BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2524
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB
2524 (Irwin)
As Amended August 16, 2016
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |78-0 |(June 2, 2016) |SENATE: |39-0 |(August 24, |
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Original Committee Reference: PUB. S.
SUMMARY: Requires the Department of Justice (DOJ) make
available to the public its mandatory criminal justice
statistics reports through the OpenJustice Web Portal, to be
updated at least yearly, and makes conforming changes to
existing provisions related to criminal statistics.
The Senate amendments:
1)Delete the intent of the Legislature that on or before January
1, 2022, DOJ's statistical systems shall be electronic, and
instead provide that it is the intent of the Legislature that
following full implementation of incident-based crime
reporting, DOJ work to transition to exclusively electronic
crime data collection and evaluate the potential for criminal
justice statistical data to be updated on the OpenJustice Web
portal at a frequency greater than once per year.
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2)Require the criminal justice statistics reports available on
the OpenJustice Web Portal to be updated at least once per
year, instead of quarterly.
3)Delete specified deadlines in the bill and instead provide
that DOJ shall evaluate, on an annual basis, the progress of
California's transition from summary crime reporting to
incident-based crime reporting, in alignment with the federal
National Incident-Based Reporting System, and report its
findings to the Legislature annually through 2019.
4)Make other conforming changes.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires DOJ to annually interpret and present crime
statistics, required to be reported by law enforcement and
other agencies and information, to the Governor.
2)Requires DOJ to interpret and present statistics and
information to the Legislature and to those in charge or
concerned with of the apprehension, prosecution, and treatment
of the criminals and delinquents.
3)Allows the Attorney General to issue special reports on crime
statistics.
4)Requires the Racial and Identity Profiling Board (RIPA) to
annually analyze and report to the Attorney General statistics
collected from law enforcement agencies regarding citizen
complaints.
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5)Requires the Attorney General to make available a sufficient
number of copies of both the required annual report on crime
statistics and any special reports.
6)Requires DOJ to prepare and distribute to any person or agency
required to submit crime statistics the cards, forms, or
electronic means used in reporting data to the department.
The cards, forms, or electronic means may, in addition to
other items, include items of information needed by federal
bureaus or departments engaged in the development of national
and uniform criminal statistics.
7)Requires DOJ to periodically review the requirements of units
of government using criminal justice statistics, and to make
recommendations for changes it deems necessary in the design
of criminal justice statistics systems, including new
techniques of collection and processing made possible by
automation.
8)Requires DOJ, beginning January 1, 2017, to issue an annual
summary of incidents reported by law enforcement including:
a) The shooting of a civilian by a peace officer;
b) The shooting of a peace officer by a civilian;
c) The use of force by a peace officer against a civilian
that results in serious bodily injury or death; and
d) The use of force by a civilian against a peace officer
that results in serious bodily injury or death;
9)Requires DOJ's annual summary of shootings of and by peace
officers, and of use of force by or against peace officers, to
include the number and demographics of those involved, if the
civilian was armed, the type of force used, and a description
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of the incident, as provided.
10)Requires DOJ to collect data pertaining to the juvenile
justice system for criminal history and statistical purposes,
including all of the following:
a) The amount and the types of offenses known to the public
authorities;
b) The personal and social characteristics of criminals and
delinquents;
c) The administrative actions taken by law enforcement,
judicial, penal, and correctional agencies or institutions,
including those in the juvenile justice system, in dealing
with criminals or delinquents;
d) The administrative actions taken by law enforcement,
prosecutorial, judicial, penal, and correctional agencies
including those in the juvenile justice system, in dealing
with minors who are the subject of a petition or hearing in
the juvenile court to transfer their case to the
jurisdiction of an adult criminal court or whose cases are
directly filed or otherwise initiated in an adult criminal
court; and
e) The total number of each of the following, disaggregated
by individual law enforcement agency, including whether the
disposition of the complaints was sustained, not sustained,
exonerated or unfounded, as defined:
i) Citizen complaints received by law enforcement
agencies;
ii) Citizen complaints alleging criminal conduct of
either a felony or misdemeanor; and
iii) Citizen complaints alleging racial or identity
profiling, as defined. These statistics shall be
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disaggregated by the specific type of racial or identity
profiling alleged, such as based on a consideration of
race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender
identity or expression, sexual orientation, or mental or
physical disability.
