{"id":38850,"date":"2024-06-20T10:00:57","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T14:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/?p=38850"},"modified":"2024-07-31T10:01:44","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T14:01:44","slug":"massachusetts-gov-maura-healey-signs-coercive-control-bill-into-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/massachusetts-gov-maura-healey-signs-coercive-control-bill-into-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey Signs Coercive Control Bill Into Law"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
PUBLISHED<\/strong>\u00a06\/20\/2024<\/span>\u00a0by\u00a0LISA ARONSON FONTES<\/a><\/div>\n<\/header>\n
\n

A new bill signed into law on Thursday cracks down on coercive control by domestic abusers\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0bans revenge pornography in Massachusetts.<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Gov. Maura Healey during 2023 Massachusetts Conference for Women on Dec. 14, 2023 in Boston. Healey signed legislation Thursday morning that\u00a0bans revenge pornography and cracks down on coercive control by domestic abusers. (Marla Aufmuth \/ Getty Images for Massachusetts Conference For Women)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Massachusetts just became the seventh state in the country to pass\u00a0legislation<\/a>\u00a0classifying coercive control as a form of domestic violence. The state\u2019s coalition against sexual assault and domestic violence,\u00a0Jane Doe Inc.<\/a>, praised the bill, H4744, as advancing\u00a0\u201cessential protections for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence across the Commonwealth.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Coercive control is a strategy that abusers use to dominate their intimate partners. Signed on Thursday morning, the Massachusetts law defines coercive control as \u201ca pattern of behavior intended to threaten, intimidate, harass, isolate, control, coerce or compel compliance of a family or household member that causes the family or household member to fear physical harm or have a reduced sense of physical safety or autonomy.\u201d It specifically lists several coercive control tactics including isolation; threatening to harm a child, family member or pet; intentionally damaging property; threatening to release sensitive images or information, and more.<\/p>\n

In passing this bill, Massachusetts joins California, Connecticut, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington (state) and New Jersey which all have passed laws defining coercive control as a form of domestic violence in the past five years.<\/p>\n

Attorney Jamie Sabino of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute said the survivor and expert testimony that influenced legislators \u201cspelled out the lifetime and generational harm caused by coercive control. Non-physical abuse like revenge porn, which is a form of technology abuse, is typically a precursor to more serious and violent acts, including sexual and physical assault or homicide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new Massachusetts law does not criminalize coercive control. However, if an abuser has a protective order against them, and commits coercive control, this can be considered a criminal violation of the protective order.<\/p>\n

Passing an initial law is the first great hurdle. The law will undoubtedly be improved and refined over time, as has happened in other states. For example, subsequent legislation may establish that child safety is the first priority in custody and parenting adjudications and must be resolved as a \u201cfundamental consideration in determining the best interests of the child before assessing other best interest factors,\u201d as is currently the case in Colorado.<\/p>\n

Subsequent revisions could also close \u201cthe boyfriend loophole,\u201d which is a possible sticky point, since this current law covers \u201cfamily or household members.\u201d It may not apply to all cases in which members of a couple have not ever lived together, are not married, and do not share children.<\/p>\n

The push to pass this law was coordinated by a coalition formed for this purpose: Together Rising Above Coercion (TRAC<\/a>), a statewide coalition of organizations, survivors, advocates and allies including\u00a0Jane Doe Inc<\/a>,\u00a0The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute,<\/a>\u00a0Jane Does Well<\/a>\u00a0and The Mass Family Advocacy Coalition (MFAC<\/a>), among others. The year-long efforts included targeted webinars, putting a book on coercive control into the hands of every legislator, letter-writing campaigns, a day of testimony in the legislature, and much more.<\/p>\n

Continued outreach to legislators on both sides of the aisle ensured that the bill was passed unanimously in both houses and signed rapidly by Gov. Healey.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbusers don\u2019t typically change,\u201d advocate and survivor Carmen Aliber said, \u201cso the law must change to keep up with their tactics.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coercive control law is part of a larger bill expanding protections against abuse and exploitation. With this bill, Massachusetts also joined the 48 other states with laws against \u201crevenge porn,\u201d or the nonconsensual sharing of sexual images. The law also enhances education for young people about the dangers of sexting.<\/p>\n

South Carolina is\u00a0now the only state<\/a>\u00a0with no laws prohibiting the nonconsensual sharing of sexual images.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PUBLISHED\u00a06\/20\/2024\u00a0by\u00a0LISA ARONSON FONTES A new bill signed into law on Thursday cracks down on coercive control by domestic abusers\u00a0and\u00a0bans revenge pornography in Massachusetts.   Gov. Maura Healey during 2023 Massachusetts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-coverage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38850"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38851,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38850\/revisions\/38851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}