BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 651 Page 1 Date of Hearing: August 14, 2013 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Mike Gatto, Chair SB 651 (Pavley and Leno) - As Amended: August 6, 2013 Policy Committee: HealthVote:19 - 0 Human Services 7 - 0 Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: SUMMARY This bill establishes requirements for sexual assault examinations of residents in state hospitals and developmental centers, and establishes a new penalty for failure of developmental centers to report specified incidents to local law enforcement. Specifically, this bill: 1)Makes it a class B violation for a developmental center to fail to report to local law enforcement: a) a death; b) a sexual assault; c) an assault with a deadly weapon by a nonresident; d) an assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury; e) an injury to the genitals when the cause of the injury is undetermined; or f) a broken bone, when the cause of the break is undetermined, if those potential assaults take place within a specific portion of the facility. 2)Provides that if the incident occurs in the general acute care hospital or acute psychiatric hospital portion of the developmental center, a failure to immediately report the incident would be subject to a civil penalty of $100 for each day the incident is not reported. 3)Requires designated investigators of state hospitals and developmental centers to request a sexual assault forensic medical examination for any resident of a state hospital who is reasonably suspected to be a victim of sexual assault. 4)Requires sexual assault forensic medical examinations to be performed by an independent sexual assault forensic examiner and prohibits them from being performed at the facility unless it is deemed safer for the victim and the state hospital's SB 651 Page 2 examination facilities are properly equipped. FISCAL EFFECT Costs associated with this legislation should be minor and absorbable within existing Department of Developmental Services (DDS) and Department of State Hospitals (DSH) resources. COMMENTS 1)Rationale . According to the author, this bill is designed to address the lack of forensic evidence collection for sexual assault victims and suspected sexual assault victims in state developmental centers and state hospitals. The author notes that an investigation requested by DDS and undertaken by Disability Rights California (DRC) in March 2012 identified 36 cases of alleged molestation of residents at California's developmental centers by caretakers during the last three years, but the Office of Protective Services (OPS), the developmental centers' on-site police force, did not complete even basic forensic evidence collections. The author states that OPS failed to order a single rape exam during this period. At other police departments, a rape examination by trained forensic examiners for suspected sexual assault victims is considered routine in order to collect evidence for prosecution. This bill would require that state hospitals and developmental centers provide a resident who is a victim or suspected victim of sexual assault with a medical evidentiary examination at an appropriate off-site facility. This bill also creates a penalty for developmental centers that fail to report serious incidents of abuse or criminal conduct to law enforcement. The author indicates that, since this bill was introduced, DDS has reported that they have upgraded their training of first responder staff and have sent three suspected rapes to outside hospitals for sexual assault exams. Two of the three have been confirmed sexual assaults. The author also indicates that, between July 2010 and June 2013, DSH reports that it has received 165 reports of sexual assaults by patients and staff. Of those, approximately 29 patients were sent out to local hospitals for rape exams. 2)Related Legislation . SB 1051 (Liu and Emmerson), Chapter 660, SB 651 Page 3 Statutes of 2012, established a requirement for DDS and DSH to report certain crimes involving death or major injury to the state's designated protection and advocacy agency, requires that mandated reporters within a developmental center immediately report suspected abuse to OPS, and defined the job requirements for the Director of OPS. SB 1522 (Leno), Chapter 666, Statutes of 2012, established the requirement that DDS report major crimes, as specified, to the local law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over the developmental center regardless of whether OPS had investigated the facts of the incident. Analysis Prepared by : Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916) 319-2081