BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 498 Hearing Date: April 21, 2015
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|Author: |Hancock |
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|Version: |April 13, 2015 Amended |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|LT |
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Subject: Criminal statistics: juveniles.
HISTORY
Source: Human Rights Watch
Prior Legislation:SB 1198 (Hancock, 2014) - Held in Senate
Appropriations
SB 314 (Alpert) - Ch. 468, Stats.2001
Support: California Alliance for Youth and Community Justice;
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice; W. Haywood
Burns Institute; The National Employment Law Project;
The National Compadres Network; Policy Link; Alliance
for Boys and Men of Color; The National Center for
Youth Law; Motivating Individual Leadership for Public
Advancement; Children's Defense Fund California; Youth
Law Center; California Public Defenders Association
Opposition:Chief Probation Officers of California
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to expand the kind of juvenile data
now collected and reported on by the Department of Justice
(DOJ), including 1) data broken down by county of commitment; 2)
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data describing how minors who are remanded to adult court get
there (by a decision of the court, the district attorney, or as
a matter of law) and outcomes from each of these remand
mechanisms; 3) data indicating how many inmates are in prison
for crimes committed when they were under the age of 21, broken
down by offense, age, gender, ethnicity and county of
commitment; and 4) an Internet web-based database operated by
DOJ containing more detailed information about juvenile
offenders, in a format that would allow users to query the
system and download requested subsets of information, as
specified.
The California Constitution provides that, subject "to the
powers and duties of the Governor, the Attorney General shall be
the chief law officer of the State. It shall be the duty of the
Attorney General to see that the laws of the State are uniformly
and adequately enforced. The Attorney General shall have direct
supervision over every district attorney and sheriff and over
such other law enforcement officers as may be designated by law,
in all matters pertaining to the duties of their respective
offices, and may require any of said officers to make reports
concerning the investigation, detection, prosecution, and
punishment of crime in their respective jurisdictions as to the
Attorney General may seem advisable. Whenever in the opinion of
the Attorney General any law of the State is not being
adequately enforced in any county, it shall be the duty of the
Attorney General to prosecute any violations of law of which the
superior court shall have jurisdiction, and in such cases the
Attorney General shall have all the powers of a district
attorney. When required by the public interest or directed by
the Governor, the Attorney General shall assist any district
attorney in the discharge of the duties of that office." (Cal.
Const. Art. V § 13.)
Existing law provides that the Attorney General is the head of
the Department of Justice ("DOJ"). (Government Code § 12510.)
Existing law requires DOJ to "present to the Governor, on or
before July 1st, an annual report containing the criminal
statistics of the preceding calendar year and to present at
other times as the Attorney General may approve reports on
special aspects of criminal statistics. A sufficient number of
copies of all reports shall be prepared to enable the Attorney
General to send a copy to all public officials in the state
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dealing with criminals and to distribute them generally in
channels where they will add to the public enlightenment."
(Penal Code § 13010(g).)
Existing law requires this report to contain statistics showing
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.
(e) The number of citizens' complaints received by law
enforcement agencies under Section 832.5. These
statistics shall indicate the total number of these
complaints, the number alleging criminal conduct of
either a felony or misdemeanor, and the number
sustained in each category. The report shall not
contain a reference to any individual agency but shall
be by gross numbers only.
It shall be the duty of the department 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 of those
in charge of the apprehension, prosecution, and
treatment of the criminals and delinquents, or
concerned with the prevention of crime and
delinquency. The report shall also include statistics
which are comparable with national uniform criminal
statistics published by federal bureaus or departments
heretofore mentioned. (Penal Code § 13012 (emphasis
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added).)
Existing law requires DOJ to "collect data pertaining to the
juvenile justice system for criminal history and statistical
purposes. This information shall serve to assist the department
in complying with the reporting requirement of subdivisions (c)
and (d) of Section 13012, measuring the extent of juvenile
delinquency, determining the need for and effectiveness of
relevant legislation, and identifying long-term trends in
juvenile delinquency. Any data collected pursuant to this
section may include criminal history information which may be
used by the department to comply with the requirements of
Section 602.5 of the Welfare and Institutions Code." (Penal
Code § 13010.5.)
