Survivors of sexual violence deserve care — not criminalization
California’s AB 2354 offers ‘Justice for Survivors,’ opens pathways to healing and recovery
By Jasmine Amons, a Senior Program and Policy Manager at the National Center for Youth Law
Anyone who has experienced the traumas of intimate partner violence or sexual violence — situations that can, and often do, cause deep and lasting harm — deserves every available opportunity to heal and progress in life while feeling protected and like they matter. At a minimum, their having endured these horrific abuses should never be used to criminalize or further punish them.
While this should all sound obvious, for many survivors — particularly women and queer people of color — it’s unfortunately a far cry from reality.
About 90% of human trafficking victims are criminalized while being trafficked, according to a 2016 report from the National Survivor Network. In California, more than a third of women will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes, according to a report from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
A new bill making its way through the California legislature aims to improve this heartbreaking reality and has the potential to help survivors across the state heal, while avoiding unnecessary retraumatization and/or unjust criminalization.
California’s Assembly Bill 2354, also known as the “Justice for Survivors: Vacatur Relief” bill, addresses some glaring problems within the state’s criminal legal system. Chief among these problems: 1) Too often survivors of violence are forced into the criminal legal system where their traumas and experiences are used against them or otherwise ignored, and 2) current laws prevent certain survivors from seeking legal remedies, which leaves many of them stuck without access to vital resources and particularly susceptible to continued cycles of abuse and poverty.
So how does AB 2354 address or fix this? Put simply: By ensuring that all survivors of intimate partner violence and sexual violence, including human trafficking, are able to petition the court for vacatur relief, which allows the court to review and potentially undo an arrest or conviction — and destroy any records related to the case — that is a direct result of their abuse and victimization.
The bill, which recently passed out of the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee, is much-needed and long overdue.
Removing barriers and opening opportunities
Whether a person is criminalized for their acts of self-defense — like resisting a sex trafficker or buyer — or whether they’re criminally charged for acts meant to help or protect their children or other loved ones, courts often approach these scenarios with avenues of criminalization rather than understanding, accountability, compassion, or care.
The vacatur process already allows for some survivors of human trafficking, intimate partner violence and sexual violence to petition the court to have their criminal records that were a result of said violence vacated, or essentially erased, by the court.
AB 2354 would give all survivors of these types of violence the opportunity to clear their records through the vacatur process. This seemingly simple step can have an enormous impact: Without a criminal record, survivors can access crucial resources — like assistance with housing, employment, education, and financial services — that would otherwise be closed off to them. This relief would allow many survivors an actual fair chance to rebuild their lives and support themselves and their families as they heal and recover.
Removing these resource barriers (collateral consequences of a criminal conviction) is also key to advancing racial justice. Available data reveals stark racial inequities, with Black, Brown and Indigenous women and people who identify as queer or trans being disproportionately impacted by intimate partner and sexual violence. Black women, for example, are nearly three times more likely than white women to die at the hands of a past or present partner.
Additionally, for immigrant and refugee survivors who face charges as a direct result of their own abuse, vacatur is often the only process through which they can avoid deportation or permanent separation from their families. No one should lose access to their family, to their home, all because they survived abuses that were inflicted on them.
We must address this. The stakes are too high and the human cost to survivors and their families is too great. AB 2354, which is endorsed by the National Center for Youth Law among many other advocacy, survivor-led, and social justice organizations, is desperately needed.
If successful, California would become the sixth state to enact this type of legislation in support of its residents who survive some of the most horrifying circumstances and crimes imaginable.
If you’re a California resident who believes that all survivors of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking deserve access to healing and not continued punishment, please support the passage of AB 2354 in whatever ways you can — whether that’s by expressing your support to your state representatives or by helping others learn about this important issue. If you’re not in California, please consider elevating this issue among your state’s policymakers.
Every community deserves a legal system that helps survivors heal, rebuild their lives, and thrive in their communities. Every survivor deserves compassion and, most of all, justice.
Jasmine Amons is a Senior Program and Policy Manager at the National Center for Youth Law who provides core support in areas related to youth justice. Jasmine manages legislative priorities, provides technical assistance to community partners, and administers other key projects in service of building community power and reducing reliance on the juvenile justice system.
