{"id":38735,"date":"2024-03-22T09:47:24","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T13:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/?p=38735"},"modified":"2024-04-01T09:48:36","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T13:48:36","slug":"advocates-say-its-time-to-expand-the-definition-of-domestic-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/advocates-say-its-time-to-expand-the-definition-of-domestic-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Advocates say it’s time to expand the definition of domestic violence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hannah Loss<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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March 22, 2024<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Massachusetts could join a small group of states expanding the definition of domestic violence to include acts of coercive control.<\/p>\n

The Senate bill\u00a0passed on Thursday<\/a>\u00a0not only amends the state’s criminal harassment law and establishes clear penalties for sharing sexually explicit images or videos without the subject’s consent, it would also expand the definition of domestic violence to include coercive control, which advocates say is at the heart of domestic abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe act of sharing intimate images without someone’s consent is a way of degrading, humiliating, holding some kind of power over another individual. So it is a form of coercive control,\u201d said Hema Sarang-Sieminski, the deputy director of Jane Doe Inc., a local domestic violence survivor advocacy coalition.<\/p>\n

Coercive control can also appear as isolating a person from friends and family, controlling their finances, or tracking their movement and communications. Advocates say these kinds of controlling\u00a0<\/b>behaviors often lead to later violence.<\/p>\n

Currently,\u00a0Massachusetts restraining orders<\/a>\u00a0require a survivor to provide a sworn statement in court that they were subjected to physical abuse, the threat of physical abuse or forced sexual relationships.\u00a0<\/b>Under the law as it is now, a person cannot receive a restraining order for other reasons, including their abuser controlling their finances to prevent them from leaving, stalking them, or threatening to take children away.<\/p>\n

Both the Senate legislation and a similar bill passed by the House in January would allow survivors to pursue restraining orders based on controlling behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing in front of a judge and to be able to \u2026 explain the situation and why it’s so harmful and not to have to wait until the physical abuse starts is an important step for the safety of survivors,\u201d said Jamie Sabino, deputy director of advocacy at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.<\/p>\n

The two chambers must now work toward a final bill to send to Gov. Maura Healey. Sabino and Sarang-Sieminski said they are optimistic that Healey will sign the final version, who made\u00a0domestic violence a priority<\/a>\u00a0as attorney general, although she has not publicly expressed support for these bills.<\/p>\n

If enacted, Massachusetts would join California, Connecticut and Hawaii in\u00a0passing legislation on coercive control.<\/a>\u00a0A number of other states \u2014 including Florida, Washington, New York, Maryland and South Carolina \u2014 also have bills pending in their state legislatures that would expand definitions of domestic violence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hannah Loss March 22, 2024 Massachusetts could join a small group of states expanding the definition of domestic violence to include acts of coercive control. The Senate bill\u00a0passed on Thursday\u00a0not […]<\/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-38735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-coverage"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38735","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=38735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38736,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38735\/revisions\/38736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janedoe.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}