The bill would amend the Code of Criminal Procedure by eliminating the possibility of judge ordered community supervision for a defendant convicted of the offense of injury to a child elderly individual, or disabled individual, if the offense is punishable as a felony of the first degree and the victim of the offense is a child, and the offense results in serious bodily injury.  The bill would also require such defendants to not be eligible for release on parole until the defendant’s actual calendar time served, without consideration of good conduct time, equals one-half of the sentence or 30 calendar years, whichever is less, but in no event would the defendant be eligible for release on parole in less than two calendar years. 

In fiscal year 2006, 107 admissions to prison were convicted of the offense of injury to a child, elderly individual, or disabled individual, punishable as a first degree felony.  For the 107 admissions it is not clear if the victim of the offense was a child, but the average sentence for all persons admitted for the offense was 23 years.  Also in fiscal year 2006, 48 offenders were released from prison for the offense of injury to a child, elderly individual, or disabled individual, punishable as a first degree felony.  Again, it is not clear how many of the 48 offenders released committed their offense against a child; however, all such offenders served an average of 10 years in prison and served nearly 80% of their sentence before release.  Therefore, the provision of the bill determining parole eligibility is unlikely to have a significant impact on persons already sentenced to prison for the offense identified in the proposal. 

In fiscal year 2006, 18 offenders were placed on community supervision for the offense of injury to a child, elderly individual, or disabled individual, punishable as a first degree felony, with the offense resulting in serious bodily injury.  Of the 18 community supervision placements, 4 were placed on adjudicated community supervision (could have been judge ordered or jury recommended) and 14 were placed on deferred adjudication (could only have been judge ordered).  Assuming that all of these individuals would be shifted from community supervision to prison, the impact would not result in a significant impact to the prison population.