The bill would amend various codes as they relate to changing the eligibility of persons charged with certain offense to receive community supervision, including deferred adjudication community supervision. Under the provisions of the bill, individuals charged with certain indecency with child, trafficking, and prostitution offenses would no longer 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 parole supervision or 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. The bill also makes modifications to the eligibility for emergency medical service personnel certification and license based on these offenses. 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. 

To estimate the population impact, LBB staff analyzed individuals placed under community supervision in fiscal year 2018 for the offenses outlined in the bill's provisions. In fiscal year 2018, 280 individuals would have been ineligible for placement onto community supervision based on their offenses. Also built into the analysis was a time lag between offense and receipt into the correctional institutions. 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 bill would 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 on 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 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 daily demand upon the adult corrections agencies, is estimated as follows: