District 39 State Senator Kevin Kinney (D) of Oxford has introduced legislation to make it a crime for a peace officer to have sexual relations with anyone in their custody.

Senate File 44 would make it a class D felony for any peace officer who engages in a sex act with an individual, including a juvenile, in their custody, which is defined as the detention of a person by lawful authority or process. Kinney says his bill would extend the scope of current peace officer sexual misconduct laws, “If you’re in someone’s custody and you have consensual sex with that individual, that would be against the law. Right now, if you’re in a correctional facility or the county jail, a deputy or employee cannot have sexual relations with an inmate. That would be against the law. This (bill) is before they ever get to that point, when you have control over someone you would not be able to have sexual contact with those people.”

Kinney is a ranking member of the senate judiciary committee. Before he joined the legislature, he served 28 years in law enforcement including the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office. Kinney says this week he’s also working on legislation for stiffer penalties against anyone who doesn’t report accidents involving serious injury or death in a timely fashion.