The Massachusetts Survivors Act creates alternative and resentencing avenues for survivors of family violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking whose transgressions were connected to their abuse. It also allows for the expungement and sealing of a survivor’s record so they face fewer barriers to re-entry. The bill (S.1256) also recognizes that incarcerating survivors only fuels cycles of harm and that we need to push for decarceration to allow for survivors to heal. Additionally, the bill would establish an affirmative defense for survivors of abuse and sexual assault who were coerced or forced into committing a transgression.
It creates new pathways for survivors, similar to laws in other states, by letting them petition courts for relief based on experiences with domestic violence, sexual violence, or human trafficking, and aims to interrupt cycles of violence by providing alternatives to traditional punishment. It challenges outdated views of abuse by acknowledging the complex ways trauma can affect a person’s actions, offering a more just response than solely punitive measures.
Survivors of domestic and sexualized violence are particularly vulnerable to prosecution because of the control their abusers hold over them.
In anonymous testimony provided by Prisoner Legal Services to Massachusetts Judiciary Committee during debate, an incarcerated survivor stated “An Act Relative to Justice for Survivors would interrupt cycles of harm by expanding opportunities for criminalized survivors to seek diversion, reduced sentences, and post-conviction sentencing relief.”
Karen Edwards, incarcerated at Massachusetts Correctional Institution-Framingham and serving a sentence of 15 years to life for the 2016 death of her abusive husband, also offered testimony on behalf of the bill’s passage. “He isolated me from my loved ones,” Edwards told the joint committee on the judiciary when she testified in June 2025. “He would stalk me when I go to work. He would follow me to work. He would take my freedom away, even when I’m in the house. I cannot have my phone, nothing.” In a tear-choked voice, she recalled him saying that if she loved him, she wouldn’t tell anyone about his violence. “He threatened that, if I leave, to kill me and my two kids,” she said just before ending her testimony.
Read more about the Massachusetts Survivors Act in “Massachusetts Could Be the Next State to Give Abuse Survivors a Pathway Out of Prison” at the Bolts Magazine website. Bolts Magazine reports on the local elections and obscure institutions that greatly shape public policies but are overlooked in the U.S., and the grassroots movements that surround them.
