LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
Austin, Texas
 
CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT STATEMENT
 
86TH LEGISLATIVE REGULAR SESSION
 
May 15, 2019

TO:
Honorable Nicole Collier, Chair, House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence
 
FROM:
John McGeady, Assistant Director     Sarah Keyton, Assistant Director
Legislative Budget Board
 
IN RE:
SB1803 by Huffman (relating to changing the eligibility of persons charged with certain offenses to receive community supervision, including deferred adjudication community supervision.), Committee Report 2nd House, Substituted

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 changing the eligibility of persons charged with certain offenses to receive community supervision, including deferred adjudication community supervision. Under the provisions of the bill, individuals with certain indecency with child, trafficking, and prostitution offenses would no longer be eligible for community supervision. These modifications to the Code of Criminal Procedure would also add individuals convicted of these offenses to the list of those ineligible for community supervision or to the list of those required to serve a term of incarceration, without consideration of good conduct time, one-half of the sentence or 30 calendar years, whichever is less, with a two calendar year minimum before the individual would be eligible for release onto parole. Under current statute, individuals charged with the offenses outlined in the bill can placed on community supervision or incarcerated. A first degree felony is punishable by confinement in prison for life or a term from 5 to 99 years; a second degree felony is punishable by confinement in prison for a term from 2 to 20 years; and a third degree felony is punishable by confinement in prison for a term from 2 to 10 years. In addition to confinement, most felonies may be subject to an optional fine not to exceed $10,000.

In fiscal year 2018, 259 individuals would have been ineligible for placement onto community supervision based on their offenses. To estimate the fiscal impact, LBB staff analyzed records belonging to those individuals placed under community supervision in fiscal year 2018 for the offenses outlined in the bill's provisions, building into the analysis a minor time lag between offense and receipt into the correctional institution. The time lag was based on that observed within both the community supervision and correctional institution datasets analyzed. This time delay is built into the analysis because not everyone will be arrested, convicted, and incarcerated on the first day the provisions of the bill become effective. LBB staff estimated the time incarcerated based on sentencing patterns and the actual time served for those individuals with identical or similar offenses who were released from incarceration in fiscal year 2018. The decrease in individuals placed under community supervision for these offenses for each fiscal year was adjusted based on the projections published in the January 2019 Adult and Juvenile Correctional Population Projections report.

Assuming that sentencing patterns and release policies not addressed in the 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 daily demand upon the adult corrections agencies, is estimated as follows:




Fiscal Year Increase in Demand for TDCJ Bed Capacity Decrease in Demand for Felony Community Supervision
2020 13 259
2021 29 261
2022 44 261
2023 113 262
2024 222 261


Source Agencies:
LBB Staff:
WP, LM, SPa