BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 2524 (Irwin) - OpenJustice Data Act of 2016
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|Version: May 31, 2016 |Policy Vote: PUB. S. 7 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
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|Hearing Date: August 1, 2016 |Consultant: Jolie Onodera |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: AB 2524 would require the Department of Justice (DOJ)
to make available to the public its mandatory criminal justice
statistics reports through the OpenJustice web portal, to be
updated quarterly. This bill would require the DOJ to, on or
before January 1, 2021, transition all of California's crime
data from summary crime reporting to incident-based crime
reporting, through electronic means, as specified. This bill
would additionally require state and local crime reporting
agencies, commencing January 1, 2021, to submit crime data to
the DOJ only through electronic means.
Fiscal
Impact:
OpenJustice web portal : Potentially significant one-time and
near-term costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars
(General Fund) to the DOJ for programming and staffing to
transition to quarterly reporting. Potential future
administrative cost savings as a portion of the workload
formerly required to collect, summarize, and report statewide
data will instead shift from the DOJ to state and local crime
AB 2524 (Irwin) Page 1 of
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reporting agencies. However, if the transition to
incident-based crime reporting by local agencies is
permissive, which is unclear, the DOJ would incur significant
ongoing costs for data entry and processing to comply with the
bill's mandate to transition all of California's crime data to
incident-based crime reporting. Further, it is unclear whether
the mandate to transition all crime data has a retroactive
effect, requiring a transition of all summary crime reporting
data collected to date to be transitioned to incident-based
crime reporting, which would incur substantial workload.
Data analytics tools : Unknown; potentially significant
one-time and ongoing future costs (General Fund) to meet the
mandate for DOJ to "use the latest advances in data science"
to interpret statistical data. This provision could
potentially require continual upgrades to software/hardware as
well as necessitate staff training, without any assurances
that the "latest advances" are necessarily proven, necessary,
or cost-effective.
Local agency data reporting : Potentially major one-time and
ongoing costs to local law enforcement agencies potentially in
excess of millions of dollars statewide to report data solely
through electronic means and to transition data from summary
to incident-based crime reporting. Additional costs for
computer systems, training, and data management on the process
could be required for some agencies. There are 482 cities and
58 counties in California. To the extent local agency
expenditures qualify as a reimbursable state mandate, agencies
could claim reimbursement of those costs (General Fund). While
costs could vary widely, for context, the Commission on State
Mandates' statewide cost estimate for Crime Statistics Reports
for the DOJ reflects eligible reimbursement of over $13.6
million per year for slightly over 50 percent of local
agencies reporting. This mandate has been suspended in the
annual Budget Act, however, by creating a blanket mandate to
report all crime data electronically, this bill not only adds
to existing mandates that have been suspended, but also adds
to newly enacted mandates that have yet to be subject to claim
reimbursement. It is also unclear whether the transition to
incident-based crime reporting by agencies is mandated or
permissive. To the extent federal funds (Federal Funds) are
provided as an incentive to local agencies, a portion of the
costs could be defrayed. Staff notes, however, that
participation in NIBRS is voluntary by crime reporting
agencies.
AB 2524 (Irwin) Page 2 of
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California Highway Patrol (CHP) : One-time costs of $1.5
million (Special Fund*) to support additional limited-term
staffing to transition to the new electronic data reporting
process.
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) : One-time
and ongoing costs of $100,000 (General Fund) to transition to
and maintain the fully electronic system of reporting for all
35 institutions.
*Motor Vehicle Account
Background: Existing law requires the DOJ to collect certain criminal
justice data from specified persons and agencies, and to present
an annual report to the Governor (Penal Code § 13010.)
Under recently enacted legislation (AB 71(Rodriguez) Chapter
462/2015), each state and local agency that employs peace
officers is required to annually report to the Attorney General,
commencing January 1, 2017, on specified instances when a peace
officer employed by that agency is involved in a shooting of a
civilian or peace officer, or use of force incident.
Additionally, AB 953 (Weber) Chapter 466/2015, the Racial and
Identity Profiling Act of 2015, requires law enforcement
agencies to report, under a phased-in schedule based on the size
of the agency, to DOJ data on all stops, as defined, conducted
by the agency's peace officers, and require that data to include
specified information, including the time, date, and location of
the stop, and the reason for the stop.
