Honorable Ryan Guillen, Chair, House Committee on Culture, Recreation & Tourism
FROM:
John S O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB1806 by Flynn (Relating to fishing tournament fraud; providing penalties.), As Introduced
The bill would amend Parks and Wildlife Code to re-designate existing code and would expand the types of behaviors punishable. The provisions of the bill that create new punishment or enhance existing punishment for criminal offenses are the subject of this analysis. Under current statute, fraud in a freshwater fishing tournament is punishable as a Class A Misdemeanor unless the tournament purse is worth $10,000 or more (money or goods) in which case the offense is a third degree felony. Under the provisions of the bill, this type of fraud would not be limited to freshwater fishing tournaments.
A Class A Misdemeanor is punishable by confinement in a county jail for any term of not more than one year, or, in addition to confinement, a fine not to exceed $4,000. A felony of the third degree is punishable by imprisonment in the institutional division for any term of not more than 10 years or less than 2 years, or, in addition to confinement, a fine not to exceed $10,000.
Expanding the list of behaviors for which a penalty is applied for any criminal offense is expected to result in increased demands upon the correctional resources of counties or of the State due to longer terms of probation, or, longer terms of confinement in county jails or prison. For this analysis, it is assumed the number of offenders convicted under this statute 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.