according to court records. He posted bail and was released shortly after.
During her drive home from New Hampshire, and again following his release from jail, contacts began to receive nude photos of her sent from her email account. Believing he hacked her account, she reported the harassment to police. Several days later, after violating the terms of his release, he was arrested and this time held for a month. The temporary reprieve, she says, gave her the space to find a new housing arrangement and start fresh.
“ I had a huge sigh of relief. I was going to have thirty days of a normal life,” she says.
Her story demonstrates some of the common complaints domestic violence advocates raise with the criminal justice system. Though various legal tools exist to protect victims— including protective orders and measures to prevent abusers from accessing guns— advocates say these tools sometimes go unenforced, and offenders are not always prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In Robyn’ s case, her ex pled no contest to domestic felony assault and had several other charges dismissed. He received a six-year suspended sentence and six years of probation and ultimately served no jail time. He is now married and owns a small business.
“ There’ s a big difference between having a policy and having a law versus the implementation,” says Somaly Prak-Martins, director of prevention for the RICADV.
In addition to the suspended sentence, Robyn’ s ex was ordered to pay restitution and attend a Batterers Intervention Program. According to the RICADV, these classbased programs— required of all defendants convicted of a domestic violence crime in Rhode Island— are ineffective and underfunded. A 2022 report by the Justice Reinvestment Initiative titled“ Improving Domestic Violence Responses in Rhode Island” found that the state’ s Batterers Intervention Programs lacked a consistent curriculum, relied on self-reported data from clients and grouped individuals with varying histories and risk levels into identical programs, raising questions about their effectiveness.
Domestic violence advocates also cite offenders’ access to firearms as a major concern. Rhode Island has made significant strides in restricting domestic violence offenders’ access to guns over the past decade. However, recent cases demonstrate the limits to these protections. In 2024, Joseph Francis of Hopkinton murdered his estranged wife, Stephanie Francis, in her home before killing himself during a police chase. Four years earlier, local police had denied Joseph’ s application to purchase firearms on the basis of previous charges, including cyber-harassment of a woman, according to reporting in The Boston Globe. Joseph fought back in court and his application was ultimately approved. When police responded to a domestic violence call at the home in the weeks before Stephanie’ s murder, they seized several firearms from Joseph and ordered him to turn over any others. Stephanie told them he owned additional guns, but she didn’ t know where they were. About a month later, Joseph returned to the house with the shotgun that he used to kill his wife.
“ With protective orders, offenders are supposed to relinquish firearms. We know that doesn’ t always happen,” says Palmer of the RICADV.
In 2018, Rhode Island passed the Extreme Risk Protection Order law, which enables law enforcement to petition to remove firearms from someone who poses a threat to themselves or others. The measure, also known as a“ Red Flag” law, was championed as an essential tool for preventing suicide, domestic homicide and other cases of extreme violence. However, as Haley Gervino, director of the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence, points out, Rhode Island still lags behind other states. In many places, including Massachusetts and Connecticut, household members and health care professionals can also petition for someone’ s firearms to be removed, eliminating the need for police to initiate.
“ In most cases of mass violence, including involving firearms, the perpetrator tells people closest to them that they have plans to do this, and those are the individuals who will recognize a shift in behavior ahead of a law enforcement officer who wouldn’ t know that personally,” Gervino says.
Domestic violence organizations have also advocated for steeper penalties in cases that escalate to attempted homicide. In April, Sojourner House submitted written testimony in favor of House bill 8055, which would increase the minimum sentence for assault with intent to commit murder from one to ten years and eliminate the possibility of a suspended sentence or parole.
Alyssa Garcia, an attempted homicide survivor who has advocated publicly for the bill, says she’ s heard from other women who feel a higher minimum sentence would help them move on in rebuilding their lives after an attack. The bill was held for further study.
“ I think that ten-year minimum gives you the structure and stability that you need … without having the fear that your perpetrator’ s going to be coming out of jail in three years,” she says.
Robyn is no stranger to the legislative process. After leaving her abuser in 2017, she began attending monthly meetings with Sisters Overcoming Abusive Relationships, a survivor-led task force of the RICADV that advocates on issues around domestic violence. Members testify on domestic violence-related legislation and share their stories to raise awareness. Robyn’ s first testimony was on the state’ s“ revenge porn” bill, which made it illegal to share sexually explicit photographs of someone without their consent. Passed in 2018, the bill would have applied to her situation had it been in effect the previous year.
Other legislative victories have included the Early Lease Termination Act, which allows abuse survivors to end a lease early to flee a dangerous situation, and the Protect All Children Act, which extends restraining order protections to all children in a situation. The group uses trauma-informed methods to put survivors’ priorities first and has served as a model for peer task forces around the country, according to Kristi Di Cenzo, SOAR coordinator and a survivor herself.
106 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY I OCTOBER 2026