Honorable John Whitmire, Chair, Senate Committee on Criminal Justice
FROM:
John S. O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB6 by Zaffirini (Relating to the apprehension, prosecution, and punishment of individuals committing or attempting to commit certain sex offenses. ), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
The provision of the bill that is the subject of this analysis would amend the Penal Code to allow punishment for the offense of online solicitation of a minor to run consecutively or concurrently. The Penal Code would also be amended to increase the level of offense from a state jail felony to a felony of the third degree for a person that communicates with a minor in a sexually explicit manner or distributes sexually explicit material. The level of punishment would be increased from a felony of the third degree to a felony of the second degree if the person solicits a minor to meet with the intent to have sexual contact, sexual intercourse, or deviate sexual intercourse.
A state jail felony is punishable by confinement in a state jail for any term of not more than two years or less than 180 days, or, in addition to confinement, a fine not to exceed $10,000.
A third degree felony is punishable by imprisonment in the institutional division for any term of not more than ten years or less than two years, or, in addition to imprisonment, a fine not to exceed $10,000.
A second degree felony is punishable by imprisonment in the institutional division for any term of not more than 20 years or less than 2 years, or, in addition to confinement, a fine not to exceed $10,000.
The impact of implementing this provision of the bill cannot be determined due to the recent passage of the original statute. The statue making online solicitation of a minor a criminal offense took effect on June 18, 2005. Since that date there have been 32 offenders placed on felony probation and 8 admissions to prison for the offense. No one has been released from prison for the offense. Increasing the penalty for any criminal offense is expected to result in increased demands upon the correctional resources of counties or the State due to longer terms of probation, or, longer terms of confinement in county jails or prison. By including online solicitation of a minor as eligible for concurrent or consecutive sentences, the bill would allow for the possibility of longer terms of confinement due to consecutive sentences rather than concurrent sentences.