BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                    AB 1998


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          Date of Hearing:  May 4, 2016


                        ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS


                               Lorena Gonzalez, Chair


          AB  
          1998 (Campos) - As Amended April 5, 2016


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          Urgency:  No  State Mandated Local Program:  NoReimbursable:  No


          SUMMARY:


          This bill requires the Board of State and Community Corrections  
          (BSCC) to prepare guidelines for counties on how to disaggregate  
          juvenile justice caseload, performance and outcome data by race  
          and ethnicity.


          FISCAL EFFECT:









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          One-time cost in the $50,000 range for the BSCC to prepare the  
          guidelines.


          COMMENTS:


          1)Background:  In 2007, the Legislature passed and the governor  
            signed the Budget bill on Corrections, SB 81, which required  
            the State Commission on Juvenile Justice to develop a Juvenile  
            Justice Operational Master Plan and to make available, for  
            implementation by all of the counties of the state, a number  
            of strategies, including "Juvenile justice universal data  
            collection elements, which shall be common to all counties."  


            Each county in the state is required, as a condition of  
            receiving an allocation from the Youthful Offender Block Grant  
            fund, by October 1 of each year, to submit an annual report to  
            the Corrections Standards Authority on its utilization of the  
            block grant funds in the preceding fiscal year.


            BSCC prepares an annual "Youthful Offender Block Grant" report  
            to the Legislature.  The report includes data for  
            Hispanic/Latino youth in county detention.  In the 2015  
            report, BSCC did not provide comprehensive data about all  
            youth in detention, but analyzed a sample of youth and found  
            that approximately 54% of the sample study were Hispanic or  
            Latino.  The author asserts that inadequate data collection is  
            singularly harmful to Latino youth.  


          2)Purpose.  According to the author, Latino youth are  
            increasingly singled out by the criminal justice system.   
            However, with many Latinos being classified as white or  
            African-American, the extent of this problem is not well  
            known.  The flawed data collection system, does not  








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            consistently separate ethnicity from race.  

            The author states, "Gathering accurate race and ethnicity data  
            from youth involved in the juvenile justice system allows for  
            better understanding of trends, policy effects, and inequities  
            by legislators, the public, and state or federal agencies.  AB  
            1998 will enable policy-makers and social justice advocates to  
            take adequate actions to address the issue of Latino over  
            incarceration in California."



          3)Support.  According to NOXTIN:  Equal Justice for All, "The  
            failure to collect disaggregate data on Latinos inflates the  
            incarceration rate of non-Hispanic white youth, further  
            masking the inequity and disproportionality of all youth of  
            color in confinement. 



          4)Related Legislation. SB 1031 (Hancock), pending in Senate  
            Appropriations, requires BSCC, on or before July 1, 2019, to  
            establish a Juvenile Justice Information System to develop and  
            maintain statewide statistical information, as specified. The  
            bill, effective, January 1, 2020, will also remove the  
            requirement that the Department of Justice collect information  
            regarding the juvenile justice system. The bill appropriates  
            an unspecified sum from the General Fund to the BSCC for the  
            purpose of funding the development of a design structure and  
            implementation plan for the Juvenile Justice Information  
            System. 

          5)Prior Legislation:  

             a)   AB 1468 (Assembly Committee on Budget), Chapter 26,  
               Statutes of 2014, established the Juvenile Justice Data  
               Working Group (JJDWG) within BSCC and stated: "[t]he  
               purpose of the working group is to recommend options for  
               coordinating and modernizing the juvenile justice data  








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               systems and reports that are developed and maintained by  
               state and county agencies."


             b)   AB 1050 (Dickinson), Chapter 270, Statutes of 2013,  
               required BSCC, in consultation with certain individuals,  
               including a county supervisor or county administrative  
               officer, a county sheriff, and the Secretary of the  
               Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, to develop  
               definitions of specified key terms in order to facilitate  
               consistency in local data collection, evaluation, and  
               implementation of evidence-based programs.




          Analysis Prepared by:Pedro Reyes / APPR. / (916)  
          319-2081