Existing law requires the following information be included in
the annual report described above concerning juvenile justice:
(1) The annual number of fitness hearings held in the
juvenile courts under Section 707 of the Welfare and
Institutions Code, and the outcomes of those hearings
including orders to remand to adult criminal court,
cross-referenced with information about the age,
gender, ethnicity, and offense of the minors whose
cases are the subject of those fitness hearings.
(2) The annual number of minors whose cases are filed
directly in adult criminal court under Sections 602.5
and 707 of the Welfare and Institutions Code,
cross-referenced with information about the age,
gender, ethnicity, and offense of the minors whose
cases are filed directly to the adult criminal court.
(3) The outcomes of cases involving minors who are
prosecuted in adult criminal courts, regardless of how
adult court jurisdiction was initiated, including
whether the minor was acquitted or convicted, or
whether the case was dismissed and returned to
juvenile court, including sentencing outcomes,
cross-referenced with the age, gender, ethnicity, and
offense of the minors subject to these court actions.
(b) The department's annual report published under
Section 13010 shall include the information described
in subdivision (d) of Section 13012, as further
delineated by this section, beginning with the report
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due on July 1, 2003, for the preceding calendar year.
(Penal Code § 13012.5.)
This bill would recast Penal Code Section 13012.5 to do all
of the following:
Include "county level" information;
Include commitment county in the adult court data
described in (1) above;
With respect to adult court filings described in
(2) above, provide that data be classified according
to the manner in which adult court jurisdiction was
initiated, and include county of referral;
With respect to outcomes from adult court filings
described in (3) above, provide that the data be
classified according to the manner in which adult
court jurisdiction was initiated, and include length
of time in custody prior to disposition, sentencing
outcomes and county of referral; and
Add to the required data, the total number of
people who were under 21 years of age at the time of
their offenses who are currently committed to the
California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation cross-referenced with the age, gender,
ethnicity, county of referral, and most serious
offense at the time of referral.
This bill would require DOJ to post on its Internet Web site all
of the juvenile information described above "in a format that
allows a user to query and download the information for the most
recent reporting year and for prior years or reporting cycles
for which the information is available."
This bill would require DOJ to use for its Internet Web site
"data submitted by the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, for each year, the number of people who were
under 21 years of age at the time of the offense and who were
committed to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
cross-referenced with the most serious offense resulting in
conviction and the sentence, including any gang, weapon, or
other sentencing enhancements that were attached,
cross-referenced with the person's age at the time of the
offense, age at admission to the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, current age, gender, race or ethnic subgroup,
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and county of commitment."
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the past eight years, this Committee has scrutinized
legislation referred to its jurisdiction for any potential
impact on prison overcrowding. Mindful of the United States
Supreme Court ruling and federal court orders relating to the
state's ability to provide a constitutional level of health care
to its inmate population and the related issue of prison
overcrowding, this Committee has applied its "ROCA" policy as a
content-neutral, provisional measure necessary to ensure that
the Legislature does not erode progress in reducing prison
overcrowding.
On February 10, 2014, the federal court ordered California to
reduce its in-state adult institution population to 137.5% of
design capacity by February 28, 2016, as follows:
143% of design bed capacity by June 30, 2014;
141.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2015; and,
137.5% of design bed capacity by February 28, 2016.
In February of this year the administration reported that as "of
February 11, 2015, 112,993 inmates were housed in the State's 34
adult institutions, which amounts to 136.6% of design bed
capacity, and 8,828 inmates were housed in out-of-state
facilities. This current population is now below the
court-ordered reduction to 137.5% of design bed capacity."(
Defendants' February 2015 Status Report In Response To February
10, 2014 Order, 2:90-cv-00520 KJM DAD PC, 3-Judge Court, Coleman
v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (fn. omitted).
