Survivor justice acts bring common sense to sentencing

Survivors of partner abuse are often punished for crimes directly connected to or a consequence of their abuse. These are situations where a victim of abuse, such as domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, or human trafficking, is charged with crimes for which their abuser is partly responsible. A classic example is that of abuse victims who harm their abusers but are not allowed to claim self-defense in trial and end up convicted of violent acts. Other cases involve people who are coerced into committing crimes by their abuser and then are prosecuted for these forced actions, like carrying drugs. “Survivor justice acts” are laws that would allow courts to consider evidence of this type of abuse and to take it into account at sentencing decisions for abuse victims charged with crimes.

Historically, evidence of this kind of coercive abuse was routinely excluded from consideration when a judge sentenced these defendants. Proposed reforms are focused on sentencing where the abuse is a relevant mitigating factor or even justification that ties directly to the case but was not heard at trial.

This problem is significant and has been growing. According to the Vera Institute of Justice, between 1970 and 2014, the female population in jails exploded to 14 times the original size. And research has long shown that many women in jails and prisons are mothers with histories of abuse and trauma. The Council on Criminal Justice has found that half to three-quarters of incarcerated women report that they have experienced sexual violence and that more than 70% report having experienced intimate partner violence. Numerous studies have confirmed that there is a robust pathway from abuse to incarceration. That said, not all trauma or abuse histories will meet the statutory requirement that the victimization was a significant contributing factor to the specific offense for which the person was prosecuted.

States are starting to see real reforms in this area. In recent sessions, Georgia and Oklahoma passed survivor justice acts. Both states earned bipartisan support for the measures. Oklahoma’s bill passed in 2024, and Georgia’s was signed into law in May 2025 with similar bipartisan support and took effect July 1, 2025.

New Jersey has a new survivor justice act that was signed into law in January 2026.  It included a companion bill that provided for expungements. A key fact: According to the New Jersey Department of Corrections, in 2023, 72% of first-time offenders convicted of violent crimes and imprisoned at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women had been abused by the person they had been convicted of harming.

It is important to note that these Survivor Justice Act laws do not actually release any people from prison; rather, they allow judges to weigh—along with other evidence—the impact of abuse on the crime at hand. It is merely an opportunity to present this evidence to the judicial officer, who is trusted to weigh the proper response to each crime based on the relevant facts and circumstances.

The bills usually include the provision of counsel for people who are seeking review while already serving sentences for conduct they were convicted of, but who did not have the option to demonstrate abuse and its impact on their behavior.  

These laws allow full and adequate consideration of abuse and the role it can play in offenses. Some versions would require judges to sentence people to lower sentence ranges if the judge has determined under the statute that they have shown the required evidence of abuse or trafficking and the abuse was a significant contributing factor in the crime. 

Support for these policies is broad, ranging from women’s rights groups to the Council on Criminal Justice to R Street Institute to FWD.us. As a further testament to the wide-reaching support enjoyed by survivor justice acts, a model bill was adopted by the conservative-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in January 2026.

New York, the first state to enact a survivor justice law, passed its Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA) in 2019. According to the Sentencing Project and Survivors Justice Project, by April 2023, 40 individuals had already benefited from sentence reductions. Survivor justice acts ensure that courts can consider the full context of an offense, crafting sentences that both reflect accountability and incorporate the context of abuse that contributed to the crime. Other states should quickly adopt these policies.

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