Honorable Abel Herrero, Chair, House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB2736 by White (Relating to the placement on community supervision of certain defendants convicted of a state jail felony.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
The bill would amend the Code of Criminal Procedure as it relates to the placement on community supervision of certain defendants convicted of a state jail felony. The provisions of the bill that are the subject of this analysis relate to the modifications to the period of incarceration within state correctional resources for certain offenders. Except in cases where the offender was previously placed on deferred adjudication community supervision for the offense or those cases where the offense makes the offender ineligible, the bill's provisions would require offenders incarcerated for state jail offenses to be released to community supervision after serving half their sentence, including time credits earned through the diligent participation program. For certain offenders, the term of community supervision could last no longer than two years. Once placed on community supervision, the judge must retract any time credits earned through the diligent participation program and require the defendant to be reincarcerated for the remainder of the original sentence if the defendant violates a single condition of community supervision.
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).
The bill replaces a period of incarceration with a period of community supervision. Shifting offenders from incarceration to supervision is expected to decrease demands upon state and/or county correctional resources since supervision is less costly than incarceration. The bill may have a positive impact by decreasing the number of people incarcerated within state correctional institutions for state jail felonies. Whether the bill would result in a significant impact to the state is indeterminate due to a lack of statewide data on the number of offenders on community supervision who commit one or more violations and, of those offenders who commit a violation, the length of time until offenders commit their first violation. If a sufficient number of offenders are revoked, the bill's population impact could be reduced or negated.