When Abuse Victims Commit Crimes

Several of the women on the bus that day spent years in prison for acts involving abusive partners. One told me that she spent more than 17 years behind bars for fatally shooting her boyfriend in the neck while he was choking her. Another told me that when her partner wrapped his hands around her neck and began choking her, she grabbed for the nearest object—a knife—and thrust it. The man died, and she was charged with murder and sentenced to 19 years to life. (The names of these women are being withheld for their privacy. They requested that The Atlantic refrain from contacting their former partners or their families, for fear of retaliation. Their crimes are corroborated by police records.)

Over the past several decades, when many of these women appeared in court, they sometimes encountered judges who were unwilling to consider the role of abuse in their actions. Even when judges allowed defense attorneys to present evidence of abuse at trial, they were generally bound by state sentencing guidelines, which in New to send the women to prison for years, and sometimes decades.