Nevada governor’s crime bill passes out of Assembly committee at special session
Gov. Joe Lombardo during a press conference announcing his public safety bill alongside Northern Nevada law enforcement leaders outside Carson City Sheriff’s Office on April 8, 2025.” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.carsonnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/4148048d-040825_lombardo-crimebill_00156.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.carsonnow.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/4148048d-040825_lombardo-crimebill_00156.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″ />
After convening Thursday for a special session, the Nevada Legislature introduced 13 bills or resolutions, held hearings on nine of them, and the Senate even passed four of the bills out of its chamber.
Gov. Joe Lombardo’s crime bill passed out of an Assembly committee on an 11-3 vote alongside three amendments that would push back implementation dates and decrease certain allocations.
Funding for the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) would decrease from nearly $9.5 million to about $4.4 million per an amendment from the Governor’s Finance Office. Don Southworth, the offender management administrator for NDOC, said that the decrease is in part because of some of the proposals in the crime bill passed in the 2025 legislative session, such as changes to DUI laws.
Tweaks would also be made to a proposed NDOC program dedicated to incarcerated individuals’ reentry into the community. Among several criteria, to be eligible for the alternate reentry program, offenders must be within 18 months of discharge and have been neither violent or sex offenders, NDOC Director James Dzurenda testified.
Funding for the program would now go directly to NDOC instead of the Interim Finance Committee, the group which oversees legislative funds when the body is not in session. The program’s implementation date would be extended to 2027.
Dzurenda said that the reentry program could help the department deal with its chronic overtime issues, potentially allowing the department to close medium security housing units.
Another amendment from the governor’s office would clarify that accessing another individual’s social media account could constitute as cyberstalking under the bill.
— Isabella Aldrete, The Nevada Independent
— This story is used with permission of The Nevada Independent. Go here for updates to this and other Nevada Independent stories.
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