By West                                          H.B. No. 279

      75R2477 GWK-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to a requirement that physically and mentally able inmates

 1-3     of the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal

 1-4     Justice participate in work and educational programs.

 1-5           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-6           SECTION 1.  Subchapter E, Chapter 497, Government Code, is

 1-7     amended by adding Section 497.099 to read as follows:

 1-8           Sec. 497.099.  PARTICIPATION IN WORK PROGRAM REQUIRED.  (a)

 1-9     The director shall require each inmate in the institutional

1-10     division who is physically and mentally capable to participate at

1-11     least 60 hours a week in an agricultural, vocational, industrial,

1-12     or other work program.

1-13           (b)  The director shall require each inmate in the

1-14     institutional division who does not have a high school diploma or

1-15     general equivalency diploma, other than an inmate determined by the

1-16     director to lack the learning ability to obtain such a diploma, to

1-17     participate at least 10 hours a week in an educational program

1-18     designed to help the inmate achieve a diploma.

1-19           (c)  The board shall adopt rules to implement this section.

1-20           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the

1-21     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

1-22     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

1-23     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

1-24     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

 2-1     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

 2-2     passage, and it is so enacted.