By West, Culberson                                     H.B. No. 275
         76R7455 PEP-D                           
                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-1                                   AN ACT
 1-2     relating to restricting certain recreational amenities available to
 1-3     inmates imprisoned in the institutional division of the Texas
 1-4     Department of Criminal Justice.
 1-5           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
 1-6           SECTION 1.  Subchapter A, Chapter 501, Government Code, is
 1-7     amended by adding Section 501.018 to read as follows:
 1-8           Sec. 501.018.  RECREATIONAL AMENITIES.  (a)  The
 1-9     institutional division may not allow an inmate classified as
1-10     subject to close custody or administrative segregation, other than
1-11     an inmate classified as subject to administrative segregation level
1-12     I protective custody, access to:
1-13                 (1)  weight-lifting equipment or accessories other than
1-14     in connection with physician-recommended physical therapy; or
1-15                 (2)  use of a television other than in connection with
1-16     a programmatic activity, such as a work, educational, or vocational
1-17     activity.
1-18           (b)  The department may use money appropriated from the
1-19     general revenue fund to pay the cost of purchasing or maintaining
1-20     recreational equipment to be used by an inmate confined in the
1-21     institutional division only if:
1-22                 (1)  the money is appropriated out of receipts
1-23     deposited to the general revenue fund from the education and
1-24     recreation fund; or
 2-1                 (2)  the equipment is used exclusively in connection
 2-2     with physician-recommended physical therapy or a programmatic
 2-3     activity such as a work, educational, or vocational activity.
 2-4           SECTION 2.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1999.
 2-5           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
 2-6     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
 2-7     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
 2-8     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
 2-9     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.