BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1960
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 1960 (Perea)
As Amended April 21, 2014
Majority vote
PUBLIC SAFETY 7-0 APPROPRIATIONS 17-0
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|Ayes:|Ammiano, Melendez, |Ayes:|Gatto, Bigelow, |
| |Jones-Sawyer, Quirk, | |Bocanegra, Bradford, Ian |
| |Skinner, Stone, Waldron | |Calderon, Campos, |
| | | |Donnelly, Eggman, Gomez, |
| | | |Holden, Jones, Linder, |
| | | |Pan, Quirk, |
| | | |Ridley-Thomas, Wagner, |
| | | |Weber |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Requires, notwithstanding any other law, a state
hospital director or clinician, as specified, to obtain the
state summary criminal history information, and provides a means
to access this information, whenever a patient is committed to
the State Department of State Hospitals (DSH) to be used as
specified. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires, notwithstanding any other law, whenever a patient is
committed to DSH, a director of a state hospital or a
clinician, as defined, to obtain the state summary criminal
history information for the patient to be used to assess the
violence risk of a patient, to assess the appropriate
placement of a patient, for treatment purposes of a patient,
for use in preparing periodic reports as required by statute,
or to determine the patient's progress or fitness for release.
Prohibits the use of this information for any purpose other
than those described here.
2)States that the information may be obtained through use of the
California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS)
and requires law enforcement personnel to cooperate with
requests for state summary criminal history information
authorized pursuant to this bill and to provide the
information to the requesting entity in a timely manner.
3)Punishes as a misdemeanor a law enforcement officer or person
AB 1960
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authorized by this bill to receive state summary criminal
history information who obtains the information in the record
and knowingly provides the information to a person not
authorized by law to receive the information.
4)States that for purposes of this bill, DSH law enforcement
personnel, as specified, may act as the law enforcement
personnel as described elsewhere in this bill.
5)Defines, for purposes of this bill, "clinician" to mean a
state licensed mental health professional working within DSH,
who has received and is current in CLETS training, as
appropriate, following the policies on training, compliance,
and inspection required by the Department of Justice.
6)Requires the summary criminal history information to be placed
in the patient's confidential file for the duration of his or
her commitment. Requires this information to remain
confidential and access limited to the director of the state
hospital or the clinician and removed from the patient's file
and destroyed within 30 days of discharge from the state
hospital.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee:
1)Negligible cost to DSH, as a CLETS terminal used by DSH police
is proximate.
2)Minor absorbable costs for clinician CLETS training.
COMMENTS : According to the author, "Currently, even though more
than 96 % of State Hospital new admissions are committed via the
criminal justice system, State Hospital clinicians do not have
comprehensive access to up-to-date criminal history information
for all of these patients. Assembly Bill 1960 will provide
State Hospital clinicians with the information necessary to
perform accurate violence risk assessments, create patient [sic]
better treatment plans, and provide reports to the court on the
patient's progress or fitness for release. This bill will help
decrease the level of violence in our state hospitals as well as
create better treatment outcomes for patients."
Please see the policy committee analysis for a full discussion
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of this bill.
Analysis Prepared by : Shaun Naidu / PUB. S. / (916) 319-3744
FN: 0003387