Measures address homelessness, violent crime, court records and immigration

A series of new Indiana laws are resshaping how the state handles public camping, violent offenders, court-record privacy and immigration enforcement.

Some laws that passed during the Legislature’s spring session have already been active for months, but others will take effect next week and mean changes for courts, lawyers and communities.

Below are several laws going into effect on July 1 that the legal community will see impact its daily work:

Public camping ban

Among the more controversial bills approved this session was Senate Enrolled Act 285, which establishes a criminal penalty for anyone who camps or shelters on unauthorized public land, including the homeless.

Authored by state Sen. Cyndi Carrasco, an Indianapolis Republican who previously ran for Marion County prosecutor, SEA 285 sets a Class C misdemeanor on public camping, sleeping or sheltering.

The measure has drawn criticism from across the state for appearing to criminalize homelessness.

Carrasco opposes that conclusion.

“That is absolutely not the goal of the legislation,” Carrasco told The Indiana Lawyer in an interview.

Rather, she continued, the intention is to create a tool that could ensure a certain sector of the unsheltered and homeless population doesn’t “fall through the cracks.”

The legislation provides that when a law enforcement officers find someone sleeping, camping or sheltering on unauthorized public land, they must take several steps.

First, the officers must determine whether they should detain the individual for a mental health emergency, in which they will follow emergency detention procedures outlined in state law, rather than arrest the individual.

If emergency detention is not needed — and this is the individual’s first offense — the officers must issue a warning and provide the person with information on where to find shelter services.

If the individual does not qualify for emergency detention, has already received a warning, at least 48 hours have passed since said warning, and they are found sheltering within a 300-foot radius of where they received their warning, the individual may be charged with a Class C misdemeanor.

Carrasco said the penalty was included in the law as an incentive, motivation and a consequence for failure to comply.

But lawmakers also added several off-ramps into the legislation before it was passed.

According to the legislation, an individual found in violation of the law has a defense if there are no available beds at a shelter or treatment facility within 5 miles of where the violation occurred or if it has been less than six months since he or she was released from a mental health facility.

“I am doubtful that there’s going to be a tremendous number of successful prosecutions of this new law,” said Zach Stock, legislative counsel for the Indiana Public Defender Council. “I’m doubtful of it because they put the right guardrails around it.”

While the Public Defender Council maintains that the state won’t be able to address homelessness by arresting people, it appreciates that lawmakers inserted various protections for potential violators, Stock said.

“They definitely empowered our members, empowered public defenders, to raise certain defenses or make the state jump through several different hoops before they could ever get to a conviction,” Stock said. “So in some ways, I guess, we’re kind of privileged to be kind of the gatekeepers.”

Aside from the defenses, Carrasco also emphasized that the legislation gives each community the ability to address its needs as it sees fit.

According to the legislation, an individual cannot sleep on public land unless it has been “authorized for that use” by individual local ordinances.

“You can’t say, ‘Well, we’re not going to enforce the laws,’ but you can shape it in the way that you want it,” Carrasco said.

In Indianapolis, several efforts have already been made to address unsheltered populations.

Streets to Home Indy, for example, has already housed about 166 individuals since it began in July 2025, according to Aryn Schounce, senior policy adviser for the mayor’s office.

The program works to end encampments and offer shelter to the homeless through rapid housing placements and various support services.

Streets to Home Indy is among several programs the city is using to address homelessness.

Schounce noted that the new law explicitly does not prohibit local agencies from adopting a policy, program or order that encourages or requires providing housing or shelter services instead of a citation or arrest.

“Our hope is with having these options available for most individuals, if they’re offered shelter or housing, that they would be able to access those resources in lieu of the citation,” Schounce said.

Carrasco said she is already seeing positive effects from the bill, even though it doesn’t go into effect until next month.

“Listen, it’s a difficult topic; it’s not a popular topic to talk about, and so it’s an easy one to just not necessarily bring to the forefront,” she said. “This bill is already forcing those conversations, which I believe is a positive thing.”

Crime of violence

As part of a continuing effort to crack down on repeat violent offenders, lawmakers moved several bills forward this past session, including House Enrolled Act 1258.

HEA 1258 redefined what a “crime of violence” is to simplify who is a violent offender.

According to the bill author, Rep. Chris Jeter, a Fishers Republican, what constitutes a crime of violence is defined in six locations of Indiana Code, each with different purposes, such as handgun matters and sentencing guidelines.

Jeter said this has caused some confusion for the courts.

“We’re trying to tie a lot of things to violent crimes — we’re trying to kind of crack down on that and focus on violent offenders,” Jeter said. “And so part of that is getting a little bit more streamlined with what is a ‘crime of violence.’”

