The Massachusetts Survivors Act emulates recent resentencing reforms across the country that allow for reduced sentences for people with convictions related to their abuse.
This story first appeared in Bolts, and is reprinted with permission.
Karen Edwards had never spoken to lawmakers before last year. But this past June, she summoned the nerve to testify before them about her experiences with domestic violence. She spoke to them via video conference from MCI Framingham, Massachusetts’ sole women’s prison, where she’s serving a sentence of 15 years to life for the 2016 death of her abusive husband.
“He isolated me from my loved ones,” Edwards told the state’s joint committee on the judiciary when she testified on June 17. “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.
Edwards was asking lawmakers to pass sentencing reforms to help her and other abuse survivors facing or imprisoned for charges related to their abuse.
The Massachusetts Survivors Act, a bill introduced last year that emulates recent reforms adopted in a few other states, would require judges to reduce someone’s sentence or offer pretrial diversion if they find that a person’s actions were directly related to their experiences of abuse. The Judiciary Committee advanced the bill in September, referring to another legislative committee, but the proposal hasn’t moved forward since; advocates hope they can move it forward this year.
Under the bill’s resentencing scheme, Edwards could see her sentence of life with the possibility of parole reduced to no more than seven years, which is less than the amount of time she’s already spent behind bars since her arrest. Survivors who are serving a sentence of life without parole would see their terms reduced to a maximum of 10 years, while lighter sentences for lower-level convictions could be suspended or imposed as probation instead of prison time.
He would take my freedom away, even when I’m in the house. I cannot have my phone, nothing.
Karen Edwards in her testimony
Edwards learned about the bill through Families for Justice as Healing, an organization dedicated to ending women’s incarceration in Massachusetts. She told Bolts that speaking to lawmakers was “very overwhelming” but that she “knew it was not only about me but others as well.” Edwards said that the bill’s passage would allow her and others to rejoin their children on the outside—which she said “would be the beginning of restoration.”
Edwards wound up being the only person from Framingham allowed to testify that day. Another survivor who had wanted to testify from prison, Maria Thompson, says that correctional officers didn’t allow her to do so. Thompson, who says she experienced family and domestic violence, told Bolts that even though her offense was not directly tied to her abuse, and thus she likely wouldn’t qualify for resentencing under the bill, she wanted to tell lawmakers that many of her peers are behind bars because they’re abuse survivors, and felt it was important to speak out.
Thompson instead mailed her written testimony to the legislature.
“While serving my sentence here, I have become friendly with numerous women whose transgressions were the direct result of domestic violence,” she wrote. “Their stories seem to share a common thread of loss of trust, desperation, and hopelessness which led to acts of survival, often not only for themselves but for their children who looked to them for protection.”
Massachusetts Department of Corrections spokesperson Scott Croteau told Bolts that the department “works to support incarcerated individuals’ participation in the legislative process, including testimony, when requests are received with sufficient notice to complete required coordination and procedural review,” and that Thompson’s request to testify during the hearing was submitted too late.
… Loss of trust, desperation, and hopelessness … led to acts of survival, often not only for themselves but for their children who looked to them for protection.
Maria Thompson
After Edwards appeared on screen to speak to lawmakers, Marissa sat in front of them to tell her story of spending 31 years in prison for killing her abusive partner.
Marissa, who asked that her legal name not be published to protect her family’s privacy, was just 20 years old when she was charged with murdering her partner, whose abuse she described to the committee. “Imagine being forced to have an abortion and on that same night, being forced to have sex,” she implored legislators. “I did not want to have an abortion, and I did not want to have sex. But I had to because if I didn’t, he said that he was going to kill my kids.”
Marissa’s children were young when she was arrested—just 4 months old, 3 years old, and 5 years old. She told Bolts that after her release two years ago, at age 53, she had to rebuild relationships with her now-adult children and her new granddaughter, as well as navigate the ways in which the world had sped up in her absence.
Marissa says that publicly recounting the abuse she experienced is difficult, and that testifying in front of lawmakers last summer left her shaken. But she also says she left prison determined to fulfill a promise to fight for the women she left behind, particularly those with life sentences.
“I have two friends, they’re like family to me, that are still there [at Framingham],” Marissa told Bolts. “I spoke to both of them [after the hearing]. They never had hope before.” Now, she said, she heard hope in their voices as they told her, “‘I can’t believe that one day I am going to walk out of this prison,’ instead of, ‘I’m going to die here, I’m never going home to my family.’”
