While the state’s prison population is ballooning beyond budget projections, legislators are expressing growing frustration that the cost of incarceration — estimated in “fiscal notes” accompanying each bill — may block many new efforts to crack down on crime.
“In my eyes, fiscal notes are what prevents us from giving due punishment to these perpetrators,” declared Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver, R-Lancaster, after listening to testimony about sex trafficking involving minors. “In my eyes the cost of a bullet is 37 cents. The cost of a rope is less. And that’s the problem with our system.”
The bill that prompted Weaver’s wish for a simpler penalty alternative to prison (HB131) would revise a law enacted last year that increased the sentence for sex trafficking involving a minor 15 years old or younger. This year’s measure would expand that to cover as well those 16 or 17 years old.
The fiscal note estimates this would cost taxpayers $137,500 per year. It is part of a four-bill package of sex trafficking legislation that sponsor Rep. Jim Coley, R-Bartlett, says has a combined cost of about $500,000.
The House Criminal Justice Subcommittee approved all four bills unanimously. The real test for such bills — there are dozens of measures enhancing criminal penalties filed this year — will come in the House Budget Committee and its subcommittee. With few exceptions, those that are not part of Gov. Bill Haslam’s budget plan for the coming year will be rejected.”

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