NEW FLORIDA LAW TO ENHANCE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PENALTIES SET TO TAKE EFFECT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV/Florida Capital Bureau) - A new Florida law set to take effect on July 1 makes it a felony to violate a domestic violence restraining order for the second time, creates a statewide domestic violence database and makes animal abuse a domestic crime in certain circumstances.

House Bill 277, passed unanimously by the legislature earlier this year, will begin in just a few days. The law does not enhance the penalty for a first time offender who violates a restraining order.

For multiple first responders we spoke with, the statewide database will be a game-changer.

“No, I would say the majority of times you interact with somebody involved in domestic violence, there’s a pattern. There’s somebody that grew up in an unfortunate household that learned that this was a normal behavior and they have not broken the chain and it continues on into their current relationships,” said John Creamer, a 30 year police veteran who retired as an undersheriff.

Dr. Lee Bushong, himself a policing expert and Florida A&M University professor, said the domestic violence database doesn’t always interact perfectly with law enforcement systems. That can make records access difficult on the weekends or after hours when clerks are gone from the courthouse.

Florida Politics:

“I’m a former homicide investigator and it would always break my heart when I would pick up a homicide just to find out that there were lots and lots and lots of previous incidences of domestic violence that could have been avoided if there were stricter or stiffer penalties,” he said.

Creamer agreed.

“What they’re doing now with HB 277 is making that domestic violence injunction or a protection order instantly accessible by law enforcement throughout Florida,” he said.

According to a Florida House analysis of the bill, the new law will also increase “relocation assistance” for victims of domestic violence to $2,500 for a single claim, and bump the maximum relocation to $5,000 in a lifetime.

Plus, a judge can now take into account threats against an animal or family pet when deciding whether or not to issue a domestic violence restraining order in the first place.

“Instead of lashing out at the partner, they’ll lash out at fluffy the dog or spot the cat or something like that. So I think that that definitely needed to be there,” Bushong said.

Creamer said the enhanced penalty will help crack down on repeat offenders who sometimes skirt by on serious, but still misdemeanor, charges.

“It’s so important that that enhanced penalty is there. And also what it does is to the officer or the deputy on the street is they have to go back and do additional research and see if there’s an injunction that’s already in place,” he said.

The new law also launches a pilot program in Pinellas County that allows a judge to “implement an electronic monitoring program for specified persons who are convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence or convicted of willfully violating certain injunctions.”

That program will run from 2026 to 2028. According to the House analysis, “a court must order electronic monitoring supervision if a person is convicted of committing the above offenses and the court finds that there is clear and convincing evidence that the defendant poses a threat of violence or physical harm to the victim.”