11)Requires the annual report published by DOJ to include
information concerning arrests for identity theft.
12)Requires DOJ to maintain a data set, updated annually, that
contains the number of crimes reported, number of clearances
and clearance rates in California as reported by individual
law enforcement agencies for required-to-be-reported crimes.
The data set shall be made available through a prominently
displayed hypertext link on the Department's Internet Web site
or through the Department's OpenJustice data portal.
13)Requires DOJ to perform the following duties concerning the
investigation and prosecution of homicide cases:
a) Collect information on all persons who are the victims
of, and all persons who are charged with, homicide;
b) Adopt and distribute as a written form or by electronic
means to all state and governmental entities that are
responsible for the investigation and prosecution of
homicide cases forms that will include information to be
provided to the department; and
c) Compile, collate, index, and maintain an electronic file
of the information regarding victims of and those charged
with homicide into a report available to the public.
14)Requires local law enforcement agencies to report to DOJ, in
a manner prescribed by the Attorney General, any information
that may be required relative to hate crimes so that the
Department can report, on or before July 1 of each year, the
Department's analysis to the Legislature.
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AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY, this bill:
1)Eliminated 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 shall be annually prepared so that the Attorney
General may send a copy to the Governor and other entities.
2)Specified 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.
3)Required DOJ to add prosecutorial administrative actions to
its criminal justice statistics collection and summaries
4)Stated 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.
5)Required 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.
6)Provided 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.
7)Stated 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.
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8)Required, commencing January 1, 2021, local and state crime
reporting agencies to submit crime data to DOJ only through
electronic means.
9)Stated 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.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee:
1)OpenJustice web portal: Potential minor to significant costs
(General Fund) to the DOJ for programming and staffing for
annual reporting through its OpenJustice web portal.
2)Law enforcement agency data reporting: Potentially major
one-time and ongoing future cost pressure (Local Funds/General
Fund/Federal Funds) to state and 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. To the extent federal funds (Federal Funds) are
provided as an incentive to agencies to transition to
electronic incident-based reporting, a portion of future costs
could be defrayed.
COMMENTS: According to the author, "AB 2524 will modernize
California's collection and publication of criminal justice
data. The OpenJustice Data Act builds upon Attorney General
Kamala Harris' open data initiative to improve and empower the
public's access to local and statewide crime statistics.
"AB 2524 will reinvent Crime in California and other annual
reports published by the California DOJ as digital data sets
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within the Attorney General's OpenJustice Web portal. These
reports provide statistical summaries including numbers of
arrests, complaints against peace officers, hate crime offenses,
and law enforcement officers killed or assaulted; however, the
static nature of these print publications means that data often
lacks context. The OpenJustice Web portal will alchemize this
information with interactive, accessible visualization tools,
while making raw data available for public interest researchers.
"Additionally, AB 2524 will bring the state's data collection
into the 21st century by requiring local law enforcement
agencies to submit all currently required statistical reports
digitally. Despite the fact that electronic reporting provides
for more accurate and efficient data submission, as many as 60%
of local agencies still submit required data to the California
DOJ on paper. The OpenJustice Data Act will direct all agencies
to transition into digital reporting, which will allow for more
frequent updates to statistics contained within the Web portal.
"DOJ first launched the OpenJustice initiative in 2015 as a
mechanism for improving community trust in law enforcement,
enhancing government accountability, and informing public
policy. In early 2016 the Attorney General announced the
release of OpenJustice 1.1, which enriched the Web portal's
initial data sets with city, county, and state level context
including population and demographic information, unemployment
rates, poverty rates, and educational attainment levels. In
addition to providing greater transparency, this information
enables policymakers to craft informed, data-driven public
policy."
Please see the policy committee analysis for a full discussion
of this bill.
Analysis Prepared by:
Stella Choe / PUB. S. / (916) 319-3744 FN:
0004430
AB 2524
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