Honorable Pete Gallego, Chair, House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence
FROM:
John S. O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB1558 by Martinez Fischer (Relating to certain criminal penalties and civil consequences for defendants convicted of an offense of graffiti and for juveniles adjudicated as having engaged in conduct involving graffiti.), As Introduced
The provision of the bill that is the subject of this analysis would amend the Penal Code by enhancing the punishment for the offense of graffiti to a state jail felony if the offender has been previously convicted two or more times for the offense of graffiti and the amount of the pecuniary loss to property is any amount less than $20,000.
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.
The offense of graffiti is currently punishable as a misdemeanor if the amount of pecuniary loss is less than $1,500. According to arrest data for fiscal year 2007 provided by the Department of Public Safety (DPS), 113 (or 7%) of the 1,556 persons arrested for misdemeanor graffiti offenses had previous arrests for the offense of graffiti. According to fiscal year community supervision placement data provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, 120 persons were placed on misdemeanor community supervision for the offense of graffiti. It is estimated that eight of the 120 persons placed on misdemeanor community supervision for the offense of graffiti (120 X 7% = 8) would have their punishments enhanced from a misdemeanor to a state jail felony as a result of the bill. Therefore, it is assumed that the number of persons convicted under this provision of the bill would not result in a significant impact on the programs and workload of state corrections agencies or on the demand for resources and services of those agencies.