A New Grooming Law Should Not Change Child Protection Policy

Minnesota made grooming a stand-alone felony this August, and other states have passed similar laws in recent years. It is a genuinely interesting development in criminal law, and it is worth understanding. But the law really doesn’t address how grooming works.  More important, if you run a youth-serving organization, none of these new criminal statutes changes your standard of care. 

What Minnesota’s Law Requires

Minnesota’s new grooming statute took effect August 1, 2026. It applies to any adult and requires two things together. First, the adult has to have expressed, in words, a desire or intent to engage in sexual conduct with the child. Second, the adult has to have engaged in a pattern, defined as two or more instances of conduct, deliberately and methodically intended to build a false trusting relationship and manipulate the child toward sexual conduct later. Both parts are required together, and no actual sexual contact has to occur for a conviction.

Minnesota passed the new felony alongside changes to teacher licensing and mandated reporter training. It’s a law with good intentions, but it has a gaping flaw in that it requires an explicit statement most offenders never make.

Why the Explicit Statement Requirement Misses Most Real Grooming

Researchers who study how offenders operate describe grooming as a deliberately covert process. A 2022 article defines it as selecting a victim, gaining access to and isolating the child, developing trust with the child and the adults around the child, and desensitizing the child to physical contact, all specifically to avoid detection and delay disclosure. Offenders who use this pattern do not announce their intentions. Saying anything explicit early in the process is exactly what would get them caught, so skilled offenders avoid it until very late, if they ever say it at all.

That means an offender can complete the entire process researchers describe. He can isolate a child, build trust with parents and colleagues, and escalate physical familiarity over months, and still never satisfy Minnesota’s first element. The coach, mentor, or volunteer who never puts anything in writing and never says anything explicit is exactly the case this statute may not reach.

Where Your State Falls on This

Minnesota’s approach is not the national norm, and it is not even close to universal. A 2021 review counted roughly 42 states with some form of grooming-related statute, but most of those apply only to electronic communication, not the in-person relationship-building that makes up most real grooming. Your local news may never cover a story like Minnesota’s. That fact should not change anything about how your organization operates.

Criminal Law Does Not Set Your Standard of Care

Your organization’s duty to protect the children in your program does not come from your state’s criminal code. It comes from licensing and regulatory requirements, accreditation standards, published guidelines, and the custom and practice of similar organizations in your field. A new felony in Minnesota does not raise that standard for organizations operating there. A missing statute in other states does not lower it for organizations operating there. 

What This Means for Your Policy

Your organization’s obligation to act starts much earlier than the behavior that the Minnesota statute lists.

Build your code of conduct around the behaviors researchers identify:

1.     Isolation.  Physical isolation, one adult consistently seeking time alone with one child, is the obvious behavior. Emotional isolation also is problem.  We see this in secrecy, requests to keep a relationship, a gift, or a conversation private from parents or supervisors, or reassurances to a child that “no one else understands you.

2.     Favoritism. Note special attention or gifts that single out one child from the group. One-time attention for a good reason (such as child needing extra comfort after a pet dies) is not necessarily a problem.  But a consistent pattern of behavior should raise red flags for you.

3.     Boundary Violations.  Pay attention to escalating physical familiarity that outpaces what the activity requires. Predators also use pornography or discussions about sex to break down normal childhood barriers.

None of these behaviors requires an explicit statement to raise concerns, and none of them requires a felony charge, in any state, to justify action.

Train your staff and mandated reporters to recognize these patterns and report them, regardless of whether an offender ever says anything a criminal court could use, and regardless of whether your state has a grooming statute at all. Audit your current conduct policy against this standard rather than against whatever your state’s newest criminal statute happens to say, or against the fact that your state has no statute at all. Your policy exists to protect the children in your program before a prosecutor, or a legislature, ever gets involved.

Moving Forward

A new grooming law gives prosecutors one more tool in one state, for the clearest, most obvious cases. It does not replace your policy, your training, or your staff’s judgment. Audit your code of conduct against how grooming happens, and be prepared to deal with it when your staff sees it.