BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 3091

By: Deshotel

Criminal Jurisprudence

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

It has been suggested that there is no adequate deterrence or penalty for anyone who discloses with malicious intent the location or physical layout of a family violence shelter or of a trafficking shelter center. C.S.H.B. 3091 seeks to address this issue by providing for the confidentiality of the location and physical layout of these shelters.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill expressly does one or more of the following: creates a criminal offense, increases the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or changes the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.

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.

ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 3091 amends the Penal Code to create a Class A misdemeanor offense for a person who, with the intent to threaten the safety of any inhabitant of a family violence shelter center or a victims of trafficking shelter center, discloses or publicizes the location or physical layout of the center. If conduct that constitutes such an offense also constitutes an offense of the distribution or misuse of confidential information, the actor may be prosecuted under the bill's offense provisions or under the other offense provision.

C.S.H.B. 3091 amends the Government Code to make confidential under state public information law information that relates to the location or physical layout of a family violence shelter center or victims of trafficking shelter center.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2019.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 3091 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following summarizes the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.

The substitute increases the penalty for the offense created by the bill from a Class B misdemeanor to a Class A misdemeanor.