Honorable Joe Moody, Chair, House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence
FROM:
Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB1274 by Moody (relating to the release on parole of certain inmates convicted of an offense committed when younger than 18 years of age; changing parole eligibility.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
The provisions of the bill addressing parole eligibility are the subject of this analysis. The bill would amend the Government Code as it relates to the eligibility for release onto parole of certain individuals convicted of certain offenses committed when younger than 18 years of age. Under the provisions of the bill, these individuals would be eligible for release onto parole supervision when the actual time served on a sentence equals one-half of the sentence or 20 years, whichever is less, with a minimum term of confinement of two years. The bill would apply to individuals confined in state correctional agencies on or after the effective date, regardless of whether the offense for which they are confined occurred before, on, or after the effective date of the Act.
Under existing statute these individuals are eligible for parole when the actual time served on a sentence equals one-half of the sentence or 30 years, whichever is less, with a minimum term of confinement of two years.
Decreasing the amount of time an individual must serve before becoming eligible for parole is expected to result in reduced demands on the correctional resources of the State due to shorter terms of confinement within state correctional institutions. As of August 31, 2016, there were 2,869 individuals confined within state correctional institutions who were younger than 18 at offense and had committed an offense subject to the bill's provisions. After removing those individuals who had not yet served half of their sentence, those who had already been considered for parole release, and applying current parole case approval rates, those individuals subject to the provisions of the bill addressing parole release eligibility would not result in a significant reduction on the demand for state correctional resources.