The legislative findings and declarations of this measure, in
part, state as follows:
In 2015, the Attorney General announced the launch of
OpenJustice, a criminal justice Web portal that features
both an interactive dashboard that provides data
visualization with accompanying analysis and an open
data portal that publishes raw data. Reinventing the
department's crime reports as an Internet Web site
within the OpenJustice Web portal will enable the public
to receive dynamic, customized information that will
significantly strengthen trust, enhance government
AB 2524 (Irwin) Page 3 of
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accountability, and support real-time public policy
decision making.
Despite the many advantages of electronic data
collection, only approximately 40 percent of local law
enforcement agencies currently submit required data sets
through electronic means, impeding the ability of the
state to implement a uniform reporting structure through
which information is made available to the public more
frequently and more effectively. There are significant
public benefits in modernizing how public agencies
engage with data and in encouraging the adoption of
contemporary electronic technologies to reduce the
inefficiencies and environmental impacts of paper
recordkeeping.
Proposed Law:
This bill would enact the OpenJustice Data Act of 2016, and
would require the DOJ to make available to the public its
mandatory criminal justice statistics through the OpenJustice
web portal, to be updated at least quarterly. This bill:
Eliminates DOJ's requirement to annually present a
report on criminal justice statistics to the Governor and
the Legislature, but requires that a downloadable summary
of this information to be annually prepared so that the
Attorney General may send a copy to the Governor and other
public officials.
Specifies that the provisions of this bill shall not be
construed to require more frequent reporting by local
agencies than what is required by any other law.
Requires DOJ to add prosecutorial administrative actions
to its criminal justice statistics collection and
summaries.
States that, on or before January 1, 2021, it shall be
the duty of DOJ to transition all of California's crime
data from summary crime reporting to incident-based crime
reporting, through electronic means, in alignment with the
federal National Incident-Based Reporting System.
AB 2524 (Irwin) Page 4 of
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Requires DOJ to evaluate, on an annual basis, the
probability of meeting the January 1, 2021, implementation
deadline and report its findings to the Legislature
annually through 2019.
Provides that local and state agencies that are unable
to meet this implementation deadline and that have
committed to transitioning to incident-based crime
reporting shall collaborate with DOJ to develop a
transition plan with a timeline for the transition.
States that, commencing January 1, 2021, it shall be the
duty of DOJ to accept the collection of crime data from
local and state crime reporting agencies only through
electronic means.
Requires, commencing January 1, 2021, local and state
crime reporting agencies to submit crime data to DOJ only
through electronic means.
States that, on or before January 1, 2022, it shall be
the duty of DOJ to ensure that the statistical systems of
DOJ are electronic, allowing for criminal justice
statistical data to be updated more frequently than
annually on the OpenJustice web portal.
Requires statistical data collected pertaining to the
juvenile justice system to be made available to the public
through the OpenJustice web portal.
States that it is the duty of the DOJ to "use the latest
advances in data science" to give adequate interpretation
of the statistics and so to present the information that it
may be of value in guiding the policies of the Legislature
and others.
AB 2524 (Irwin) Page 5 of
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Increases the frequency of reporting of hate crimes from
annually in report format to the Legislature to quarterly
through the OpenJustice web portal, including a
downloadable summary provided annually to the Legislature.
Related
Legislation: AB 71 (Rodriguez) Chapter 462/2015 requires each
law enforcement agency to annually furnish to the DOJ, in a
manner defined and prescribed by the Attorney General, a report
of specified instances when a peace officer employed by that
agency is involved in a shooting of a civilian by a peace
officer or a shooting of a peace officer by a civilian, or a use
of force incident.
AB 953 (Weber) Chapter 466/2015, the Racial and Identity
Profiling Act of 2015, requires each law enforcement agency to
annually furnish to the DOJ, data on all stops, as defined,
conducted by the agency's peace officers, and require that data
to include specified information, including the time, date, and
location of the stop, and the reason for the stop. AB 953
additionally establishes the Racial and Identity Profiling Act
Advisory Board, to eliminate racial and identity profiling and
improve diversity and racial and identity sensitivity in law
enforcement.
