After lawmakers didn’t push a invoice to punish “revenge porn” over the end line final yr, a brand new invoice favorably reported out of the Judiciary Committee seeks to crack down on distribution of sexually express content material with out the topic’s consent.
Disseminating nude photographs of one other individual with out permission could be thought-about prison harassment below the laws, and offenders may withstand two and a half years in jail or a superb of $10,000.
The committee-formed laws combines elements of quite a few payments that have been earlier than Sen. Jamie Eldridge and Rep. Michael Day’s committee, and was handed alongside to the House Ways and Means Committee with their stamp of approval.
The invoice meant to “prevent abuse and exploitation” (H 4115) additionally offers with sexting, coercive management and prison harassment.
It would enhance the superb for “willfully and maliciously” participating in a “knowing pattern of conduct or series of acts over a period of time directed at a specific person, which seriously alarms that person” from $1,000 to $5,000.
And distributing sexually express materials of one other individual with out their consent, when doing so is supposed to harass, hurt or threaten the individual and causes them psychological or bodily hurt (so-called “revenge porn”), may very well be punished with imprisonment in a home of correction for as much as two and a half years or a superb of $10,000.
On a second offense, the punishment can go as much as 10 years in state jail or a superb of $15,000.
The Judiciary Committee invoice additionally makes clear that “a person’s consent to the creation of visual material shall not constitute consent to the distribution of the visual material.”
Survivors and victims’ rights advocates warn that revenge porn has grown more and more frequent within the digital age, subjecting folks — notably girls — to social and emotional hurt usually inflicted by former romantic companions.
Lawmakers tried to crack down on revenge porn final yr, however senators didn’t depart themselves sufficient time within the end-of-session push to shut a loophole in state regulation that makes prosecution of revenge porn circumstances almost unattainable. Part of the issue, reform advocates say, is a 2005 Supreme Judicial Court ruling that made it tough for prosecutors to pursue fees except three or extra incidents came about.
Supporters stated throughout final yr’s debate that 48 different states have clear legal guidelines on the books banning revenge porn, however not Massachusetts.
The laws was a precedence for former Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, who pressed lawmakers for a number of years to cross laws to punish the nonconsensual unfold of another person’s nude photographs or movies.
“We’re one of only two states in the country in which it’s not a crime to make publicly available on the internet pictures that you take of somebody when you had their permission to do so,” Baker stated throughout a GBH News radio interview final yr. “If you’ve ever heard women talk about what this does to them, you’d understand why it’s a crime in 48 states and you would not understand why it’s not a crime in Massachusetts.”
The House unanimously handed the same teen sexting and revenge porn invoice in May of 2022, however senators didn’t take it up till the final days of December. With solely a couple of week to get the laws via their chamber, the invoice died on the early January finish of session with out motion taken on it.
In addition to addressing revenge porn, the invoice would require the lawyer basic, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Department of Youth Services and the state’s district attorneys to develop an “educational diversion program” to warn minors of the authorized penalties of “sexting,” or sending nude photographs and sexually express content material over textual content.
This program could be given to highschool districts to make use of in academic supplies on the subject.
The curriculum would additionally search to point out younger folks the non-legal penalties of sexting: “the effect on relationships, loss of educational and employment opportunities, and removal, exclusion or expulsion from school programs and extracurricular activities… how the unique characteristics of the internet can produce long-term and unforeseen consequences for sexting and posting sexual images online, including the impact on health relationships and risk of trafficking… and the connection between bullying and cyber-bullying, sexual assault and dating violence and juveniles sexting or posting sexual images.”
Minors who break the regulation, by distributing nude photographs of another person with out their consent, may very well be punished by a dedication to the Department of Youth Services, below the brand new invoice. They wouldn’t, nonetheless, should register as a intercourse offender.
The laws additionally provides “coercive control” to the definition of “abuse” in state regulation — which incorporates non-physical types of abuse by household or family members, akin to monetary, technological and emotional abuse.
It would additionally prolong the statute of limitations for assault and battery on a household or family member, or towards somebody with an energetic protecting order towards the perpetrator, from six years to fifteen years.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”