Honorable Pete Gallego, Chair, House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence
FROM:
John S O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB2993 by Miles (Relating to offenses involving violating the civil rights of a person in custody and engaging in improper sexual activity with a person in custody; providing certain enhanced penalties.), As Introduced
The bill would amend the Penal Code to enhance the punishment for engaging in improper sexual activity with a person in custody to a felony of the first degree, if the offense involves two or more such conduct during a period that is 30 or more days in duration. Under current statute, engaging in improper sexual activity with a person in custody is punishable as a felony of the second degree if the offense is committed against certain juvenile offenders; otherwise the offense is a state jail felony.
A state jail felony is punishable by confinement in a state jail for a term from 180 days to 2 years and, in addition to confinement, an optional fine not to exceed $10,000 or Class A Misdemeanor punishment (mandatory post conviction community supervision). A felony of the second degree is punishable by confinement in prison for a term from 2 to 20 years and, in addition to confinement, an optional fine not to exceed $10,000. A felony of the first degree is punishable by confinement in prison for life or a term from 5 to 99 years and, in addition to confinement, an optional fine not to exceed $10,000.
Expanding the list of behaviors for which a penalty is applied for any criminal offense or increasing the penalty 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. In the case of this bill, the impact on correctional populations would depend on how many persons would be prosecuted under the provisions of the bill, and the extent to which punishment would be enhanced under the proposed statute compared to existing statute. In fiscal year 2010, less than 25 individuals were arrested, less than 5 were admitted to state jail or prison, and less than 25 were placed on community supervision for a felony offense for engaging in improper sexual activity with a person in custody. 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.