Tennessee legislation · 114th General Assembly
Tennessee HB2317: AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 39 and Title 40, relative to the "Tennessee Anti-Grooming Act".
Status: Chaptered, May 26, 2026
Fiscal Summary OTHER FISCAL IMPACT The proposed legislation will result in an increase in state incarceration expenditures; however, the exact increase cannot be determined with reasonable certainty. Bill Summary This bill makes it an offense for a person to knowingly communicate, solicit, or interact with a minor or mentally compromised individual with the intent to commit, facilitate, or encourage sexual contact, simulated sexual contact, or sexual exploitation of the minor or mentally compromised by any means, including electronic communication. Such an offense is called grooming. It is not a defense that the subject of the offense is a law enforcement officer posing as a minor. As used in this bill: "Grooming" means an act, pattern of acts, or communication by an adult with a minor or mentally compromised individual, by any medium including electronic communication, messaging, social media, text, telephone, or in person, that is intended to establish trust, secrecy, emotional connection, or control with a minor or mentally compromised individual with the intent to (i) entice, lure, or solicit the minor or mentally compromised individual to engage in sexual contact, simulated sexual contact, or exploitation; (ii) prepare, condition, or acclimate the minor or mentally compromised individual for sexual contact or exploitation; or (iii) facilitate the commission of a sexual offense against the minor. "Mentally compromised individual" means a person of any chronological age whose mental capacity is limited or compromised to that of a child due to a medically diagnosed condition, including, but not limited to, autism spectrum disorder, Down syndrome, schizophrenia, major depression, debilitating anxiety, intellectual disability, or traumatic brain injury. "Simulated sexual contact" means any computer-generated or o
What the bill says
From the amended text:
House Judiciary 1 Amendment No. 1 to HB2317 Farmer Signature of Sponsor AMEND S e n ate Bill No. 2566* House Bill No. 2317 by deleting all language after the caption and substituting: WHEREAS, the General Assembly finds and declares that: (1) Child sexual abuse is a serious public harm. Research published in peerreviewed scientific literature indicates that between thirty percent and forty-five percent of child sexual abusers employ preparatory behavioral patterns, commonly referred to as "grooming," prior to the commission of contact sexual offenses, and that nearly all adult survivors of child sexual abuse report having experienced such behaviors; (2) The sexual grooming model, developed and content-validated by Winters, Jeglic, and Kaylor (2020) in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, represents the first empirically validated, comprehensive model of the sexual grooming process, identifying five stages and forty-two specific behaviors recognized by experts in the field as constituting sexual grooming tactics. This model has been further validated in subsequent peer-reviewed research, including Jeglic, Winters, and Johnson (2023), published in Child Abuse & Neglect, which identified specific "red flag" behaviors that are statistically and significantly more likely to occur in cases of child sexual abuse than in non-abusive adult-child interactions; (3) Key findings of that research include that behaviors involving physical and psychological isolation of a child from parents or guardians …