BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
1017 (Portantino)
Hearing Date: 08/17/2009 Amended: 07/23/2009
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Public Safety
7-0
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 1017 requires that each local law enforcement
agency responsible for taking or processing rape kit evidence
shall annually report, by July 1 of each year, the following
information to the Department of Justice (DOJ):
1. The total number of rape kits received during the
preceding calendar year.
2. The total number of rape kits tested during the
preceding calendar year.
3. The total number of untested rape kits in its possession
as of January 1 of the reporting year.
4. The total number of rape kits destroyed during the
preceding calendar year.
This bill requires that the initial report to DOJ include
available statistics for the previous five years. This bill will
sunset on July 1, 2015.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 Fund
Mandate on local law Unknown, likely in excess of $50,000
General
enforcement agencies
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
This bill requires every local law enforcement agency to report
the information specified above to DOJ. Every city police
department and county sheriff's department would be required to
compile and report the information each year, which would create
additional workload which will vary by city and county. In
addition to great variation in the number of rape kits among
cities and counties, local law enforcement agencies organize
store, log, and track rape kits differently. For cities and
counties which have their evidence logs computerized, this bill
requires a much smaller task than for those that do not.
For the first report, cities and counties would be responsible
for disaggregating and reporting this data for the previous five
years. Any local law enforcement agency that requires just one
staff person to spend just 5 days collecting and compiling the
specified information on rape kits for the previous 5 years
would likely reach the threshold of $1,000 for filing a mandate
claim. It is likely that ongoing reports would be much less
time-consuming and costly because agencies would know before the
year begins that they will be responsible for tracking the
information, and could do so throughout the year as rape kits
are received. Recently, the city of Los Angeles utilized 50
staff for 10 days to count and log certain information about
each of the existing backlog of nearly 10,000 rape kits. The
scope of this bill would be smaller, because it does not mandate
reporting information about all rape kits, but it could require
local agencies to examine each to determine if it must be
included in the report to DOJ.