The provisions of the bill addressing felony sanctions are the subject of this analysis. The bill would amend the Code of Criminal Procedure as it relates to awarding diligent participation credit to individuals serving a term of confinement for a state jail felony offense. Under the provisions of the bill, a judge would no longer be required to find an individual confined in a state jail facility presumptively eligible for diligent participation credit. Instead, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) would be required to grant those confined in state jails full diligent participation credit minus any days those confined were in disciplinary status. 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 a Class A misdemeanor punishment.

Under current statute, the TDCJ awards diligent participation credit to those confined in state jail facilities for each day individuals diligently participate in educational, vocational, treatment, or work programs. These individuals are able to receive credit for a maximum of 20 percent of their sentence length. For some individuals, a judgement can contain a finding that the incarcerated individual is presumptively entitled to diligent participation credit. For those without presumptive findings, when the individual has served almost 80 percent of the sentence, TDCJ reports to the sentencing court about the individual and the judge may credit additional time up to 20 percent. In fiscal year 2018, 8,876 (52.2 percent) of state jail releases received some amount of diligent participation credit with an average of 20.8 days awarded.

To calculate the additional diligent participation credit that could be awarded to those within state jails, we analyzed those with state jail felony sentences released from state jail in fiscal year 2018. Individuals with consecutive sentences, presumptive findings to receive diligent participation credit, or those who received the maximum allowed 20 percent of their sentence length were excluded from our analysis. From the remaining individuals, for those whom information about disciplinary status was available, we subtracted those days for which an individual may not have been eligible from their sentence length. We then calculated how many additional time credit days could be utilized by subtracting any amount of days an individual may already receive under current statute from the maximum 20 percent. The additional days were adjusted based on the projections published in the January 2019 Adult and Juvenile Correctional Population Projections report. This analysis assumes individuals start out receiving the maximum amount allowed. These diligent participation credit days could be reduced based on the disciplinary status and number of days those confined were ineligible to earn the time credit as outlined in the bill.

Assuming that 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 fiscal years following passage, in terms of demand upon the adult corrections agencies, is estimated as follows: