HBA-CMT, RKM H.B. 195 77(R)    BILL ANALYSIS


Office of House Bill AnalysisH.B. 195
By: Najera
Public Safety
3/21/2001
Introduced



BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE 

Currently, many elderly individuals are targeted by scam artists.  Often
the persons perpetrating these scams against elderly, retired and trusting
persons will change services or alias, making them difficult to track and
apprehend.  House Bill 195 requires local law enforcement agencies to
report investigations of such offenses against elderly people to the
Department of Public Safety, which is required to maintain such information
in a central repository.  

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that rulemaking
authority is expressly delegated to the Department of Public Safety in
SECTION 1 and 2 (Section 411.051, Government Code) of this bill.   

ANALYSIS

House Bill 195 amends the Government Code to require the Department of
Public Safety  (department) to establish and maintain a central repository
for the collection of information identifying any person who is suspected
or convicted of committing an offense of theft or fraud against an
individual who is 65 years of age or older at the time of the offense.  The
bill requires the department to maintain in the central repository, subject
to availability, personal identifying information of the suspected or
convicted offenders. Additionally, the department is required to maintain a
photograph of the person, a complete set of the person's fingerprints, and
the age of the person's alleged or actual victims and if applicable,
information relating to the person's conviction,  punishment, and release.

The bill requires a law enforcement agency that suspects or a court that
convicts a person of committing fraud or theft against an individual 65
years of age or older to report that suspicion or conviction to the
department in the form and manner and at a regular intervals as prescribed
by rules adopted by the department not later than October 1, 2001.
Additionally, the bill requires the department to make the information in
the central repository available to any local law enforcement agency,
political subdivision, or state agency to the extent that the information
is reasonably necessary or useful to the agency or subdivision in carrying
out duties imposed by law on the agency or subdivision.  The bill prohibits
the requirement that the department make such information available from
being construed to limit access to information if permitted by other law,
and provides that dissemination of such information is subject to all
confidentiality requirements imposed by other law. 

EFFECTIVE DATE

3/21/2001