Texas Legislators Propose Over 100 Bills To Increase Criminal Penalties

Texas lawmakers are proposing at least 121 bills to clamp down on crime, threatening to overcrowd the state’s jails and prisons whose populations have grown after dipping significantly during the pandemic. The measures would increase criminal penalties by either creating mandatory minimum sentences or by elevating punishment, says the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. That group has tracked 90 bills that would create new felonies and 96 bills that would create new misdemeanors. The totals will increase by Friday’s bill filing deadline. The numbers show the state’s growing push towards more punishment, reports the Texas Tribune. “Ever since 2015 there has been a pretty steady, incremental growth in the number of crimes [lawmakers] create every session,” said Shannon Edmonds, president of the association. That growth signals a “return to the law and order sentiment of previous decades,” he added.

Proposals include bills to crack down on organized retail theft, impose prison time on people who burglarize vehicles more than once and ban the possession of AI-generated child pornography. Some proposals would provide local law enforcement officers with more tools to crack down on threats from new technology, including artificial intelligence, while other legislation would do little to deter crime and could strain the state’s already overwrought prisons and jails, experts said. Texas’ prison population is projected to increase by about 10% over the next five years, according to the Legislative Budget Board, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice continues to contend with a staffing shortage. The population of county jails also is increasing. As of February, their population was about 2.5% higher than the same time last year, according to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.