What good are laws that can be evaded or avoided?

We’ve had some experience with measures passed by the state Legislature that fit that description.

In 1975, state lawmakers passed the Bartley-Fox Amendment, a precedent-setting law that provided for a mandatory one year jail sentence for anyone illegally carrying a firearm.

Praised for its potential to reduce gun-related crime, it never fulfilled that promise.

Why? Because many defendants who fit that description instead plea-bargained their way to lesser penalties. In fact, few criminals ever landed behind bars because of Bartley-Fox.

Similarly, the ban on texting while driving wasn’t effectively enforced until the Legislature passed the hands-free law in December 2019 that eliminated the use of all hand-held devices while behind the wheel.

And now we have an example of a law that’s hamstrung by both a lack of enforcement and recognition.

As reported by the State House News Service, nearly eight years after its enactment, a law granting expanded rights to domestic workers hasn’t lived up to its billing, due those two previously mentioned impediments.

According to a report published last week by the Boston College Law School Civil Rights Clinic and the Brazilian Worker Center, researchers who surveyed more than 200 housekeepers, including cleaners, nannies, caretakers, cooks and others who fall under the umbrella of “domestic worker,” found most had little to no knowledge of the protections guaranteed under the law.

That...

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