1-1     By:  West, et al.                                     S.B. No. 1576
 1-2           (In the Senate - Filed March 12, 1999; March 15, 1999, read
 1-3     first time and referred to Committee on Criminal Justice;
 1-4     April 12, 1999, reported favorably by the following vote:  Yeas 7,
 1-5     Nays 0; April 12, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to notifying local law enforcement officials of the
 1-9     release of certain gang members from the institutional division of
1-10     the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
1-11           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-12           SECTION 1.  Subchapter C, Chapter 499, Government Code, is
1-13     amended by adding Section 499.051 to read as follows:
1-14           Sec. 499.051.  NOTIFICATION OF RELEASE OF GANG MEMBER.  (a)  
1-15     On the release of an inmate determined by the department to be a
1-16     member of a security threat group, the department shall notify the
1-17     sheriff of the county to which the inmate is released and, if the
1-18     inmate is released to a municipality, the chief of police for that
1-19     municipality.  The notice must state the date on which the inmate
1-20     was released and state that the inmate has been determined by the
1-21     department to be a member of a security threat group.
1-22           (b)  If the department is required by Section 508.115 to
1-23     notify a sheriff before the release of the inmate, the department
1-24     shall include the information described by Subsection (a) with the
1-25     notice provided under Section 508.115.
1-26           SECTION 2.  The change in law made by this Act applies only
1-27     to the notification of the release of an inmate who is to be
1-28     released on or after September 15, 1999.
1-29           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-30     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-31     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-32     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-33     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-34     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-35     passage, and it is so enacted.
1-36                                  * * * * *