The Massachusetts Survivors Act mirrors other resentencing reforms that states of varying political leanings have passed in recent years. New York lawmakers passed the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act in 2019, which has resulted in at least 225 resentencing applications from survivors and 78 people being resentenced, advocates estimate. The Survivors Justice Project, which tracks the impact of the reform law, estimates 102 people have been denied and 35 applications remain pending.
I can’t believe that one day I am going to walk out of this prison,’ instead of, ‘I’m going to die here, I’m never going home to my family.
Marissa’s friend, still at Framingham
Survivors of abuse imprisoned in Oklahoma and their advocates on the outside pushed for years for similar resentencing reforms, and in 2024 overcame a governor’s initial veto to pass the legislation. Since then, advocates say they’ve seen survivors with pending cases dismissed under the act. Last year, Lisa Moss was resentenced to time served and released after 34 months in prison, the only person so far resentenced under the act; several others, including April Wilkens, whose story inspired Oklahoma’s legislation, have been denied resentencing.
In May 2025, Georgia passed its own Survivor Justice Act. In January, the first survivor, who had served 23 years of a life sentence, was resentenced and released.
In Massachusetts, where the two-year legislative session ends on July 31, 2026, no one has so far testified against the bill. In other states, however, state district attorney associations have opposed similar legislation. In Oklahoma and New York, advocacy efforts eventually overcame opposition, but in other states, such as California, prosecutors’ objections have helped kill similar bills.
It’s not clear how many people in prison might be helped by passage of the Massachusetts Survivors Act. In 2022, Prisoners’ Legal Services in Massachusetts interviewed and surveyed imprisoned women. In eight of the 22 interviews and five of 10 written surveys, women talked about experiencing violence and abuse before their arrest and incarceration. The act is not limited to women—people in men’s prisons could also apply for relief. Overall, incarcerated people, particularly women, are more likely to have experienced violence or abuse compared to the general public in the U.S.
The bill would require the state’s attorney general to track the number of motions for resentencing that are filed and granted, as well as other details about the petitioner and their sentence.
Caitlin Glass, lecturer and clinical instructor with the Racial Justice and Movement Lawyering Clinic at Boston University School of Law and one of the bill’s drafters, says advocates in the state have tried to learn from looking at implementation of similar reforms elsewhere. For instance, Glass notes that the Oklahoma law requires people to prove that they were a victim of abuse at the time of the offense, that the abuse was a substantial contributing factor, and that they have clear and convincing documentary evidence, such as a police report, hospital record, protective order, or presentence report—requirements that Glass says can give judges more discretion to deny petitions.
By contrast, the Massachusetts bill requires that the alleged offense was related to the person’s experiences of abuse and has less stringent requirements about the types of evidence necessary to prove that they are a survivor.
“Any one survivor who is incarcerated is a grave injustice that we must address,” Glass said. “The fact that Massachusetts doesn’t have an overwhelming number of people in prison is all the more reason to take the lead in showing what’s possible.”
Nithya Badrinath, policy director at Jane Doe Inc. The Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence (or JDI), which supports the act, says such resentencing reforms would also help in continuing to reduce incarceration in Massachusetts, which she noted has one of the nation’s lowest incarceration rates. As of Jan. 1, 2025, the state incarcerated 6,168 people; of those, 206 were imprisoned in Framingham.
“Over the years, our field has recognized that the current legal system has caused a lot of harm to survivors,” she said. “We are in a unique position in the state with one of the lowest rates of incarceration that we can do something about it.”
Mallory Hanora, executive director of Families for Justice as Healing, called the bill “a meaningful pathway home for survivors,” especially those whose experiences are compounded by systemic inequities.
“White people with privilege are allowed to be seen as whole,” she told Bolts. “We see that in every single instance of white people causing harm very publicly. ‘Oh, he was disturbed. Oh, he had mental health issues. He had a difficult family life.’ But it’s Black and Brown people who are denied the [same] context of their actions.”
She added, “This [act] is a fair, consistent and equitable process to consider survivorship as opposed to the court getting to pick and choose who they recognize as a survivor of harm.”
Great Job Victoria Law & the Team @ Ms. Magazine Source link for sharing this story.
