05/06/2026
Seven years.
Seven years of survivors showing up.
Seven years of families reliving the worst moments of their lives in hearing rooms, offices, zoom calls and legislative meetings.
Seven years of refusing to let intimate partner violence homicides remain invisible in Connecticut.
Last night, HB 5313 passed the Connecticut Senate unanimously after unanimous passage in the House, and it now heads to the Governor’s desk.
This was not the bill we originally started with.
And it will not be the last bill we fight for.
But today is still a victory.
For years, Violent Crime Survivors has manually tracked intimate partner and family violence homicides across Connecticut dating back to 2000 - piecing together information through survivors, news reports, court proceedings, sentencing records, parole data, and cold case investigations because no unified statewide tracking system existed.
No consistent identifiers. No connected data. No full picture.
And without data, there is no real transparency, no measurable accountability, and no way to honestly evaluate whether justice is being applied equitably across cases, counties, races, socioeconomic status, or communities.
HB 5313 changes that.
This legislation begins the process of creating a uniform statewide case identification system for domestic violence cases - allowing Connecticut to finally track cases from incident and arrest through prosecution, sentencing, incarceration, parole, and supervision.
That matters deeply to survivors and families.
Because equitable justice begins with visibility.
Families deserve to know that every victim’s life carries the same weight under the law. That crimes are treated with equal seriousness. That outcomes are not dependent on geography, circumstance, or silence within disconnected systems.
This bill is survivor-led legislation rooted in lived experience, years of advocacy, and countless voices who refused to let this issue disappear.
Representative Raghib Allie-Brennan stood with survivors and fought for meaningful reform for seven years, even when earlier efforts were obstructed. He listened. He stayed. And he helped move this foundational legislation forward.
Today is especially meaningful for Emily Todd’s family. We love you Emily 💜
Emily’s life - and the advocacy that followed her murder - helped push Connecticut toward finally acknowledging that we cannot prevent what we refuse to clearly see.
This work is for every victim whose life risks becoming only a headline, a docket number, or a forgotten data point.
It is for every survivor and family member who has sat in a courtroom searching for accountability, fairness, and equal treatment under the law.
Because equitable justice matters.
Survivors deserve to know that every victim’s life carries the same value, that crimes are treated with equal seriousness, and that justice is applied consistently regardless of geography, race, socioeconomic status, or circumstance.
This legislation is about more than data collection. It is about finally building the ability to identify patterns, understand escalation, evaluate outcomes honestly, and create prevention grounded in evidence instead of assumptions.
Better visibility leads to better accountability.
Better accountability leads to better policy.
Better policy leads to prevention.
And prevention saves lives.
Today sends a message to survivors and victims across Connecticut:
Your loved ones mattered.
Your experiences matter.
And what happened to them will no longer remain invisible. Jenn Lawlor State Representative Raghib Allie-Brennan
