TO:	Honorable Joe Moody, Chair, House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence
FROM:	Jerry McGinty, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:	HB3548 by Anchía (Relating to increasing the criminal penalty for assault of certain hospital personnel.), As Introduced

The bill would increase the penalty for the offense of assault from a Class A misdemeanor to a third degree felony when the victim is a person the actor knows is hospital personnel while the person is performing a service in the hospital. 

Increasing the penalty for an existing offense may result in an increase in demands upon state and local correctional resources due to a possible increase in the number of individuals placed under supervision in the community or sentenced to a term of confinement.

In fiscal year 2022, there were 51,786 individuals arrested, 8,272 individuals placed on adult community supervision, 5,776 individuals placed on juvenile community supervision, and no individuals admitted into an adult or juvenile state correctional institution for a misdemeanor assault offense. While the number of these assaults which might have been directed against hospital personnel performing a service in the hospital is unknown, it is assumed that any impact on state correctional populations or on the demand for state correctional resources would not be significant.