While significant gains have been made in reducing the prison
population, the state now must stabilize these advances and
demonstrate to the federal court that California has in place
the "durable solution" to prison overcrowding "consistently
demanded" by the court. (Opinion Re: Order Granting in Part and
Denying in Part Defendants' Request For Extension of December
31, 2013 Deadline, NO. 2:90-cv-0520 LKK DAD (PC), 3-Judge Court,
Coleman v. Brown, Plata v. Brown (2-10-14). The Committee's
consideration of bills that may impact the prison population
therefore will be informed by the following questions:
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Whether a proposal erodes a measure which has contributed
to reducing the prison population;
Whether a proposal addresses a major area of public safety
or criminal activity for which there is no other
reasonable, appropriate remedy;
Whether a proposal addresses a crime which is directly
dangerous to the physical safety of others for which there
is no other reasonably appropriate sanction;
Whether a proposal corrects a constitutional problem or
legislative drafting error; and
Whether a proposal proposes penalties which are
proportionate, and cannot be achieved through any other
reasonably appropriate remedy.
COMMENTS
1. Stated Need for this Bill
The author states:
Existing law requires the California Department of
Justice (DOJ) to present a report to the Governor
annually that contains the statewide criminal
statistics of the preceding year, including specified
information about the minors who were charged and
convicted as adults in criminal court.
Current statistical requirements were developed
shortly after Proposition 21 took effect in 2000,
which vastly expanded the circumstances under which
juveniles in California may be handled in the adult
criminal system. In 2001, the Penal Code was amended
to add Section 13012.5 which lists specific data
elements that the DOJ must annually collect and report
on juveniles tried as adults.
As a result of Proposition 21, prosecutors gained the
authority to file juvenile cases directly in adult
criminal court without a fitness hearing in the
juvenile court. Moreover, filing in adult court
became automatic for homicide and other listed serious
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crimes. Throughout the state, the number of juveniles
who are handled in the adult system has grown
significantly since 2001. However, the data
requirements adopted in 2001 fall short of what is
needed to provide a full and accurate picture of
transfers, direct files and important sentencing
consequences. For example, data that is currently
collected does not disaggregate adult court outcomes
by the mechanism of transfer to the adult court. Only
statewide rather than county-level data are reported,
and important sentencing details for these cases are
lacking. Policymakers, researchers and the public
need to know more about the social, economic,
corrections and public safety consequences surrounding
these critical cases. Better access to individual
data is needed to assess sentencing practices related
to the adoption of SB 260 (Hancock, 2013) and to
California Supreme Court sentencing decisions such as
People v. Caballero 55 Cal.4th 262 (2012).
SB 1198 will require the DOJ to expand the collection
and reporting statistics on minors whose cases are
handled in adult criminal court. This bill seeks to
provide policymakers and the public with a better
understanding of the criminal justice system as well
as the background of minors being charged as adults.
It will also require that the DOJ continue to post
information required in the annual report on their
website but to do so in a format that allows users to
query and download the material.
2. What This Bill Would Do
As explained in detail above, this bill would expand the kind of
juvenile data now collected and reported on by DOJ. The key new
features this bill would provide include:
Data broken down by county of referral;
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How minors who are remanded to adult court get there -
by a decision of the court, the district attorney, or as a
matter of law - and outcomes from each of these remand
mechanisms; and
How many inmates are in prison for crimes committed when
they were under the age of 21, broken down by offense, age,
gender, ethnicity, county of referral, and most serious
offense at the time of referral.
In addition, this bill would require DOJ to post certain
information concerning juvenile crime and offenders on its
website, including in a format that allows users to query the
system and download requested subsets of information, as
specified.
3. Background: Juvenile Justice Data in California
Currently, the state's key source of annual data concerning
juvenile offenders is prepared by DOJ, Junvenile Justice in
California. The most recently-available report is from 2012.<1>
As explained in that report:
Juvenile Justice in California 2012 provides insight
into the juvenile justice process by reporting the
number of arrests, referrals to probation departments,
petitions filed, and dispositions for juveniles tried
in juvenile and adult courts. Law enforcement agencies
provide information on the number of arrests, and
probation departments and superior courts provide
information on the types of offenses and
administrative actions taken by juvenile and adult
courts.
