Massachusetts Group Home Bills Would Criminalize Disability
Massachusetts has two bills in conference committee – H.4767 (Massachusetts Legislature, https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/H4767) and S.3184 (Massachusetts Legislature, https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/S3184) – that would extend criminal assault provisions to healthcare workers in group homes. The House version allows felony charges. The Senate version, as introduced, treated assaults as misdemeanors but included a mechanism for immediate, warrantless arrests in the patient's home. Senate amendments added a one-year pause on arrests for patients with mental or behavioral health diagnoses while the state assesses impact, but advocates say the pause is insufficient and want group homes removed from the legislation entirely (WBUR Cognoscenti, September 21, 2026, https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2026/09/21/massachusetts-healthcare-worker-protection-bill-susan-senator-maura-sullivan). I'm autistic. I know what these bills would do. The framing problem The bills are called healt...