The Issue
In Texas, an adult convicted of domestic violence—someone who has legally and factually been proven to commit intimate partner battery, strangulation, or terroristic threats—is legally prohibited from owning a firearm. They can be barred from entering certain neighborhoods, ordered into batterer intervention programs, and placed under strict court supervision.
Yet, under current Texas law, that same convicted abuser retains a statutory shield inside the home: the legal right to use corporal punishment on children.
Under Texas Penal Code § 9.61, the use of physical force against a child is justified if the parent “reasonably believes the force is necessary to discipline the child or to safeguard or promote his welfare.” In practice, this statute creates a catastrophic legal loophole. It gives individuals with documented histories of rage, lack of impulse control, and violent subjugation a built-in legal defense to physically strike minors under the guise of “discipline.”
We see this tragedy unfold across Texas family courts and criminal dockets every single day:
Violence rarely stays contained to the adult partner. Research and court records demonstrate that an abuser’s physical dominance inevitably crosses generations. When a partner escapes, the children become the next target for physical intimidation, battery, and control.
The “Discipline” Pretext Shields Abuse. When an abuser with a documented history of manual strangulation or domestic assault drags a child across a floor, strikes them hard enough to drop them, or leaves physical and psychological trauma, their first defense in court is almost always: “I was merely exercising parental discipline”.
The Legal System is Paralyzed. Because § 9.61 allows physical force as reasonable discipline, prosecutors, Child Protective Services (CPS), and family court judges often hesitate to intervene until a child suffers catastrophic or permanent physical injury.
A person who has proven to the State of Texas that they use physical violence to subjugate and harm family members should not have the state-sanctioned right to raise their hand against a defenseless child.
The Call to Action
We are calling on the Texas Legislature to amend Texas Penal Code § 9.61 and Chapter 153 of the Texas Family Code to enact mandatory statutory disqualification:
Automatic Loss of Corporal Punishment Rights: Any individual convicted of a domestic violence offense (Texas Penal Code Chapter 22) or subject to a judicial Affirmative Finding of Family Violence (Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 42.013) shall be statutorily disqualified from asserting the parental discipline justification under Tex. Penal Code § 9.61.
Clear Protection for Children: Any physical force used against a minor by an individual with a substantiated family violence conviction shall be classified and evaluated as assault, without the protection of statutory “parental discipline” defenses.
Harmonized Family Court Standards: Mandate that Texas family courts incorporate an absolute prohibition against corporal punishment into any temporary or final custody order where a history of family violence has been established under Texas Family Code § 153.004.
Our laws recognize that convicted domestic abusers cannot be trusted with lethal weapons. It is time our laws recognize that they cannot be trusted to physically “discipline” our children.
Sign and share this petition to urge Texas lawmakers to close the corporal punishment loophole and protect vulnerable children from convicted domestic abusers.
