Honorable John Whitmire, Chair, Senate Committee on Criminal Justice
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB189 by Huffman (Relating to the eligibility of certain inmates convicted of injury to a child for release to mandatory supervision.), As Introduced
The bill would amend the Government Code as it relates to certain inmates' eligibility for mandatory supervision if they were convicted of injuring a child. Under the provisions of the bill, an inmate would no longer be eligible to be released to mandatory supervision if the inmate is serving a sentence for or has been previously convicted of a second- or third-degree felony for injuring a child.
In fiscal year 2012, 593 offenders were admitted to prison for a second- or third-degree felony child-injury offense and 10 were admitted for a second- or third-degree offense of injury to a child, elderly person, or disabled person. Of the 10 offenders incarcerated for general injury offenses, 2 of these offenders are assumed to have committed an injury to a child based on the proportion of victim-specified injury offenses that specify a child victim (20 percent). Among prison admissions in fiscal year 2012, 395 offenders are assumed to have past felony convictions for injury to a child. This assumption is based on an analysis of prior arrests including child injury for fiscal year 2012 admissions who were not incarcerated for a second- or third-degree felony child-injury offense as well as estimated felony conviction rates. Approximately 915 of these 990 admissions were eligible for mandatory supervision. Among fiscal year 2012 prison releases, the average length of incarceration for second- and third-degree child-injury offenses was 1,021 days for those released to mandatory supervision. Since mandatory supervision would no longer be a release option for these offenders, they would only be released under parole supervision or discharged upon completion of their entire sentence. This length of incarceration is expected to increase by 172 days based on a weighted average of the length of incarceration for fiscal year 2012 prisoners released to parole or discharged without supervision. In order to estimate the future impact, the proposed conditions of the bill have been analyzed using recent trends observed in populations admitted to and released from prison for this offense. Assuming sentencing patterns and release policies not addressed in this bill remain constant, the probable impact of implementing the provisions of the bill during each of the first five years following passage, in terms of daily demand upon the adult corrections agencies, is estimated as follows: