Texas: The problem is that work is underway to toughen the punishment for criminals who turned off their ankle monitors.

DALLAS – There is a bipartisan effort in Texas to increase punishment for criminals who have disabled their ankle bracelets.

In Dallas, two hospital workers were killed after a suspect was allowed to stay in the hospital in connection with the birth of his child. A few months ago, he was arrested for cutting a monitor on his ankle.

Bills filed by State Representative Rafael Anchia, Dallas, would criminalize the removal of an electronic ankle monitor, require hospitals to be notified if a violent criminal is allowed on campus, and make it a felony to assault a hospital worker. 3rd degree crime.

Representative Rafael Anchia: It is a tragedy that we have to come to terms with the fact that if you turn off your ankle bracelet, your parole will not be revoked because two medical workers at a Methodist hospital were murdered in the heart of the community that I represent.

[Steven: Did it shock you to find out that this wasn’t just an isolated incident about an offender who had an ankle monitor and cutting it off and then committing a crime?]

Representative Rafael Anchia: The Board of Pardons and Parole failed to revoke parole for a violent offender who was repeatedly arrested, violated parole, and tested positive for drugs while on parole. TueWhen it all came out, I just thought to myself, you know, what would be the last, best chance we’d have to stop this brutal killer from killing these medical workers? your ankle monitor, you won’t be back in jail right away. Right. Like this. This one doesn’t even pass the basic sanity test.

[Steven: There are some divisive issues this legislative session. Do you think this is one your series of bills could be one of those times where we see bipartisanship? What have you heard from your colleagues on the other side of the aisle in reference to this?]

Representative Rafael Anchia: On the knee pad bill, we already have a Senate sponsor, Senator Huffman of Houston, a Republican. She’s working on this bill in the Senate. And so we expect to have broad, bipartisan, bicameral support. I have Republican co-sponsors who are willing to participate in the ankle monitor bill. Other bills are also common sense. Other members come up to me on the ward floor and say, “Hey, I want this on these bills.” I can’t believe these things are not yet law and let’s work together. So I hope that in a sometimes divisive environment, we can get broad bipartisan support for these common sense reforms.

[Steven: Why now do you think that? Unfortunately, you know, the Methodist issue happened, but that you can use this tragedy and turn to something positive?]

Representative Rafael Anchia: People were fired from the Board of Pardons and Parole. This organization conducted an internal investigation, the state auditor is considering. It’s entirely possible that after all these investigations are done, we’ll need an overhaul of the Board of Pardons and Paroles because, in at least these two cases, ankle surveillance violations did not result in parole being rescinded. that really should have happened.

[Steven: Who is at fault? What levels of failure was this on? Was it just on pardon parole or lawmakers at fault as well?]

Representative Rafael Anchia: So we think about pardons and parole from top to bottom and sort of hold the executive branch to account. This is our job as an equal branch of government. At the same time, we are going to look at TDCJ, you know, there is money that has been diverted from TDC by the governor because there is not enough oversight, there is not enough security guards in an environment where it is quite difficult to hire security guards. primarily because they have to release people, violent criminals, on those leg monitors when they should be in jail instead. So here, too, everything is from top to bottom. You know, the fact that neither I nor my colleagues knew that this was no longer the law is also a problem that we will try to fix in this session.