A Texas bill requiring a 10-year prison sentence for gun crimes is facing opposition from criminal justice and gun advocates.

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A bill in Texas that would require a 10-year prison sentence for people who use guns to commit a criminal offense has raised concerns from two groups that are not usually on the same side in legislative debates: criminal justice reformers and gun rights groups.

Senate Bill 23, introduced on Thursday by Rep. Joan Huffman, would also prevent judges from sentencing individuals convicted of using or brandishing firearms in felony to community supervision or parole instead of ten years in prison.

Last fall, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick pitched the idea of ​​mandatory sentencing for gun offenses in a publicity campaign in response to some rise in violent crime since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. He has included the bill on his list of legislative priorities for the current legislative session, a designation that makes it easier to get it into the Senate. The bill goes further than the previous legislation that Huffman, a Houston Republican, filed last month.

“I am a firm believer in deterrence, especially for the most violent crimes,” Huffman said in a statement released alongside the previous gun crimes bill. “In Texas, we deeply respect the Second Amendment, but we will not tolerate violent criminals terrorizing our communities. Enough is enough.”

Huffman was unable to answer questions about SB 23 on Thursday.

Advocates of criminal justice reform say mandatory minimum prison terms increase prison populations but do little to reduce violent crime.

“Frankly, lawmakers have proposed mandatory minimums many times because they want to look like they’re doing something about violent crime, and the only thing they really know how to do is increase the penalties,” said Molly Gill. Vice President for Policy at Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a national non-profit organization for criminal justice reform.

And some Second Amendment supporters, a powerful lobbying group in the Texas Capitol, refused to support the measure. Wes Wyrdell, Texas state director of Gun Owners of America, a “hardline” gun lobbying group, opposes SB 23 as written because it could have “unintended consequences” for gun owners.

“Imagine you decide to carry and you are in Austin, Texas and you are acting in what you believe is self-defense… [district attorney] doesn’t think so, and now you face 10 years,” said Wirdell.

The proposal comes two years after the Legislature widely expanded access to guns, including through a law allowing adults to openly carry handguns in public without permission or the required training.

Mandatory minimum prison sentences were a hallmark of U.S. criminal justice policy in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, epitomizing the era of “hard-core crime fighting.” Over decades, research has shown that such laws generally do not reduce violent crime and may slightly increase the number of crimes committed by people who have recently been released from jail or prison, said Michael Rempel, head of the Data Collaborative for Justice at John. Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Rempel said the caveat to the study was that he did not believe the researchers were considering any laws as specific as the one proposed in Texas.

By the 2010s, some 29 states had taken steps to eliminate mandatory sentencing, most of which involved non-violent crimes, according to a 2014 report by the Faith Institute of Justice.

The focus on violent crime nonetheless remains politically advantageous, Gill said. Many newly elected and re-elected officials have campaigned promising to fight crime, which has risen in recent years but in most cases remains below historic highs. Criminologists have suggested that a combination of more guns on the streets, police brutality, and the stress caused by the pandemic have contributed to the increase in violent crime in the country.

Some cities that have experienced such increases have recently seen a slight decline in the most violent crimes. Houston, the state’s most populous city of 2.3 million, saw 435 homicides last year, up from 477 a year earlier, according to the Houston Police Department. In 2019, there were 291.

Mandatory minimums, Gill said, shift the balance of power in the criminal justice system in favor of prosecutors, allowing them to determine what charges to file or not to file.

“With the bare minimum, you essentially turn the prosecutor into a judge, jury, and executioner,” Gill said.

The impact of longer prison sentences extends beyond the convict, said Alicia Castillo of the Texas Center for Fairness and Justice. These people lose their jobs and remain out of the labor market, unable to keep up with the technologies that employers will demand after they leave. They may also lose parental rights, which are difficult to restore.

“And, of course, utility costs,” Castillo said. “What will it look like for us in the future when people in a community leave – and so many people leave their communities – and then come back as a greater burden on the state than they were before entering? When we think about solutions to violence, we really need to be smart about interventions that are evidence-based and that we know are more effective.”


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