By Bronwyn Blake
Chief Legal Officer, Texas Advocacy Project (TAP), &
Staley Heatly
County Attorney in Wilbarger County
For those of us who work with victims of family violence, protective orders are more than legal documents. They are often the last line of defense between a victim and future harm. The authors of this article come to this topic from different perspectives, Bronwyn Blake from statewide victim advocacy and Staley Heatly from prosecution, but we share the common goal of ensuring that protective orders (POs) remain accessible to those who need them. Through our work, we have seen firsthand how protective orders can interrupt escalating violence, provide victims with a measure of security, and—in some cases—even save lives. This practical experience made us particularly interested in the findings of the Texas Advocacy Project’s (TAP) recent protective order report.
The geography of safety
TAP’s new report, “Protective Orders in Texas: 2025 Statewide Survey of County Policies and Practices,” documents how prosecutor offices around the state support victims in obtaining protective orders and the protections they provide. This publication is an update to a 2013 report[1] allowing for comparisons both around the state and the evolution of those responses over time. The report reveals a large variation in how victims can (or cannot) access assistance from their local prosecutors. Despite the proven efficacy of these orders and meaningful improvements over the last decade, a “safety gap” exists across county lines. This report shows how counties can be supported in aligning local processes with existing legislative standards.
A snapshot of the survey
For the past decade, Texas Advocacy Project utilized volunteer law students to conduct annual surveys to determine how each of Texas’s 254 counties implements policy and procedures for filing protective orders for victims of abuse. TAP was founded in 1982, initially as the first statewide legal aid hotline. It has since expanded into a nonprofit law firm providing a full spectrum of free legal services for victims of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, child abuse, and human trafficking. Its survey explored how prosecutor offices handle protective orders, including whether they provide assistance and under what conditions. It covered prosecutor-imposed eligibility requirements, such as the need for a police report, recent violence, or an active prosecution. It also asked whether the office offers support during ongoing criminal cases, prosecutes violations of protective orders, or assists with including children in protective orders. Additionally, the survey inquired about how victims can apply for assistance, whether a notification system is in place for them, and whether the office collaborates with local organizations for safety planning and support. TAP has used the survey to maintain an internal database, which provides critical information for its attorneys as they assist clients to obtain protective orders and navigate their local court systems. Now, with funding from the Texas Bar Foundation, TAP published its findings in this report. Of the 254 Texas counties TAP reached out to, 183 responded (a 72-percent response rate).
The risk is real
According to the University of Texas Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, 1 in 3 Texans has experienced domestic violence.[2] The Department of Public Safety (DPS) reported 240,925 criminal offenses with a family violence indicator in 2025 in its annual Crime in Texas publication. While this is a 3.7-percent decrease from last year, zooming out reveals this figure maintains the troubling plateau from 2022 onward (after a steady rise year over year) and actually marks a 22.6-percent increase in just one decade. The Texas Council on Family Violence’s most recent “Honoring Texas Victims” report details the stories of the 161 Texans killed in family violence incidents in 2024.[3] This is an issue that spans ages, incomes, education levels, and rural–urban divides.
Why POs are necessary
Protective orders work. Since 1979, they have been the primary tool available to protect abuse victims in Texas. Research indicates that legal intervention is the only service that directly correlates with a decrease in domestic violence (DV), and a 2002 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that victims with permanent protective orders were 80 percent less likely to be re-victimized in the 12 months after a DV incident.[4] Protective orders are not a “family law problem,” but rather a core public safety tool.
Protective orders are far more than “just a piece of paper.” Seminal research by Dr. T.K. Logan indicates that they significantly reduce abuse and increase feelings of safety, though their ultimate effectiveness heavily depends on systemic enforcement, the abuser’s history, and the presence of stalking. In cases where victims had received a PO and the suspect had not violated it, 79.5 percent of study participants reported they
believed the offender had not violated the PO because he was afraid of going to jail.[5]
While the statutory scheme for protective orders was laid in place decades ago, there have been expansions of these protections over the years. Texas currently offers protective orders for victims of family violence (which includes dating violence and child abuse), sexual assault, stalking, and human trafficking—all offenses that we know are underreported to law enforcement.[6] Protective orders remain an important civil remedy whether or not a police report is ever filed or whether or not enough evidence exists to support a criminal case.
The report’s findings
1) Enforcement of protective order violations has improved. One hundred seventy-one of 183 responding counties confirmed that they enforced violations of protective orders in 2025 (versus fewer than 140 out of 229 responding counties in 2013). This is a marked improvement and correlates with improvements in tracking violations and an increase in punishments for these offenses. This is good news worth celebrating.
