By Farrar H.B. No. 3256
76R9150 GWK-F
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
1-1 AN ACT
1-2 relating to the exchange of information related to a special needs
1-3 offender.
1-4 BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-5 SECTION 1. Section 614.017, Health and Safety Code, is
1-6 amended to read as follows:
1-7 Sec. 614.017. EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION. (a) An agency
1-8 [authorized by this chapter to provide continuity of care for a
1-9 special needs offender] may:
1-10 (1) receive information relating to a special needs
1-11 offender regardless of whether other state law makes that
1-12 information confidential, if the agency receives the information to
1-13 further the purposes of this chapter; or
1-14 (2) disclose information relating to a special needs
1-15 offender, including information about the offender's identity,
1-16 needs, treatment, social, criminal, and vocational history,
1-17 supervision status and compliance with conditions of supervision,
1-18 and medical and mental health history, if the agency discloses the
1-19 information to further the purposes of this chapter.
1-20 (b) This section is not intended to conflict with a federal
1-21 law that restricts the disclosure of information described by
1-22 Subsection (a).
1-23 (c) In this section:
1-24 (1) "Agency" includes any of the following entities [a
2-1 division within an agency], a person with an agency relationship
2-2 with one of the following entities [an agency], and a person who
2-3 contracts with one or more of the following entities:
2-4 (A) the institutional division of the Texas
2-5 Department of Criminal Justice;
2-6 (B) the pardons and paroles division of the
2-7 Texas Department of Criminal Justice;
2-8 (C) the community justice assistance division of
2-9 the Texas Department of Criminal Justice;
2-10 (D) the state jail division of the Texas
2-11 Department of Criminal Justice;
2-12 (E) the Texas Department of Mental Health and
2-13 Mental Retardation;
2-14 (F) the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission;
2-15 (G) the Texas Youth Commission;
2-16 (H) the Texas Rehabilitation Commission;
2-17 (I) the Texas Education Agency;
2-18 (J) the Criminal Justice Policy Council;
2-19 (K) the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug
2-20 Abuse;
2-21 (L) the Commission on Jail Standards;
2-22 (M) the Texas Department of Human Services;
2-23 (N) the Texas Department on Aging;
2-24 (O) the Texas School for the Blind and Visually
2-25 Impaired;
2-26 (P) the Texas Department of Health;
2-27 (Q) the Texas Commission for the Deaf and Hard
3-1 of Hearing;
3-2 (R) community supervision and corrections
3-3 departments;
3-4 (S) personal bond pretrial release offices
3-5 established under Article 17.42, Code of Criminal Procedure; and
3-6 (T) local jails regulated by the Commission on
3-7 Jail Standards [an agency].
3-8 (2) "Special needs offender" means an individual for
3-9 whom criminal charges are pending or who after conviction or
3-10 adjudication is in custody or under any form of criminal justice
3-11 supervision [a convicted felon or an individual who is placed on
3-12 community supervision after a grant of deferred adjudication under
3-13 Section 5, Article 42.12, Code of Criminal Procedure].
3-14 SECTION 2. The importance of this legislation and the
3-15 crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
3-16 emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
3-17 constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
3-18 days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
3-19 and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
3-20 passage, and it is so enacted.