Texas parliamentarians push the tougher criminal penalties

Sign -to -LateTexas Tribune’s daily newsletter, which keeps readers at speed at the most essential news in Texas.

Texas parliamentarians push over 100 draft laws to start crime, threatening to overcribe the prisons and prisons of the state whose populations continued to grow after sinking significantly during the pandemic.

The parliamentarians proposed at least 121 draft laws trying to increase criminal sanctions, either creating minimum mandatory punishments, or by increasing the punishment, according to the Association of Lawyers in Texas and county district. This non -profit organization has also pursued 90 invoices that would create new crimes and 96 invoices that would create new crimes.

These figures include only invoices submitted up to Monday and are expected to grow once they have represented the hundreds of invoices that the parliamentarians have submitted this week before the deadline for submitting the draft law on Friday. However, estimates show an increasing press of the state to more punishment.

“Starting with 2015, there has been a rather constant and incremental increase in the number of crimes (parliamentarians) creates each session,” said Shannon Edmonds, president of Texas District and the Association of Lawyers in the county. This growth signals a “return to the law and a sense of order of previous decades,” he added.

The proposals include the invoices to collapse by the organized retail steal, impose time for people who plunder vehicles several times and prohibit the possession of child pornography generated by AI.

Some proposals would provide the local law to apply to the local law to eliminate the threats from the new technology, including artificial intelligence, while other legislations would do little to discourage crime and could tighten the already overloaded prisons and prisons.

It is expected that the Texas prison population will increase by about 10% in the next five years, according to the Legislative Budget Council, and the Texas Criminal Justice Department continues to face a Lack of staff.

The county population of prisons is also increasing. In February, their population was about 2.5% higher than in the same period last year, according to the data collected by the Texas Commission on prison standards.

Some facilities are so short that the detainees are sent from the state to Mississippi and Louisiana. About 4,100 prisoners from Texas prison have been housed outside their arrest county since February, according to Commission data.

“It is important to take into account the costs of these invoices for county prisons, because many of them are already very thin,” said Marc Levin, the main policy counselor at NonPartisan Think Tank Council for Criminal Justice “If you raise things at the level of crimes, for a class of a crime.”

Class A crimes are punished by up to one year in prison, while class B crimes have up to 180 days of imprisonment. People convicted for crimes are usually held in state prisons, who are currently hosting about 136,000 criminals.

Texas’ the population of the prison decreased during coronavirus pandema to minimum values of approximately 117,000 people in January 2021. The number of people in state prisons has increased since then, contributing to about 31% of national increase in the prison population over 2022 and 2023, according to a report Published this week by the initiative of penitentiary policy.

Session by session, Texas MPs introduce a lot of invoices that increase criminal sanctions, often in response to public concerns about the offenses they witnessed in their communities. It wasn’t always that way. Following the fairs, they have made efforts to reduce the state’s prison population by reducing punishments and eliminating people from incarceration. They have succeeded around 2015 and, since then, the number of new offenses that parliamentarians create each session has increased, said Edmonds. In 2023, parliamentarians created 58 new offenses and 26 new penalties, a larger number than any of the legislative sessions of the last 10 years, conformable Association of Prosecutors.

This year, a handful of invoices that create criminal improvements or new crimes are in response to the provisional accusations of the Lt. Dan Patrick. At Patrick’s order, the Senate Criminal Justice Committee studied the effects of organized retail crime – where a network of thieves steals large amounts of goods that they sell in cash, an increasing concern at national level – and also identified ways of strengthening the investigations.

The Senate Draft Bean 1300submitted by Sen. Pete FloresR-Pheasanton, aims to approach $ 422 million in stolen goods and approximately $ 21 million in sales tax revenue Texas lost in the face of detail organized crime in 2022.

The draft law would increase the punishment for such crimes, based on the value of the stolen properties. The current law designates the stealing theft organized as a Class Cgain C – which does not allow prison – when the property is worth less than $ 100. The draft law would increase this to a class B crime. As the value of the stolen properties increases, the punishment would increase, to an offense of the first degree punished by life in prison if the total value of the stolen goods exceeds $ 300,000.

The committee advanced the draft law to the full Senate this week, even if Sen. Borris MilesD-Houston, expressed concern that the draft law would allow prosecutors to incarcerated poor families. A spouse couple in poverty might face prison to steal the formula for their child, even if the bill is trying to target organized retail rings, the parliamentarians said. Flores has fought that prosecutors need discretion to determine whether to press accusations.

Another three draft laws approved by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee this week target banking and credit card, of which the bank’s directors stated that they appear at alarming rates. And an invoice senator Tan ParkerR-Flower Mound, creates a specific offense for theft or receptacle locks, with stronger sanctions for those targeting elderly communities.

Other invoices address the theft of car, one problem, the sheriff in Bexar County, Javier Salazar, said that the parliamentarians had struck San Antonio.

House invoice 727 Increase the punishment for plundering a vehicle when the person transmitting it has a firearm, shatters two or more vehicles or uses a stolen vehicle to perform the crime. Such crimes would be appointed a crime of state imprisonment, which could lead to 180 days to two years in state prison. The draft law was left in the commission this week. Also discussed – but left in the commission – it was Bill House 548which establishes a minimum mandatory year in prison for a second offense of car burglary.

But the crimes of property are difficult to solve and the increase of the punishment would not lead to several cases of car burglary, said Staley Heatly, the county lawyer in Wilbarger County. “It doesn’t necessarily seem to be an effective tool to stop robberies,” Heatly said. “They are difficult because people leave their cars unlocked, someone comes at night and walk through the car and take what they can. There will be no witnesses, so they are extremely difficult to solve. “

Critics who spoke against the draft law said that robberies are often carried out by young people who would not be discouraged by an increased punishment.

Research shows that juvenile incarceration rarely produces positive results and that investments in intense minor probation programs would be more successful, Levin said.

This argument was echo during the discussion of Bill House 268Which would increase the criminal punishment for making certain false reports, such as farce calls that threaten a mass violence call against schools.

“I fight with the penalty of things for the silent things,” Rep. Jolanda JonesD-Houston, said during the meeting of the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. “The next thing you know, cannot receive a scholarship or cannot go to college.”

We can hardly wait to meet you at The 15th Annual Festival in Texas TribuneThe Texas ideas and politics event that happens on November 13-15 in the center of Austin. Enter the conversations that outline the future of education, economy, health, energy, technology, public safety, culture, arts and more.

You hear from our CEO, Sonal Shah, on Tribfest 2025.

Tribfest 2025 is presented by JPMorganchase.