Enacts the ceasing repeated and extremely egregious predatory (CREEP) behavior act

Showing the cosponsors who are on Agora, A to Z. The official record may list more.

• Democratic64
• Republican21

This bill has cosponsors from more than one party.

Shown in neutral colors by design; Agora is non-partisan.

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Andrew Gounardes says this is needed

Currently, victims of predatory stalking and harassing behaviors who wish to secure an order of protection (OP), commonly known as a restraining order, against their perpetrators may do so in one of three ways in the state of New York. Firstly, a victim can secure a restraining order through criminal court, where a judge may issue the order against a defendant as a condition of their release and/or bail in a criminal case. This means that a restraining order may only be issued during a criminal arraignment, after there has been a formal police investigation, arrest, and decision by a district attorney to file charges. While a critical means of relief for victims wishing to pursue charges, this method of securing an OP is simply too slow-moving for many victims of harassment in the 21st centu- ry, who may find themselves on the receiving end of certain Internet-en- abled offenses like cyberstalking, revenge porn, rapidly spreading defa- matory material, doxxing, or deep fakes in a way that was simply inconceivable three decades ago. This method of obtaining an OP through the criminal justice system, which involves methodical and thorough investigations that are frequently dependent on local resources and in-person interactions, is simply impractical for an individual who may have gone viral on TikTok, for example, and thus finds themselves besieged by a digital stalker within the span of a couple days partic- ularly if said stalker lives hundreds of miles away and would thus need to be extradited from another state. A second means of obtaining an OP in New York is through family court, which hears cases involving children and families as well as persons who have been in an "intimate relationship," defined by factors such as the nature and duration of the relationship and frequency of interactions. "Casual acquaintance" and "ordinary fraternization" between two individ- uals is explicitly placed outside of the jurisdiction of family court under Section 812 of the Family Court Act (FCA). While Section 812 of the FCA establishes a list of crimes for which family court and criminal courts share jurisdiction, such as unlawful dissemination or publication of an intimate image, harassment, identity theft, coercion, stalking, and a range of other offenses, the act fails to account for the ways in which technology has anonymized our relationships, such that many victims of the crimes that Section 812 seeks to protect no longer meet the definition of having had an "intimate relationship" with their offender. Nowadays a victim may be just as likely to be harmed by a jealous ex with whom they cohabitated, for example, as someone they've met through an online chat room or went on one date with via an app. The third and final means of obtaining an OP in New York is through general Supreme Court, but only as part of an ongoing divorce proceeding between separating spouses. As outlined above, none of these three forms of recourse provide an easy remedy for victims of harassment in the modern age. Not only has the digital revolution enabled an entirely new type of criminal behavior, such as revenge porn, "upskirting," or taking sexually intrusive photo- graphs or videos without permission, online stalking, and more, but it has also altered the way we discover and define new relationships. Many victims of Internet-enabled crimes need immediate relief from their offenders in a way that simply cannot be delivered through the criminal justice system, and which may not fit the definition of intimate partner violence that falls under the jurisdiction of family court. This bill, called the Ceasing Repeated, Extremely Egregious, and Preda- tory (CREEP) Behavior Act, follows the lead of 43 other states in enabl- ing orders of protection called "anti-stalking orders" through civil courts of general jurisdiction rather than solely through criminal courts or specialized family courts. It draws upon many of the same protocols that define the existing method

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.