§ 14A.001.Definitions

Five definitions, and the first identifies a population unlike the one the inmate chapter addresses.

"Civilly committed individual" means a sexually violent predator as described by Section 841.003, Health and Safety Code, who has been committed to a facility operated by or under contract with the office.

The distinction from an inmate is fundamental and worth stating plainly. A person committed under that statute has completed a criminal sentence. The commitment that follows is civil, based on a finding of a behavioural abnormality making the person likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence, and it continues until a court ends it.

So the confinement is indefinite and is not punishment, which is the premise on which the commitment scheme rests.

"Office" means the Texas Civil Commitment Office, the agency that administers the programme — the counterpart of the Department of Criminal Justice in the inmate chapter.

"Trust account" means a trust account administered by the office or by a facility under contract with it.

That definition is shorter than its counterpart because the structure is simpler. The inmate chapter must reach state facilities, contracted facilities and county jails; here there is one agency and its contractors.

"Unsworn declaration" again means a document under Chapter 132, accepted wherever an affidavit is called for — the same accommodation, for the same reason.

"Claim" means a cause of action governed by this chapter, which sends the reader to the scope provision.