Arizona law expands protection for domestic violence victims

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(The Center Square) - A new Arizona law will allow victims of domestic violence to seek lifetime protection against their abusers.

Gov. Katie Hobbs last week signed into law Senate Bill 1211, which allows victims of domestic violence to seek a lifetime injunction against someone who has been convicted of felony aggravated harassment involving domestic violence. To be convicted of the crime, defendants have continued to harass the victim despite court orders and despite a previous conviction of violence against the victim.

State Sen. Shawnna Bolick, R-Deer Valley, the sponsor of SB 1211, told The Center Square that she was “ecstatic” to see the law signed “so quickly” by the Democratic governor.

Before this new law, Bolick said victims of domestic violence had to keep going back to court to get orders of protection. She said this can be a “very time-consuming process and very hard on victims.”

Bolick said she did not realize the extent of the problem until she shadowed a justice of the peace in Maricopa County, where the justice’s docket was full of harassment cases. Maricopa is Arizona's most populous county and is home to Phoenix, the capital.

The state senator said she met Tori Bourguignon in December 2025 at the Flinn Brown Civic Leadership Fellowship proposal day. Bourguignon is the executive director of Amberly’s Place, which is a family advocacy center based in Yuma.  

Bourguignon and a group she was with pitched the idea that became SB 1211. Bolick said she told Bourguignon that she would sponsor the bill.

The senator said the state House attempted to tweak SB 1211, but Bolick said she told representatives to leave the bill alone. The bill was passed unanimously by the House and Senate.

Bourguignon told The Center Square that one of her fellowship's capstone projects was to draft a legislative proposal.

While working on the project, she said she had “several cases where victims were at sentencing requesting from the courts a lifetime injunction and being told that aggravated harassment and the lesser felonies don’t qualify as listed crimes under the lifetime injunction statute.”

Her group proposed the idea of adding “aggravated harassment related to domestic violence to the list of qualifying crimes” to help accommodate victims who have to go back every two years to get an order of protection.

Bourguignon said getting an injunction every two years doesn’t cost much, but it did take time and forced courts to “continually hear those cases.”

 ”From an efficiency standpoint, we're not talking about millions of dollars that this is gonna save, but it saves emotional wear and terror and less trauma for victims, which is the greatest priority,” she said.

“ SB 1211 still affords due process in all cases," Bourguignon told The Center Square. "There's still an opportunity to ask for a hearing, but it's a one-time deal, and if the order stands, it's done."

The bill does not require domestic violence victims to seek a lifetime injunction, but it gives them the option, she said.

This was a “small victory for victims of domestic violence who may wish to seek a lifetime injunction," she added.

Bourguignon said she knows of numerous victims who “are looking forward to the day when they are able to go request a lifetime injunction in their cases.”

According to Bourguignon, SB 1211 is an extension of Kayleigh's Law, which went into effect in 2022 in Arizona. The law allows victims of domestic violence to seek lifetime injunctions if their abuser has been convicted of sexual or domestic abuse offenses.  

Bolick said Kayleigh's Law is intended to “help individuals in the long-term” with “protections against the abuser coming after them.”