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ARIZONA STATE SENATE
Fifty-Seventh Legislature, Second Regular Session
interscholastic activities; criminal offenses ineligibility
Purpose
Requires a school district governing board (governing board) to prohibit a student from participating in a school-sponsored interscholastic activity or program if the student has been convicted of, admitted in court, plead no contest or admitted in a plea agreement to committing outlined criminal offenses. Requires a governing board to require any student who participates in an interscholastic activity or program to certify whether the student committed an outlined criminal offense.
Background
A person commits harassment if the person knowingly and repeatedly commits an act or acts that harass another person, or the person knowingly commits one of the following acts in a manner that harasses: 1) contacts or causes a communication with another person by verbal, electronic, mechanical, telegraphic, telephonic or written means; 2) continues to follow another person in or about a public place after being asked by that person to desist; 3) surveils or causes a person to surveil another person; 4) makes a false report to a law enforcement, credit or social service agency against another person; or 5) interferes with the delivery of any public or regulated utility to another person (A.R.S. § 13-2921).
A person commits
stalking if the person intentionally or knowingly engages in a course of
conduct that is directed toward another person and if that conduct causes the
victim to: 1) suffer emotional distress or reasonably fear that the victim's
property will be damaged or destroyed or that the victim or specified persons
associated with the victim will be physically injured; or
2) reasonably fear death or the death of specified persons associated with the
victim (A.R.S.
§ 13-2923).
A person commits
commercial sexual exploitation of a minor by knowingly: 1) using,
employing, persuading, enticing, inducing or coercing a minor to engage in or
assist others to engage in exploitive exhibition or other sexual conduct to
produce any visual depiction or live act depicting such conduct; 2) using,
employing, persuading, enticing, inducing or coercing a minor to expose the
genitals or anus or the areola or nipple of the female breast for financial or
commercial gain; 3) permitting a minor under the person's custody or control to
engage in or assist others to engage in exploitive exhibition or other sexual
conduct to produce any visual depiction or live act depicting such conduct; 4)
transporting or financing the transportation of any minor through or across Arizona
with the intent that the minor engage in prostitution, exploitive exhibition or
other sexual conduct to produce a visual depiction or live act depicting
such conduct; or 5) using an advertisement for prostitution that contains a
visual depiction of a minor (A.R.S.
§ 13-3552).
A person commits sexual exploitation of a minor by knowingly: 1) recording, filming, photographing, developing or duplicating any visual depiction in which a minor is engaged in exploitive exhibition or other sexual conduct; 2) distributing, transporting, exhibiting, receiving, selling, purchasing, electronically transmitting, possessing or exchanging any visual depiction in which a minor is engaged in exploitive exhibition or other sexual conduct; 3) possessing, manufacturing, distributing, advertising, ordering, offering to sell, selling or purchasing a child sex doll that uses the face, image or likeness of a real infant or minor who is younger than 12 years old with the intent to replicate the physical features of that real infant or minor; or 4) observing a nude minor to engage in sexual conduct for the person's sexual gratification (A.R.S. § 13-3553).
A person commits luring a minor for sexual exploitation by offering or soliciting sexual conduct with another person knowing or having reason to know that the other person is a minor (A.R.S. §13-3554).
A person commits
aggravated luring a minor for sexual exploitation if the person:
1) knowing the character and content of the depiction, uses an electronic
communication device to transmit a visual depiction of material that is harmful
to minors to initiate or engage in communication with a recipient who the
person knows, or has reason to know, is a minor; and
2) by means of the communication, offers or solicits sexual conduct with the
minor. The offer or solicitation may occur before, contemporaneously with,
after or as an integrated part of the transmission of the visual depiction (A.R.S.
§ 13-3560).
Persons who are older than 18 years old and are within the degrees of consanguinity within which marriages are declared by law to be incestuous and void and who knowingly intermarry, or commit fornication or adultery with each other are guilty of a class 4 felony (A.R.S. § 13-3608).
Domestic violence means any act that is a dangerous crime against children or a prescribed offense if: 1) the relationship between the victim and the defendant is one of marriage or former marriage or of persons sharing residences; 2) the victim and the defendant have a child in common; 3) the victim or the defendant is pregnant by the other party; 4) the victim is related to the defendant or the defendant's spouse by blood or court order; 5) the victim is a child who resides or has resided in the same household as the defendant and is related by blood to a former spouse of the defendant or to a person who resides or who has resided in the same household as the defendant; or 6) the relationship between the victim and the defendant is currently or was previously a romantic or sexual relationship (A.R.S. § 13-3601).
There is no anticipated fiscal impact to the state General Fund associated with this legislation.
Provisions
1. Requires a governing board to prohibit a student from participating in a school district-sponsored interscholastic activity or program if the student has been convicted of, admitted in open court, pleaded no contest or admitted in a plea agreement to committing any of the following criminal offenses in Arizona or a similar offense in another jurisdiction or a delinquent act that if committed by an adult would constitute any of the following criminal offenses:
a) aggravated assault that involves a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument or that results in serious physical injury;
b) any offense that involves a sexual offense;
c) harassment involving sexually explicit communications or conduct;
d) stalking;
e) commercial sexual exploitation of a minor;
f) sexual exploitation of a minor;
g) luring a minor for sexual exploitation;
h) domestic violence; or
i) incest.
2. Requires a governing board to require any student who participates or seeks to participate in a school-sponsored interscholastic activity or program to certify on a form provided by the school district whether the student has been convicted of, admitted in open court, pleaded no contest or admitted in a plea agreement to committing any of the outlined criminal offenses in Arizona or a similar offense in another jurisdiction or a delinquent act that if committed by an adult would constitute any listed criminal offense.
3. Stipulates that, on notice that a student is charged with or awaiting trial on any of the outlined criminal offenses or a delinquent act that if committed by an adult would constitute any of the outlined criminal offenses, a governing board must prohibit that student from participating in a school-sponsored interscholastic activity or program until the charges against the student are dismissed or the student is found to be not guilty.
4. Makes technical and conforming changes.
5. Becomes effective on the general effective date.
Prepared by Senate Research
February 9, 2026
MH/SM/hk