Jacob Shellabarger

As students and families across Audrain County return to the routine of another school year, Missouri’s criminal laws are also entering a new season. The Legislature passed, and Governor Kehoe signed, a number of changes that took effect August 28 and directly affect victims, children, drivers, property owners, and public safety. Some of these changes are technical, but the reason they matter is simple: they give law enforcement, prosecutors, courts, and victims clearer tools to respond to conduct that harms real people in our communities. 

Victims’ Protections 

Victims’ protections have been expanded with a new law that makes violating a court-ordered no-contact condition a separate crime. If a court has ordered someone released from jail pending trial to have no contact with a victim, and that person contacts the victim anyway, the violation can result in a new criminal charge and forfeiture of any money or bond posted with the Court. This will help keep victims safer by allowing officers to arrest immediately for these specific violations of Court orders. 

Victims are also helped by a change in definitions of what constitutes bodily harm, substantial bodily harm, and great bodily harm. The change focuses less on labeling the injury and more on proving the harm suffered by the victim, including physical pain, illness, impairment, disfigurement, loss of body function, fracture, or serious risk of death. 

Offenders may now be ordered to pay for a victim’s mental health treatment, counseling, physical therapy, or rehabilitation as part of their sentence. Some offenders convicted of sexual offenses and child sexual abuse material offenses must also pay mandatory and increased financial penalties to the State for victim services, in addition to restitution owed directly to their victims. 

Harassment and Stalking 

Electronic-facilitated offenses have expanded to include the unlawful use of tracking devices on motor vehicles, cyber-harassment, and cyber-stalking through repeated threats, harassment, following, tracking, intimidation, or terrorizing conduct. Intimate depiction disclosure, sometimes called “revenge porn,” is also a new, separate offense. Missouri has also outlawed sadistic online exploitation, where victims are told to harm themselves or others. 

These new laws address the rapidly evolving way that offenders hurt their victims through electronic means that did not cleanly fit the existing definitions. Missouri now makes clear that stalking, tracking, harassment, and threats can continue even when the offender is not physically present. Enhanced sentencing provisions for repeat offenders and those who threaten these offenses to extort money, force actions, or terrorize victims mean more accountability for harms that make us all less safe. 

Sex Offenses 

Sexual offenses now include grooming, a form of enticement. Grooming is a pattern of conduct designed to encourage minors to engage in sexual conduct or performances. Offenders often begin by building trust through special attention, treats, favors, or preferential treatment, while also exposing minors to sexual behaviors or sexual materials. It is a process over time designed to gain a vulnerable child’s trust for the offender’s later use. This is now outlined as its own crime — because grooming and enticement are dangerous and damaging in their own, unique way. 

Missouri will now call “child pornography” what it actually is: child sexual abuse material. Material that shows minors engaged in sexual conduct or contact is evidence of child sexual abuse. It does not matter whether the material is created by capturing photos or videos of a minor; it also includes digital depictions and manipulations of identifiable persons. Threatening to distribute, or actually disseminating, sexual images involving child victims under the age of 17 is a separate, more seriously punished offense, commonly called “sextortion.” 

Child, Sex and Human Trafficking 

It’s not just our kids who are going back to school this fall. More Missourians — including cosmetologists, juvenile officers, social workers, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and other helping professionals — will now receive mandatory training on recognizing, responding to, and combating child, sex, and human trafficking. 

Driving Offenses 

Missouri has also strengthened school bus safety laws and penalties for driving while intoxicated. Failure to stop for a school bus carries more points on a driver’s license, and failure to stop for a school bus resulting in injury or death carries a higher criminal penalty. As for driving while intoxicated, if a parent or guardian is killed by an intoxicated driver, the person convicted must pay financial support for any surviving children. Penalties are increased for most felony driving while intoxicated offenses, and drivers convicted of most DWIs must have an ignition interlock device — a “breathalyzer” — where they must test their breath before a vehicle will start and operate. 

Property Crimes 

Law enforcement now has a more specific tool to fight gift card fraud, with a statute targeting the most common ways these schemes are committed and providing penalties for them. Missouri also created more specific punishments for crimes against public infrastructure, including cellular towers, telecommunications facilities, traffic devices, utility and computer networks, and certain unlawful drone uses connected to those violations. Stealing telecommunications and energy materials now carries new, heavier penalties. 

Summary 

Taken together, these new Missouri laws strengthen protections for victims, children, families, drivers, and the property and infrastructure our communities depend on every day. They also reflect an important public-safety principle: as criminal behavior changes, the law must be clear enough to hold offenders accountable and practical enough to protect the people affected. For Audrain County, the takeaway is straightforward — these changes are not just legal updates; they are tools intended to make victims safer, improve accountability, and help protect the quality of life we all share. That is also the daily mission of my office: to pursue justice for all of Audrain County.