2) Recency requirements. Twenty-seven percent of counties report requiring recent violence before they will accept a protective order case, despite there being no statutory basis for such a requirement. Part of this might be judicially motivated. During its 2023 session, the Texas Legislature commissioned a report on the efficacy of protective orders and found that many judges also required police reports and a recency of family violence. In fact, 47 percent of district court judges and 86 percent of county court-at-law judges require some recency of violence finding to issue a protective order.[7]
To be sure, prosecutor hesitancy in these cases is understandable. Few lawyers are eager to devote limited resources to a case they believe is likely to be denied based on the practices of their local court. Nevertheless, prosecutors should be cautious about adopting judicially created requirements as office policy. The Family Code contains no recency requirement, and victims may face significant danger even in the absence of recent physical violence.
One might infer that this “recency requirement” is being used to triage cases and determine how best to deploy limited resources. If that is true, an evidence-based tool such as Jaqueline Campbell’s Danger Assessment may better serve that purpose. The weakness of relying on recency alone is that it assumes recent violence is the best indicator of future danger. Research suggests the issue is more complicated than that.
The Danger Assessment helps to determine the level of danger of being killed by an intimate partner. It was developed in the mid- to late-1980s, and it is free and available to the public. The Danger Assessment asks several questions and weighs them holistically. While one question does ask if the violence has increased in severity or frequency over the last year, that question is not weighed in a vacuum.[8] Instead, it is considered alongside numerous other risk factors associated with intimate partner homicide. Prosecutors interested in learning more about the assessment can easily find it online,[9] and it may provide a useful framework for evaluating risk when deciding how to prioritize limited resources.
3) Police report requirements. Twenty-three percent of counties reported that they require a police report before they will assist with at least some protective order cases. We know that many victims never report these crimes to the police. While this may defy logic to the uninitiated, in reality, there are a host of reasons a victim may not have sought help.[10]
Recently, Staley handled the case of a woman who had suffered abuse at the hands of her husband for more than 20 years. The abuse was severe, and it included strangulation, broken ribs, and lost teeth. The assaults were frequent and often brutal, sometimes including abuse of their children. Yet she never filed a police report. When she decided she had enough and sought a protective order, there were no police reports documenting the history of violence. There were, however, years of medical records in which she repeatedly reported that she had been injured “at work.” Those injuries had, in fact, been inflicted by her husband. With this victim, a police report requirement would not have screened out a weak case—it would have screened out a legitimate victim who was in danger. While a victim may have never sought help from police in the past, the very act of seeking a PO now could increase the necessity for one. The research tells us that most family violence-related homicides occur during or directly after separation. Women in abusive relationships are 3.6 times more likely to be killed in the period immediately after separation than any other time in the relationship.[11]
Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 5.06(b) states: “A prosecuting attorney’s decision to file an application for a protective order under Chapter 71, Family Code, should be made without regard to whether a criminal complaint has been filed by the applicant. A prosecuting attorney may require the applicant to provide information for an offense report, relating to the facts alleged in the application, with a local law enforcement agency.”
4) Firearms. The presence of a firearm is one of the strongest lethality indicators in family violence cases, making it approximately five times more likely that a woman will be killed.[12] Texas law prohibits respondents subject to certain protective orders from possessing firearms. However, the law provides little guidance regarding how those firearms should be surrendered, stored, tracked, or ultimately returned.
This lack of uniformity is reflected in the survey results. One-quarter of counties reported that they do not have a firearm surrender protocol. That figure is perhaps less surprising when one considers that firearm surrender protocols are a relatively recent policy innovation rather than a traditional function of courts, prosecutor offices, or law enforcement agencies. Historically, courts issued orders and law enforcement enforced violations; neither was routinely tasked with creating and administering firearm surrender systems. As a result, jurisdictions seeking to implement firearm surrender protocols are often building entirely new processes with little statutory structure and few established models to follow. There is significant opportunity for improvement in this area, but there remains considerable uncertainty regarding what an effective and workable statewide model should look like. There is a big opportunity for improvement here, but few models to replicate.[13]
5) Standardized forms. Most counties have adopted the standardized protective order forms created by the Office of Court Administration (OCA),[14] with only 14 percent of counties reporting that they are not yet using them. Standardized protective order forms were mandated by Senate Bill 48 from the 88th Texas Legislature in 2023. The bill requires the OCA to create uniform, standardized application and order forms for temporary ex parte orders, protective orders, and magistrate’s orders for emergency protection. Failure to use the standardized form does not invalidate the order itself, but it does undermine the goals of increased access and better enforcement.
6) Seeking custody and/or child support. Texas Family Code §85.021 specifies that protective orders may include a number of provisions including child support and custody. When TAP asked prosecutor officers if they would include those provisions, only 15 percent of counties responded in the affirmative. While seeking these provisions is optional and it is up to the court’s discretion whether to grant them, they can be the key to lasting safety and stability.
