Spotlighting efforts to address problem of abuse survivors subject to long prison terms

Writing at Bolts, Lauren Gill has this notable new article focused on New Jersey developments that tap into a broader story. The full title of the piece highlights its essentials: "For Abuse Survivors, a New Path to Release from New Jersey Prisons: Governor Phil Murphy commuted the sentences of three women convicted for killing abusers. Now advocates also want a legislative fix, and point to reforms in New York and Oklahoma." Here are excerpts:

On Dec. 13, [Dawn] Jackson was called into a prison administrator’s office and told to sit in front of a computer loaded with a Zoom call. Governor Phil Murphy’s face popped onto the screen. He told her that he was commuting her sentence and she would be released before Christmas.... The governor’s move came as part of a clemency program he launched last summer, inviting applications from people who fell into specific categories that he felt needed additional review.  All three women —Jackson, Denise Staples, and Myrna Diaz — applied under the same category: They were survivors who were either coerced by or committed a crime against their abuser.

Many other women who faced similar circumstances remain imprisoned in New Jersey.  Seventy-two percent of first-time offenders imprisoned for a violent crime at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, the state’s women’s prison, were abused by their victim, according to a 2023 report from the New Jersey Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission....

Advocates for criminal justice reform are cheering Murphy’s use of clemency, a tool he’d never used since coming into office seven years ago but that he is now promising to wield more often before he finishes his final term and leaves office at the end of this year.  But they also say that clemency is just a short-term solution that doesn’t account for glaring gaps in how the state’s criminal legal system treats abuse survivors.

The ACLU of New Jersey, along with other advocacy groups, are calling on legislators to create lasting protections that would provide relief to more men and women who have suffered abuse, and drafting a bill that they hope their legislative allies will introduce this session.  It would require judges to consider if someone has been abused prior to sentencing and create a process through which survivors who are already incarcerated can petition for a reduced sentence. 

Their proposal is inspired by legislation in New York and Oklahoma, passed in 2019 and 2024 respectively, that provide similar protections.... As of 2023, the most recent year with available data, 40 people had been resentenced under New York’s Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act. Twenty-eight are people of color, which is in keeping with data showing that people of color are more likely to be prosecuted for fighting back against their abuser. Just one person has been resentenced in Oklahoma since the state enacted the Survivors’ Act last year. Eight petitions are still pending, Oklahoma Appleseed, an advocacy organization that has been leading resentencing efforts, told Bolts.