Lawmakers essentially condensed the six different definitions down to three lists. Jeter said he wished the definitions could have been narrowed further, but there are two other definitions specifically relating to sex offenders and serious violent felons. Those two definitions had to remain untouched. Changes could interfere with public databases, he said.

Stock, the legislative counsel for the public defenders council, gives Jeter and lawmakers props for trying to simplify and consolidate the lists without enacting much policy change. But the group has reservations about changing definitions that existed to serve different policy goals, such as sentencing considerations, he said.

In the meantime, Stock said the council is going to continue monitoring the legislation as it specifically relates to the Legislature’s effort to broaden who a court can deny bail to.

“Who’s a violent arrestee for purposes of bail?” Stock asked.

In November, Hoosiers will see a question on their ballots asking them whether they think the state Constitution should be amended to grant a judge the ability to deny bail to accused violent offenders, not just those who face charges of murder or treason. HEA 1258 developed from the bail admendment discussions, Jeter said.

If the public accepts the amendment, it will be effective Jan. 1, 2027.

“I think initially it will make the additional bail legislation that we passed, it will make implementing that much easier, which was kind of the immediate impact,” Jeter said. “But then I do also suspect down the road, as we continue to sort of focus in on crimes of violence and violent criminal defendants, that it will be helpful in that regard as well.”

Court record redactions

Lawmakers also took measures to limit the identification of minors in criminal court records.

Under current law, a child’s name in a criminal filing, such as a probable cause affidavit, may be shortened to their initials.

But Sen. Aaron Freeman, D-Indianapolis, raised concerns about the current practice earlier this year, particularly for rural communities, where a person’s identification may be easier to discover.

“I don’t think that’s good for the family, and I don’t think it’s great for the child,” Freeman said in the Senate Corrections and Criminal Law Committee’s Jan. 13 meeting.

Senate Enrolled Act 246 now adjusts the information that must be redacted in court filings. In any document filed in a criminal action, a reference to a child victim or a child witness’s name, their address, date of birth and contact information must be redacted.

Any child’s name that is redacted must be replaced with a descriptive anonymous designator, such as “Child Witness No. 1” or “Passenger.” The new law prohibits initials or references to familial relationships.

If the filing of a name is necessary for the case, then the document in which the name or identifier is used must be filed as a separate, confidential document.

“While it would appear that using initials for minors is sufficient to protect the identity of those individuals in smaller communities, that’s simply not the case,” said Carrasco, who co-authored the legislation with Freeman.

Immigration

Although some of its provisions have already been active for several months, Senate Enrolled Act 76’s section regarding the employment of unauthorized immigrants will begin next month, as will its language requiring state agencies to comply with federal immigration detainer requests.

Known as the Indiana FAIRNESS Act, the legislation provides that employers who knowingly and intentionally hire undocumented immigrants could face civil actions.

Employers found in violation of the law could have their business operating authorization suspended.

But an employer is safe from legal action if he or she is found to have used “reasonable diligence” to confirm an employee’s work eligibility, which includes using the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify system. Many who oppose the law have cautioned against the E-Verify system, saying it is unreliable and can produce false alerts.

The construction industry is likely to be the focus of investigation by the state attorney general’s office, at least at the outset.

“Starting July 1, you’re gonna see our office more and more at job sites like this to see exactly what’s going on and who’s being hired and how many,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said at a press conference in April, after touring the construction site of the Signia by Hilton near the Indiana Convention Center.

The law is similar to federal I-9 laws that also prohibit employers from knowingly recruiting, hiring or continuing to employ unauthorized workers.

In preparation for the law’s effective date, Faegre Drinker partner Sari Long in an article for the firm this month encouraged employers with operations in Indiana to assess their current practices to ensure compliance with both the federal and state regulations.

The FAIRNESS Act, which created a heated divide among state politicians this past year, is already facing legal challenges for some of its other language.

In April, Monroe County Sheriff Ruben Marté filed a lawsuit to stop enforcement of the new law’s provision requiring blanket compliance with immigration detainer requests, which are what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issues to local law enforcement agencies when asking them to continue holding an individual in custody up to 48 hours beyond when the person would otherwise
be released.

According to the legislation, a governmental entity that is holding an individual subject to an immigration detainer request must “comply with all requests made” in the detainer request.

Marté argued that since detainer requests are typically not accompanied by judicial signatures, as standard arrest warrants are, the law would encourage his officers to violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects citizens and noncitizens alike from unreasonable searches and seizures.

On June 19, a federal judge denied Marté’s request for a preliminary injunction, saying the lawsuit was better suited for state courts.•