Texas Department of Public Safety

The Texas Family Code defines Family Violence as an act by a member of a family or household against another member that is intended to result in physical harm, bodily injury, assault, or a threat that reasonably places the member in fear of imminent physical harm. The law excludes the reasonable discipline of a child and defines abuse as physical injury that results in substantial harm or genuine threat; sexual contact, intercourse, or conduct; or compelling or encouraging the child to engage in sexual conduct.

The Texas Uniform Crime Reporting program collects pertinent data relating to the police agencies of the state. Information regarding law enforcement employee strength, employment trends, law officers assaulted or killed in the line of duty is discussed in this section.

In response to a growing concern about sexual assault incidents, the 80th Texas Legislative Session passed HB 76. The Bill requires the Texas DPS to establish guidelines and collect, as part of the UCR Program, data about incidents that contain specific sexual assault offenses. Sexual Assault crime data collection was required to begin in calendar year 2008. Special consideration had to be taken to disseminate the data collection guidelines for Sexual Assault reporting due to the nature of the difference between UCR offense definitions and Texas penal code definitions. In the Texas UCR program, rape is the only offense collected under the crime index. Because there is greater variance in the offenses collected in the compilation of Sexual Assault data, this data collection should in no way be compared to the statistics maintained in the UCR Program.