House Bill 182 makes two main changes to North Carolina law. First, it creates a new procedure allowing a judge, at the request of the district attorney, to issue a permanent no-contact order against a defendant convicted of certain violent offenses, including sex offenses and other specified felonies. The order would last for the defendant’s lifetime and could bar contact with the victim, the victim’s immediate family, or both, including restrictions on threats, harassment, following, communication, and presence at homes, schools, workplaces, and other specified locations. The bill requires a show-cause hearing at sentencing, gives the victim and immediate family a right to be heard, and allows later modification or rescission if the fear of future contact no longer exists.
Second, the bill revises the felony child abuse statute to clarify that a parent, guardian, or other person providing care or supervision of a child under 16 commits Class D felony child abuse by committing or allowing the commission of any sexual act upon the child. It also reorganizes and clarifies related child abuse provisions, including definitions and penalty gradations for serious physical injury, serious bodily injury, and reckless disregard for human life. The bill applies prospectively to offenses committed on or after December 1, 2025, with a savings clause preserving prosecutions for earlier offenses under prior law.
The bill would amend Chapter 15A to add a new Article 81D governing permanent no-contact orders for defendants convicted of qualifying violent offenses, and it would revise G.S. 14-318.4 in the child abuse chapter to expressly cover allowing sexual acts upon a child as felony child abuse. It also makes conforming and organizational changes to the child abuse statute, including renumbering subsections and clarifying definitions. The practical effect is to expand post-conviction victim protection tools and to make the child abuse statute more explicit regarding sexual abuse by caregivers, guardians, and others responsible for a child.
The available voting history shows strong support for the bill: it passed second reading in the House 113-0. No committee transcript is available, but the unanimous vote suggests broad bipartisan agreement and little visible opposition at that stage. The bill’s subject matter—victim protection and child abuse enforcement—also indicates a generally favorable posture among lawmakers.
The main policy questions raised by the text itself are how broad the permanent no-contact remedy should be, especially because it can extend to a victim’s immediate family and last for the defendant’s lifetime, and how much discretion judges should have in determining whether future contact fears are reasonable. On the child abuse side, the bill clarifies and expands criminal liability for caregivers who permit sexual acts on children, which is likely to be supported as a protection measure but could prompt discussion about statutory precision and overlap with other sexual offense laws. No recorded committee debate is available, so there is no documented organized opposition in the provided materials.