This bill strengthens protections for schools, preschools, and childcare centers by explicitly criminalizing threats made against these locations, whether in person or online. Specifically, this bill adds Penal Code section 422.3, creating a new, location-specific crime for making threats against daycares, schools, universities, workplaces, houses of worship, or medical facilities.
Under SB 19, any person who willfully threatens, by any means, including an image or threat posted or published on an internet web page, to commit a crime that will result in death or great bodily injury at a daycare, school, university, workplace, house of worship, or medical facility, with the specific intent that the statement be taken as a threat, even if there is no intent to carry it out, and if the threat is so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution, and if it causes a person or persons to reasonably be in sustained fear for their safety or the safety of others at these locations, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not to exceed one year or by imprisonment. If the offender is under 18, they will be referred to Social Service and if ineligible, the offense is punishable as a misdemeanor.
While this bill does not impose new affirmative duties on schools or childcare providers, the law strengthens protections for these institutions by ensuring that threats targeting them carry clear and enforceable criminal penalties.
(SB 19 adds Section 422.3 to the Penal Code.)