BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 807
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Date of Hearing: May 1, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 807 (Ammiano) - As Amended: April 11, 2013
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote: 6-1
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) to include in
its annual report on criminal statistics specified information
relating to complaints received by law enforcement agencies and
criminal convictions of peace officers. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires the DOJ to collect and report the following
information for each individual law enforcement agency:
a) Citizen complaints.
b) Complaints made by the officer's supervisor or by
another law enforcement agency.
c) Complaints in which the identity of the complainant is
unknown.
2)Requires the DOJ to categorize each complaint described above
into a series of subcategories - excessive force, improper
arrest, improper entry, improper search, other criminal
violation, differential treatment, demeanor, or other rule
violation - and report the number of complaints within each
category for each agency.
3)Requires DOJ to report within each category of complaint
whether the complaint was determined to be sustained, not
sustained, or unfounded.
4)Requires DOJ to include in its annual report the number of
peace officer convictions by peace officers for conduct
occurring on- and off-duty.
FISCAL EFFECT
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1)Moderate one-time state costs of about $150,000 to the DOJ for
staffing to reconfigure the existing database to receive,
retain and report the required data. Ongoing costs would
likely be minor.
2)Presuming local law enforcement agencies agree to provide the
data to DOJ necessary to accomplish the requirements of this
bill, there would be moderate ongoing nonreimbursable costs to
local law enforcement agencies, likely in the low hundreds of
thousands of dollars, based on previous local mandates for
staffing to track, compile and report data to the DOJ.
Though this bill is not keyed a state mandate, it is not
likely to work uniformly unless local entities are required to
compile and report the data, which would make it a
reimbursable mandate.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The author contends there is a dearth of
information regarding peace officer misconduct, largely due to
the California Supreme Court's Copley Press decision, in which
the court interpreted the Peace Officers Bill of Rights
(POBOR) as prohibiting disclosure of personnel records.
According to the author, "As a result of the Copley Press
decision, all appeals of officer discipline now occur behind
closed doors and the public has no right of access to the
adjudicated facts, process or outcome. In fact, a commonly
held interpretation of Copley Press is that it prohibits and
removes the discretion of law enforcement agency employers and
civil service commission to disclose facts and outcomes
associated with serious confirmed cases of misconduct even if
the agency or commission believes it is in the highest public
interest to release the information."
2)Support . According to the California Newspaper Publishers
Association, "The public needs specific information about
serious instances of police misconduct and how police agencies
deal with it so that it is reassured that those entrusted with
tremendous authority are using their power fairly and that
misconduct is not sanctioned or sidestepped. Without access
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to detailed information, the public's respect for its police
agency and its officers is immeasurably damaged."
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081