The provisions of the bill addressing felony sanctions are the subject of this analysis. The bill would amend the Penal Code as it relates to the criminal offense of trafficking of persons. Under the provisions of the bill, an actor would commit an offense if, in the course of engaging in conduct related to prostitution, the actor engaged in sexual conduct with a trafficked person regardless of whether the actor knew the person had been trafficked. The punishment for this offense would be a state jail or a first degree felony if the person trafficked is a child.

A first degree felony is punishable by confinement in prison for life or a term from 5 to 99 years and a state jail felony is punishable by confinement in a state jail for a term from 180 days to 2 years or Class A misdemeanor punishment. In addition to confinement, most felony level offenses are subject to an optional fine not to exceed $10,000. A Class A misdemeanor is punishable by confinement in county jail for a term not to exceed one year and, in addition to confinement, an optional fine not to exceed $4,000.

Expanding the circumstances and the penalty for any criminal offense is expected to result in additional demands on the correctional resources of the counties or of the State due to an increase in the length of supervision and the number of individuals placed under community supervision or an increase in the sentence length and the number of individuals sentenced to a term of confinement within a state correctional institution and subsequently released to parole supervision. In fiscal year 2018, 43 people were arrested, fewer than ten were placed under felony community supervision, and fewer than ten were incarcerated within state correctional institutions for engaging in sexual conduct with a trafficked person. This analysis assumes the provisions of the bill addressing felony sanctions would not result in a significant impact on state correctional populations or on the demand for state correctional resources.