More than a week after the end of the special session, Gov. Joe Lombardo signed into law his marquee criminal justice package, which most notably will greenlight the revival of a court to deal with crimes exclusively committed on the Las Vegas Strip and expand guardrails around immigration enforcement activity. 

The bill, whose approval was made public Monday afternoon, is a revived version of Lombardo’s crime bill (SB457), which died in the final moments of the 2025 legislative session. In addition to implementing a Resort Corridor Court, the bill will establish harsher penalties for certain burglaries and a transitional custody program for nonviolent inmates. 

A last-minute change to the bill will also prohibit school districts from allowing immigration enforcement on public school campuses without a lawful order and require legislative approval for the expansion of detention facilities.

The 70-plus pages of legislation marks the most comprehensive criminal justice reforms in Nevada since 2019, when the Democrat-controlled Legislature passed major changes to the state’s penal code, including lowering the felony theft threshold from from $1,200 to $750. Those changes would later draw ire from Lombardo, who, in his 2022 run for governor, hammered Democrats as “soft on crime.” 

It’s a win for Lombardo, former sheriff of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, as he seeks re-election in 2026 against likely Democratic contender Attorney General Aaron Ford. In 2023, Lombardo introduced a bill proposing to reverse the changes made to the felony theft threshold and to enact harsher fentanyl trafficking penalties. Although those changes failed to pass out of the most recent iteration, Lombardo said the bill would strengthen crime laws.

Despite the immigration adds, Lombardo said that the bill allows “for law enforcement to do what they must to keep our schools safe” while complying with an agreement the state has with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement. 

“AB4 is not an unlawful sanctuary policy. In reality, it strengthens laws against theft, domestic violence, and driving under the influence — crimes fueled by the addiction epidemic inflicted on our country by cartel activity,” Lombardo’s office said on X. 

A spokesperson for Lombardo did not immediately return a request for comment on the bill’s approval. 

Despite facing heavy pushback from Democratic and Republican lawmakers during the 2025 legislative session, the stripped-down bill faced few hurdles during the special session. Lawmakers from both sides said the bill would help tackle rising crime on the Strip, while easing strains on the prison system through alternate custody arrangements. 

“The provisions that are included in the tourism safety portion of the bill are not draconian, they are not harsh. They are reasonable approaches to an actual problem,” Sen. Melanie Scheible (D-Las Vegas), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an interview with The Nevada Independent.  

Scheible also told The Indy she believes the bill “works together” with the 2019 Democratic criminal justice package. 

Although proponents of the bill said the corridor court will help ensure the safety of tourists and employees on the Strip, it has faced pushback from groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, which are worried about its restrictions on personal liberties. A now defunct version of the corridor court, which ran from 2023-2024, often used “order out” decrees to ban offenders, the vast majority of whom were nonviolent, from reentering the Strip.

Progressive groups have also raised concerns about the lack of public influence on the legislative process, especially given the restriction on giving testimony over the telephone in Assembly hearings during the special session and the resort industry’s backing of the measure. 

The crime bill “is being pushed out quickly because of the politics involved,” Athar Haseebullah, the executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, told The Indy in a statement. “Top Democrats and the governor all seem petrified of angering big casino corporations and, in a state that functions like a company town, that fear is most noticeable when elections loom.”

The bill has also raised fiscal concerns, especially from Washoe and Clark counties, about increased staffing needs. A fiscal note from the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) notes the bill would cost the department about $2 million in fiscal years 2026 and 2027, but would result in a long-term reduction of the state’s prison populations in part because of the alternate custody program. 

These changes could result in about $25 million in savings, the department noted, marking a massive decrease from the bill’s initial price tag of more than $42 million. NDOC estimates that the bill could reduce its incarcerated population by nearly 300 people per year.