The U.S. incarcerates more people and more women than any other country in the world. Over the past 50 years, the women’s prison population has skyrocketed 1,500%. Women of color and women from low-income communities are dramatically overrepresented, a direct result of the criminal legal system’s racism and inequity.

Domestic violence is a primary driver of women’s incarceration. Nowhere is this link more stark than in situations involving survivors charged with crimes related to the abuse they suffered. Instead of offering compassion and support, the criminal legal system punishes survivors, routinely moving forward with arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment.

New York’s DVSJA is a tool to challenge this punishment. After a 10-year campaign organized by the Coalition for Women Prisoners and led by currently and formerly incarcerated women, the DVSJA was enacted into law in 2019.

The first sentencing reform of its kind in the country, the DVSJA gives judges discretion to sentence survivors convicted of crimes related to abuse to significantly shorter prison terms or, in some cases, to community-based alternatives.  It also allows incarcerated survivors convicted before the DVSJA was passed to apply for resentencing to come home earlier. 

As a result of determined advocacy by survivors and legal teams, the DVSJA has been used to secure the release of 68 survivors, saving 175 years of incarceration including 16 potential life sentences as of September 2024.  Had the survivors been originally sentenced under the DVSJA, over 507 years of needless prison time would have been avoided.  The Act has also been used to reduce initial sentences, although we do not have exact data because courts are not tracking this information.

While this progress is hopeful, more needs to be done.  Some survivors have been denied relief under the DVSJA, some are excluded from the Act’s provisions, and many have yet to apply.

In addition, while the DVSJA is groundbreaking, it is only one step in the larger effort to transform our criminal legal system and end gender-based violence.

Read the full text of the DVSJA.

If you or someone you know is applying for DVSJA or would like to learn more about the Act, check out SJP’s DVSJA Resource Guide.

If you are an attorney or part of a legal team working on DVSJA cases, contact the DVSJA Attorney Support Project and check out these DVSJA resources and practice guides.

Request an SJP training about the DVSJA.