Staff
Comments: The DOJ could potentially incur one-time and
near-term significant costs for programming and staffing to
transition from annual to quarterly reporting. To the extent the
submission of crime data electronically by state and local
agencies serves to alleviate in part the workload currently
imposed on the DOJ for data submitted by paper forms/cards,
future administrative cost savings could result.
This bill requires each state and local crime reporting agency
to submit its crime data to the DOJ only through electronic
means commencing January 1, 2021. To the extent this requirement
is determined to create a higher level of service on local
agencies, local agencies could claim reimbursement from the
state for the increased costs. There are currently 482 cities
AB 2524 (Irwin) Page 6 of
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and 58 counties in the State. While statewide costs cannot be
estimated with certainty, given the large number of local
agencies and the numerous types of data required to be reported
and retained electronically, these activities could result in
major one-time and ongoing costs, potentially in the millions of
dollars annually.
The costs to individual agencies would vary widely and depend on
various factors, including but not limited to the size of the
agency, the volume of data to be reported electronically by the
agency, the current method of reporting the data (whether
currently electronic or paper), the workload involved to
transition to electronic reporting of the data, the extent of
training conducted by each agency, and the electronic storage
requirements for each agency. For example, while the workload
involved for an agency that already has an electronic data
collection and reporting process in place may only require
revisions to its existing process and minor training to its
officers on the changes, the workload required for an agency
that submits data via paper forms would not only potentially
incur the costs of development of a new electronic system to
collect and report the information, the costs of which would be
dependent on how the agency decides to collect the data (whether
manually or electronically), but would also incur substantial
costs to test the system and train its officers. Whether through
manual or electronic collection, agencies at a minimum would
likely require the development of a central database and other
system enhancements to aggregate the data, report to the DOJ,
and retain the information.
Additionally, this bill states it is the duty of the DOJ to
transition all of California's crime data from summary crime
reporting to incident-based crime reporting through electronic
means on or before January 1, 2021, and provides that agencies
that are unable to meet this timeline and have committed to
transition to incident-based crime reporting shall collaborate
with the DOJ to develop a transition plan. It is unclear whether
the transition to incident-based crime reporting is required or
permissive on the part of state and local crime reporting
agencies, although the mandate to fully transition to
incident-based crime reporting on the part of the DOJ is clear.
To the extent state and local agencies are required to
transition to incident-based crime reporting, the additional
workload to local agencies would potentially be subject to
AB 2524 (Irwin) Page 7 of
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reimbursement by the state. Alternatively, if permissive to
local agencies, the additional workload would be
non-reimbursable for those local agencies that elect to
transition to incident-based crime reporting, or the workload
would fall to the DOJ for state and local agencies that elect
not to transition to incident-based crime reporting.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) fact
sheet on the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS),
which is voluntary, incident-based versus summary uniform crime
reporting (UCR) differs in that incident-based reporting has
much more detailed, accurate, and meaningful information in the
system than the traditional summary reporting system. For
example, the summary system does not differentiate between
attempted and completed offenses, whereas the incident-based
system does. Additionally, in the case of multiple offenses
committed, under the summary reporting system only the most
serious offense is reported, whereas all of the offenses are
reported within the same incident under the incident-based
reporting system. Based on 2013 data submissions, the FBI had
certified 33 states to report data via NIBRS.
Although participation in an incident-based crime reporting
system should not place a significant new burden on officers
preparing incident and arrest reports, because the data to be
extracted from the reports are more detailed than under the
summary reporting system, significant increased data entry and
data processing burdens are involved. As noted in the FBI
information on NIBRS, "Therefore, agencies wishing to
participate should have sufficient data processing and other
resources to fulfill all of the reporting requirements ?"
Recommended Amendments: To the extent the mandate to transition
all of California's crime data from summary crime reporting to
incident-based crime reporting is intended to impact crime data
reported on a prospective basis only, the author may wish to
consider an amendment to clarify this intent.
To reduce costs, the author may wish to consider amendments to
remove the mandate on the DOJ to "use the latest advances in
data science" to interpret statistical data," as well as clarify
that the transition to incident-based crime reporting on the
part of state and local crime reporting agencies is voluntary.
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