Essay
What’s your safe place? Home? School? Well, for some, home sweet home or school aren’t the best places to be. Sometimes, in order to be safe and protected against abusers, victims need to file paperwork, whether it be for an order of protection, a restraining order, an HRO, etc. This bill proposes to extend victim notifications to non-prosecuted orders of protection and HROs. These notifications would notify the petitioner and their family of several things, including dates and times of different events relating to the order, including court dates, if needed in the future, and expiration dates of the order. The means of reaching out could range from text/phone calls to a letter in the mail. Through active communication, even without the order being contested or prosecuted, this allows victim safety, limits accidental violations of the order, etc.
On the cons side, the extra need for people to send out notifications could possibly increase the workload for some people and may lead to needing to hire more people, therefore there could be a slight possibility of a tax raise, though that may be unlikely.
https://www.lawhelpmn.org/self-help-library/booklet/orders-protection-and-harassment-restraining-orders