Estimating the cost of “Jessica’s Law”

Posted on February 24, 2007 by Charles Kuffner

Grits notes that the Legislative Budget Board is using a more realistic approach to doing fiscal notes for crime-related bills, and goes from there to analyze their estimate for HB8, also known as “Jessica’s Law”. More background can be found here, here, and here. Check it out.

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One Response to Estimating the cost of “Jessica’s Law”

  1. Norm says:
    February 24, 2007 at 3:47 pm

    Kuff – as you know, “Jessica’s Law” consists of a package of bills, not just HB 8. There are enormous costs well beyond the direct public expenses of incarceration and monitoring. There is the larger cost to the rule of law – rights held inviolate since the Magna Carta – but apparently rights that can be taken away by whim of the Texas Legislature. This is a price that would be paid by all of us, for if basic constitutional protections like due process and prohibitions against ex post facto prosecutions and double jeopardy can be waived for one category of citizens, it can just as easily be waived for others. Getting tough on sex offenses should not come at the expense of our constitution.

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