Honorable Jeff Leach, Chair, House Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence
FROM:
Jerry McGinty, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB4635 by Guillen (relating to organized crime, racketeering activities, and collection of unlawful debts; providing a civil penalty; creating criminal offenses.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
The bill would create second degree felony offenses related to racketeering and unlawful debt collection. The bill would expand the applicability of certain offenses related to organized crime by redefining a "criminal street gang" as being composed of two or more persons having a common identifying sign or symbol or an identifiable leadership who continuously or regularly associate in the commission of criminal activities. The bill would expand the conduct constituting the offense of engaging in organized criminal activity to include certain unlawful possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance or dangerous drug. The bill would create misdemeanor offenses relating to a trustee's failure to provide certain information to an investigative agency that has filed a RICO lien notice and to certain noncompliance with a civil investigative demand.
Creating a new offense and expanding the conduct constituting and modifying the penalty for an existing offense may result in additional 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 9,875 individuals arrested, 1,926 individuals placed on adult community supervision, 119 individuals placed on juvenile community supervision, 2,825 individuals admitted into an adult state correctional institution, and 1 individual admitted into a juvenile correctional facility for manufacturing, delivering, or possessing with intent to deliver a controlled substance in violation of the Texas Controlled Substances Act or a dangerous drug in violation of the Texas Dangerous Drug Act. It is unknown how many of these offenses would qualify for enhanced punishment under the bill's provisions for the offense of organized criminal activity.
The impact on state correctional populations or on the demand for state correctional resources cannot be determined due to the lack of data to identify the number of cases that would qualify as an offense of engaging in organized criminal activity or to estimate the prevalence of the conduct constituting the new offenses related to racketeering and unlawful debt collection under the bill's provisions.