SB 425 creates a new grant program within the Department of Public Safety to help police departments and county sheriff's offices reduce violent crime. The program provides funding for evidence-based strategies such as focused deterrence, crime gun intelligence centers, and forensic capacity improvements. To receive money, applicants must submit proposals that prioritize strategies supported by peer-reviewed research or federal guidance. The Division of Criminal Justice Services will manage the application process, evaluate projects based on their potential to improve clearance rates, and monitor how funds are used. Additionally, the bill requires the agency to publish annual reports detailing awarded grants and their outcomes for public review.
HB 830 creates a new grant program within the Department of Public Safety to help police departments and county sheriff's offices reduce violent crime. The program provides funding for evidence-based strategies such as focused deterrence, hot spot policing, and improved forensic capabilities like DNA and ballistics analysis. Eligible agencies must submit applications to the Division of Criminal Justice Services, which will evaluate and award grants based on the effectiveness of the proposed strategies. Funds can be used for investigative staffing, technology purchases, training, and expanding specific gang intervention models, with strict rules requiring agencies to report on outcomes and ensuring grants do not replace existing local budgets.
To urge the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Ohio judicial system to encourage remote appearances of sexual assault nurse examiners in sexual assault trials so that sexual assault nurse examiners can spend less time in courtrooms and more time providing valuable services to victims of sexual assault.
HB 656 would create a new criminal offense for negligently assaulting a peace officer in Ohio. It directly affects individuals who unintentionally cause harm to officers through careless actions, such as accidentally hitting an officer while driving recklessly. The bill amends existing Ohio law (sections 2903.14 and 2927.15) to add this specific offense, distinguishing it from intentional assault. This change would establish a clear legal category for careless harm to officers, separate from other assault charges.
To amend sections 2151.421 and 4113.99 and to enact section 4113.90 of the Revised Code to require employers report suspected sexual assault involving minor employees.
HB 370, the Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act, would ban abortion in Ohio by defining "person" to include preborn children from conception, making abortion a criminal offense under homicide laws. It directly affects pregnant people seeking abortions, healthcare providers offering abortion services, and individuals who may pressure someone to terminate a pregnancy. Key provisions require that abortion-related acts be treated as homicide or assault under existing laws, with exceptions only for life-saving procedures on the pregnant person (when reasonable steps to save the fetus are taken) or spontaneous miscarriages. The bill repeals current legal provisions that permit abortion or "prenatal homicide" and mandates due process protections for those subject to the law.
To amend section 2929.18 and to enact section 2125.05 of the Revised Code to require a felony offender of an OVI-caused aggravated vehicular homicide to pay child maintenance when the victim is a parent, legal guardian, or custodian of a minor child, to allow child maintenance to be awarded in a wrongful death action when the offender is deceased, and to name this act the Sam Knisley Family Support Act.
To amend sections 2903.13 and 2917.41 and to enact section 306.20 of the Revised Code to increase the penalty for assault when the victim is an operator of an Ohio transit system bus or rail car; to authorize Ohio transit systems to post a sign regarding abuse or assault of staff; and to increase the penalty for evading payment of the known fares of a public transportation system.
To amend sections 2903.06, 2903.08, 4508.02, and 4511.213 and to enact section 5501.28 of the Revised Code to increase penalties for failing to slow down or change lanes when approaching specified stationary vehicles, to increase penalties for vehicular homicide and vehicular assault resulting from that offense, and to name this act Philip Wigal's Law.
To amend sections 2903.06 and 2903.08 of the Revised Code to add to the list of vehicles that can be used to commit a vehicular homicide or vehicular assault.