Many prosecutors may be reluctant to seek these provisions because they can introduce issues traditionally associated with family law litigation. Nevertheless, victims who return to abusive partners often cite financial reasons for doing so. Pursuing the remedies authorized by §85.021 can help ensure that victims have the financial support necessary to establish independence while separating from an abuser who may have exerted financial control as part of the abuse. Financial abuse occurs in 99 percent of domestic violence cases.[15]
Why this is a prosecutor’s issue
The Texas Family Code has placed the primary duty for family violence protective orders squarely on the shoulders of prosecutors. The statute reads, “The county attorney or the criminal district attorney is the prosecuting attorney responsible for filing applications under this subtitle unless the district attorney assumes the responsibility by giving notice of that assumption to the county attorney.”[16] In 1995, the legislature added this line: “The prosecuting attorney responsible for filing an application under this chapter shall provide notice of that responsibility to all law enforcement agencies within the jurisdiction of the prosecuting attorney”[17] based on a recommendation of the Interim Committee on Domestic Violence, which found that considerable confusion on this point had arisen. Thirty years later, this confusion unfortunately persists. Three counties reported to TAP that they do not assist with protective orders of any kind, and it is more than likely that similar responses would have been found among at least some of the 71 counties that did not respond at all.
Three things every prosecutor office can do
1) Audit your internal policies against the statutes and give critical attention to any requirements that have no legal basis. Certain policies may be justified by prosecutorial discretion or careful allocation of limited resources, but they may also create real barriers for victims seeking help. This is an opportunity to revisit those policies, examine the reasons behind them, and determine whether the same goals may be accomplished while improving access to protective orders.
2) Connect or reconnect with your local family violence center and Texas Advocacy Project. In the survey, 142 counties report active shelter or advocacy partnerships (up from about 120 in 2013). This is excellent progress. The Texas Council on Family Violence maintains a directory of local programs listed by county.[18] Some counties benefit from co-located advocates, formal MOUs (memoranda of understanding) with shelters, and multi-agency coordination. It may be possible to collaborate on a coordinated intake, saving your office time while improving services to victims. TAP provides free legal services statewide and has agreements with several prosecutor offices to take referrals on certain cases (for example, those involving conflicts).
3) Check out your online presence. As part of this report, TAP performed an internet search for each county’s online resources. Some have zero information; others have applications to make the process easier for victims to access their services. Search for the name of your county and “how to get a protective order” for a quick and dirty idea of where you stand on this spectrum.[19]
A shared obligation
We want all Texans to have equal access to the tools designed to keep them safe from future harm. Each prosecutor office is vital to that effort. The data in this report gives us a chance to have conversations and ultimately remove some of the barriers preventing victims from accessing safety. While resource constraints are real and no office can do everything, every office can make sure victims know where else they can turn for help.
[1] www.texasadvocacyproject.org/sites/default/ files/WEB%202025/Protective%20Orders%20in%20Texas.A%20State-Wide%20Study%20of% 20Policies%20and%20Practices.pdf.
[2] https://utexas.app.box.com/v/dv-prevalence.
[3] https://tcfv.org/wp-content/uploads/2024-HTV-Report_WEB.pdf.
[4] Holt, Victoria L., PhD, MPH; Kernic, Mary A., PhD, MPH; Lumley, Thomas, PhD., et al, “Civil Protection Orders and Risk of Subsequent Police-Reported Violence, Journal of American Medical Association, August 7, 2002, accessed at https://jamanetwork.com/ journals/jama/fullarticle/195163 (last visited June 24, 2026).
[5] T.K. Logan, Ph.D., et.al. (2009) The Kentucky Civil Protective Order Study: A Rural and Urban Multiple Perspective Study of Protective Order Violation Consequences, Responses, & Costs.
[6] Other offenses eligible for a protective order include compelling prostitution, burglary, indecency with a child, indecent assault, and aggravated sexual assault. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 7B.001(a)(1) and (2).
[7] https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1459189/2024 _protective-order-report.pdf.
[8] https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2 :1ead12f8-c353-4577-abb8-4d2d0251ce3b.
[9] https://www.safvic.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2017/05/Danger-Assessment.pdf.
[10] Sarah M. Buel’s “Fifty Obstacles to Leaving, a.k.a., Why Abuse Victims Stay.”
[11] Campbell, Jacqueline; Webster, Daniel; Koziol-McLain, Jane; et. al., “Risk Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships: Results From a Multisite Case Control Study” (2003), American Journal of Public Health, available at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih .gov/articles/PMC1447915/ (last visited June 9, 2026).
[12] Campbell, J.C., et al., “Risk Factors for Femicide in Abusive Relationships: Results from a Multisite Case Control Study,” American Journal of Public Health 93, No.7 (2003): 1089–1097, available at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1447915/ (last visited June 9, 2026).
[13] www.texastribune.org/2022/10/20/texas-domestic-violence-firearm-surrender-programs.
[14] www.txcourts.gov/forms/standardized-protective-order-forms.
[15] Adams, Adrienne E. “Measuring the Effects of Domestic Violence on Women’s Financial Well-Being.” CFS Research Brief, 2011-5.6; https://cfs.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/adams2011.pdf.
[16] Tex. Fam. Code §81.007(a).
[17] Tex. Fam. Code §81.007(b).
[18] https://tcfv.org/wp-content/uploads/2025-TCFV-Service-Directory.pdf.
[19] In the process of writing this article, Staley realized that his county has some work to do on this front.