BILL ANALYSIS |
C.S.H.B. 2719 |
By: Guillen |
Corrections |
Committee Report (Substituted) |
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Interested parties assert that youth who have been placed in foster care are at higher risk of being involved in the juvenile justice and criminal justice systems. Many children in the Texas foster care system have experienced significant trauma, including violence, neglect, abuse, threats, humiliation, and deprivation. Although research provides a growing understanding of the possible connections between childhood trauma and later criminal involvement, there is concern that the full scale of the problem is impossible to determine because the Texas Department of Criminal Justice does not currently inquire during the inmate intake process whether an individual has at any time been in foster care.
Interested parties contend that, to address the complex challenges facing youth in the foster care system, Texas must develop sufficient resources and programs to provide foster youth with the skills needed to succeed, which will require collecting data on potential future criminal justice system involvement. C.S.H.B. 2719 seeks to address such issues relating to at-risk foster youth.
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RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
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ANALYSIS
C.S.H.B. 2719 amends the Government Code to require the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), during the diagnostic process, to assess each inmate with respect to whether the inmate has at any time been in the conservatorship of a state agency responsible for providing child protective services. The bill requires TDCJ, not later than December 31 of each year, to submit a report to the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house of representatives, and each standing committee having primary jurisdiction over TDCJ summarizing statistical information concerning the total number of inmates who have at any time been in the conservatorship of a state agency responsible for providing child protective services.
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EFFECTIVE DATE
September 1, 2013.
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COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE
While C.S.H.B. 2719 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following comparison is organized and highlighted in a manner that indicates the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.
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