2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · House bill

HB3464

HB3464 increases penalties for specified contraband offenses when the person committing them is employed by the correctional facility.

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Official caption: Relating to increasing the criminal penalties for the offenses of providing or possessing with the intent to provide an alcoholic beverage, a controlled substance, or a dangerous drug to a person in the custody of a correctional facility, taking an alcoholic beverage, a controlled substance, or a dangerous drug into a correctional facility, and taking a controlled substance or dangerous drug on property owned, used, or controlled by a correctional facility.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Meza, Lalani. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

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Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

HB3464 increases penalties for specified contraband offenses when the person committing them is employed by the correctional facility.
If administration of the controlled substance or dangerous drug involved in the offense causes the death of a person in the facility's custody, the qualifying employee offense becomes a first-degree felony with a special punishment range: 15 to 99 years or life imprisonment, and a fine up to $250,000.
The bill changes penalties, not all underlying offense definitions.
Signed June 20, 2025, the law took effect September 1, 2025.

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What does it do?

HB3464 increases penalties for specified contraband offenses when the person committing them is employed by the correctional facility. The covered conduct is providing, or possessing with intent to provide, alcohol, a controlled substance or a dangerous drug to someone in custody; taking those substances into the facility; or taking a controlled substance or dangerous drug onto facility property. It raises these qualifying offenses from third-degree to second-degree felonies. The ordinary second-degree range is two to 20 years in prison, with a possible fine up to $10,000, compared with the ordinary third-degree range of two to 10 years and the same fine ceiling. Final law · General felony penalties

If administration of the controlled substance or dangerous drug involved in the offense causes the death of a person in the facility’s custody, the qualifying employee offense becomes a first-degree felony with a special punishment range: 15 to 99 years or life imprisonment, and a fine up to $250,000. Alcohol is included in parts of the second-degree enhancement, but alcohol alone is not listed as the substance triggering this new death-related enhancement.

The bill changes penalties, not all underlying offense definitions. The existing prescription exception and applicable prescription/delivery affirmative defenses remain. It does not apply the new employee enhancements to every item prohibited in a facility, such as phones or tobacco, or to mere possession under a different subsection. Although the broader statute also covers civil commitment facilities, these new enhancements expressly concern correctional facilities and their employees. Underlying offenses and defenses

Signed June 20, 2025, the law took effect September 1, 2025. It applies prospectively; the former law governs if any element of an offense occurred before that date. Official history

What changed along the way?

The introduced and House-passed versions focused on an employee providing a controlled substance to a person in custody outside a practitioner’s prescription. They already proposed the second-degree penalty and the special 15-year-minimum, $250,000-maximum-fine enhancement for a resulting death.

The Senate substitute broadened the covered conduct to the specified providing/intent-to-provide and bringing-in offenses, included dangerous drugs and, for the applicable non-death offenses, alcohol. It tied the death enhancement to the controlled substance or dangerous drug that was the subject of the offense. The Senate did not newly invent the special sentencing range; that was already in the House text.

The amendment index lists no separate amendments, but the text index supplies an 11-page Senate amendments printing containing the adopted substitute. Its full text was checked against the final bill. The House concurred May 28, and the Senate language became law. Introduced text · Senate amendments · Text versions · Amendment index

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

People in custody, their families and facility staff could benefit if the higher penalties deter employee involvement in contraband trafficking. Whether they do so is not established by enactment. Employees convicted under the qualifying provisions face longer potential sentences and, when a drug causes death, a much higher minimum sentence and fine ceiling. Prosecutors still must establish the offense, employment connection and, for the death enhancement, causation.

The final fiscal note anticipated no significant overall state fiscal impact, but the Office of Court Administration called the court-system impact indeterminate. Local costs depend on how many qualifying cases occur. Criminal-justice assessments identified possible additional prison demand from more people confined or longer stays, while expecting no significant overall effect. These qualifications matter: the bill is not proven cost-free. Final fiscal note · Senate criminal-justice assessment

Review boundary: This explains statutory offense and sentencing changes, not an individual sentence or a finding that a particular substance caused a death. Other sentencing rules can affect a case. Retained provisions were checked against the August 31, 2025 historical statute, rather than treating every current-code provision as new.

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.