse and attempting to improve their positions.
And when these victims kill their abusers, courts often see their actions as premeditated, leaving survivors of prolonged abuse vulnerable to murder charges and prison time.
Glass concluded by saying, “The self-defense justification as it exists doesn’t take into account the actual experience of abuse survivors, where the threat of violence may always be present, but not necessarily imminent.”
For survivors whose stories like this were never fully heard in court, the Massachusetts Survivors Act bill offers something this system has always denied them: a chance to speak and have their voices heard.
