For Sandy, revenge porn isn’t a hypothetical, it’s a painful part of her history.
The bill that failed to win Senate approval during the final chaotic days of formal sessions — despite being approved unanimously months earlier in the House — is too late to help her. She knows that. The lewd photos her ex-boyfriend posted online along with her name, hometown, and Facebook photo are forever a part of her.
“We’re just asking [the Legislature] to give us a voice so when it happens to other women, they’re protected,” she told Globe reporter Matt Stout.
Massachusetts is one of only two states (South Carolina is the other) without a clear law to ban the nonconsensual sharing of sexually explicit photos and to punish those whose clear intent is to get back at an ex-partner.
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The issue has been high on Governor Charlie Baker’s priority list during this, his final in office, since he mentioned it in his State of the Commonwealth address in January. It was days later that he gathered several survivors, including Sandy, to testify at subsequent legislative hearings.
The House-passed bill — a variation on Baker’s — broadens the state’s existing criminal harassment laws to apply to nonconsensual distribution of nude pictures, sexual videos, and other explicit materials with the intent to “harm, harass, intimidate, threaten or coerce, or with reckless disregard for the likelihood that the person depicted or the person receiving will suffer harm.”
A first offense would be considered a misdemeanor and carry a penalty of up to 2 ½ years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both. Second or subsequent offenses would be felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison, a fine of no more than $15,000, or both.
The bill also addresses teen “sexting” by creating an educational diversion program for juveniles to be set up by the attorney general in consultation with the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and a system of pretrial probation. However, juveniles convicted of not simply sharing such photos among themselves but posting them to an Internet website could face up to six months in the custody of the Department of Youth Services.
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The bill passed the House in May on a 154-0 vote.
As the legislative session approached its July 31 scheduled end, Senator Jamie Eldridge, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was asked why the bill hadn’t reached the Senate floor in the intervening months.
“Probably it’s a case where law enforcement and, with all due respect, media have been very, very laser focused on this even though it’s not a particularly severe problem in Massachusetts,” Eldridge told State House News Service.
Sandy and Kelly, another survivor of revenge porn, who have asked that they be identified by their first names only, issued a statement saying, “Those of us whose lives have been permanently destroyed, with no legal recourse to achieve the justice we deserve, would certainly beg to differ.”
They called Eldridge’s words “appalling and an insult to survivors and their families,” adding “we are horrified by his lack of compassion.”
After the session wrapped up, Eldridge told the Globe he remained uncomfortable with the notion of possible jail time for first time offenders adding, “I did not hear from many colleagues that this was something that was happening in their district.”
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Guess he must have missed the words offered on the Senate floor by Senator John F. Keenan, who briefly tried to attach the revenge porn bill to an unrelated bond bill when he said he had indeed heard from his Quincy constituents who told him their stories.
“We probably all have stories, but the fact is, there is not much people can do now under existing law. ... It’s a loophole we absolutely should close. We should close it on behalf of all the victims who’ve come forward, and all the victims who have not.”
Eldridge has also deftly shifted the blame, saying, “It [the bill] was just a victim of the focus on other quote-unquote more important bills.”
Surely Keenan isn’t the only senator who has heard the painful stories and was moved to do something about them. And Senate President Karen Spilka, a champion of so many victims’ rights issues, might want to give Eldridge a belated push on the issue.
Passing legislation during an informal session is, of course, more problematic because even one member can halt action on a bill. However, as the House vote telegraphed, there are some bills that are simply the right thing to do at the right time.
The Senate’s failure to pass this long overdue correction to the state’s harassment laws will continue to be a stain on that body’s reputation until it steps up and remedies the situation.
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Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.