The California Department of Justice (DOJ) is required
to collect and report statistics on juvenile justice
in California. Juvenile Justice in California 2012
reflects data extracted from the Monthly Arrest and
Citation Register, Offender-Based Transaction
Statistics file, and the Juvenile Court and Probation
Statistical System. (Appendix 1 describes the
evolution of this system.) Referral and petition
statistics were submitted to the Juvenile Court and
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<1> The annual report is due on or before July 1st.
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Probation Statistical System by 56 of California's 58
counties, representing over 99 percent of the state's
juvenile population. Del Norte and Sierra Counties are
not included in the referral and petition sections of
this report.
Juvenile Justice in California 2012 presents juvenile
justice statistics in four sections: Arrests,
Referrals, Petitions, and Adult Court Dispositions.
The arrest data were reported by law enforcement
agencies and law enforcement referral data were
reported by probation departments. Comparisons between
arrest data and referral data should not be made
because of differences in the way data were reported
between the two sources?<2>
The 2012 report contains the following information about
juvenile offenders remanded to adult court that year:
Of the 532 adult-level court dispositions received:
93.2 percent (496) were males.
6.8 percent (36) were females.
1.9 percent (10) were 14 years of age.
10.3 percent (55) were 15 years of age.
27.8 percent (148) were 16 years of age.
60.0 percent (319) were 17 years of age.
11.1 percent (59) were white.
58.3 percent (310) were Hispanic.
25.8 percent (137) were black.
4.9 percent (26) were from other race/ethnic
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<2>
http://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/cjsc/publications/mi
sc/jj12/preface.pdf
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groups.
Of the 532 adult-level court dispositions received:
86.1 percent (458) resulted in a conviction.
13.2 percent (70) were dismissed.
0.2 percent (1) were acquitted.
0.6 percent (3) were certified to juvenile
court
Regardless of gender, age, and race/ethnicity
juveniles in adult court were convicted in the
majority of cases.
Females were more likely to be dismissed (27.8
percent) and certified to juvenile court (2.8 percent)
compared to males (12.1 percent and 0.4 percent,
respectively).
Juveniles 17 years old were more likely to be
dismissed (14.1 percent) compared to other age groups.
A greater percentage of black juveniles were
convicted (89.1 percent) compared to all other
race/ethnic groups.
Black juveniles were also the least likely to
be dismissed (10.9 percent) compared to all other
race/ethnic groups.
Of the 458 convictions received:
64.0 percent (293) were sentenced to adult
prison or the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ).
2.2 percent (10) received probation.
29.7 percent (136) received probation with
jail.
3.1 percent (14) received jail.
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1.1 percent (5) received another sentence.
Males were more likely than females to be sent
to adult prison or the Division of Juvenile Justice
(65.6 vs. 36.0 percent).
Females were more likely to be sentenced to
probation with jail than males (48.0 vs. 28.6
percent).
Regardless of age, juveniles convicted in
adult court were most likely to be sentenced to adult
prison or the Division of Juvenile Justice.
Hispanic, black, and "other" juveniles
convicted in adult court were most likely sentenced to
adult prison or the Division of Juvenile Justice.
In addition to the annual report on juvenile justice, DOJ also
maintains the following data relevant to juvenile offenders:
The Monthly Arrest and Citation Register
(MACR) database provides information on felony and
misdemeanor level arrests for adults and juveniles and
status offenses (e.g., truancy, incorrigibility,
running away, and curfew violations) for juveniles.
The following data elements are included in this file:
race/ethnicity, date of birth, gender, date of arrest,
offense level, status of the offense, and law
enforcement disposition. MACR data are published in
Crime in California, Homicide in California, Juvenile
Justice in California, and the Criminal Justice
Profile series. Age, gender, race/ethnicity, and
offense information from the MACR are forwarded to the
FBI for publication in Crime in the United States. The
MACR data, in a consistent format, is available from
1979 to the present.
The Juvenile Court and Probation Statistical
System (JCPSS) database is designed to collect,
compile, and report statistical data on the
administration of juvenile justice in California. It
provides information on a juvenile's process through
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the juvenile justice system from probation intake to
final case disposition. Data from the JCPSS database
is available in an electronic format from 2004 to the
present.<3>
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<3> https://oag.ca.gov/cjsc/databases