TAt first glance, Texas House Bill 1913 sounds like something almost everyone could agree on. The premise is emotionally compelling: victims of serious offenses should not have to live in fear of encountering their attacker in their own neighborhood. The bill proposes restricting registered sex offenders from living near or frequenting areas around a victim’s home.
“Common sense,” right?
But when Texans—along with law enforcement professionals—began examining the details, a very different picture emerged. Public comments on HB 1913 reveal that beneath its well-intentioned surface lies a web of paradoxes, unintended consequences, and serious enforcement problems that raise a critical question: Does this law actually protect victims, or does it create new risks while solving none of the old ones?
1. The Stalking Paradox: Avoidance Requires Surveillance
One of the most troubling contradictions in HB 1913 is what critics have dubbed the stalking paradox.
In order for a registered person to comply with a law that prohibits them from being near a victim’s residence, they would need to know—continuously—where that victim lives. That means the offender must maintain up-to-date knowledge of the victim’s location for life.
Several commenters pointed out how unsettling this requirement is. Rather than preventing fixation, the law could institutionalize it. A police detective and sex offender registrar explained that enforcing the bill would require law enforcement to notify offenders of exactly where they are prohibited from going—effectively providing them with the victim’s address indefinitely.
The irony is hard to ignore: a bill designed to increase safety could end up forcing a permanent awareness of a victim’s whereabouts, potentially increasing anxiety rather than reducing it.
2. Real Life Is Messy: The Bill Ignores Human Complexity
Laws often struggle when they attempt to flatten human experience into rigid rules, and HB 1913 is no exception.
Public commenters raised scenarios the bill fails to address entirely:
- What happens when victims and offenders reconcile?
- What about cases involving family members?
- What about relationships that later result in marriage?
These situations are not theoretical. Many offenses occur between people who know one another, and in some cases, victims explicitly choose reconciliation through counseling, restorative justice, or time.
HB 1913 offers no mechanism for victim consent, judicial discretion, or individualized assessment. It treats all offenses the same—regardless of severity, recency, or context—ignoring Texas’s existing tiered risk classification system.
A decades-old statutory offense involving a now-consenting adult is treated identically to a recent violent crime. This one-size-fits-all approach may feel tough, but it isn’t nuanced—and nuance matters when laws affect real lives.
3. An Unenforceable Mandate
Even if the ethical concerns were set aside, HB 1913 faces a more basic problem: it may be impossible to enforce.
According to testimony from law enforcement professionals, the bill assumes systems that simply do not exist:
- Victims are often listed anonymously in court records.
- No state agency tracks victims’ current addresses.
- Victims frequently move, change names, or intentionally remain unlisted.
- Online offenses often involve victims whose real identities or locations are unknown.
To enforce the law, police would need to repeatedly contact victims to verify their addresses—potentially retraumatizing individuals who wish to move on with their lives.
Most strikingly, law enforcement noted that Texas already has a far more effective and targeted solution: judges can issue no-contact or distance-based orders tailored to specific cases. These orders are enforceable, flexible, and responsive to individual circumstances.
HB 1913 attempts to replace this working system with a broad, rigid mandate that adds bureaucracy without adding protection.
4. The Evidence Problem: Does This Make Communities Safer?
Perhaps the most important question of all is whether proximity restrictions actually improve public safety.
According to research cited by public commenters—including a Texas government report—there is little evidence that residency or proximity restrictions reduce reoffending. In fact, some studies suggest the opposite: destabilizing individuals by cutting them off from housing, employment, and family support can increase risk.
Public safety policy should be grounded in evidence, not emotional appeal. Laws that “feel” protective but fail to deliver measurable results may satisfy public outrage while leaving communities no safer than before.
Beyond “Common Sense”
The impulse behind HB 1913 is understandable. Protecting victims matters. But good intentions are not enough.
The public response to this bill demonstrates a growing awareness that effective laws must be practical, enforceable, evidence-based, and respectful of human complexity. When legislation creates paradoxes, ignores lived reality, and duplicates existing tools poorly, it risks doing more harm than good.
The debate around HB 1913 challenges us to think more deeply about what real safety looks like—not just what sounds right in a headline.
Because justice isn’t about passing laws that feel good.
It’s about passing laws that actually work.
