BILL ANALYSIS AB 856 Date of Hearing: 5/21/97 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Carole Migden, Chairwoman AB 856 (Hertzberg) - As Amended: May 15, 1997 Policy Committee: Public Safety Vote: 8-0 Consent Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: SUMMARY This bill creates a statewide "Witness Protection Program" administered by the Attorney General's (AG) office that: a) Provides for the relocation or protection of a witness in a criminal proceeding when there is evidence the witness may suffer retaliatory violence or intimidation. b) Authorizes the AG to enter into an agreement with the witness in accordance with specified terms. c) Requires the protected person to agree to make court appointments and comply with all legal obligations. d) Authorizes funds to be used to protect witnesses, provide temporary or permanent relocation of witnesses, train and supervise persons associated with the program, and pay related program costs. FISCAL EFFECT Appropriates $149,000 (GF) to the AG for the purposes of this act. This appropriation is .04% of the AG's annual $390 million budget. It is not clear what this appropriation is intended to cover or whether an appropriation of this size will be sufficient to operate a statewide program. BACKGROUND 1) The L.A. D.A. runs a witness protection program that relocated 374 persons in 1993-94; most of the relocations were gang-related. AB 853 (Hertzberg) appropriates $18 million to - continued - AB 856 Page 1 AB 856 the Board of Corrections for gang-related programs. Should there be an interaction between these programs? 2) The state also has the Victim/Witness Fund ($17 million proposed for 1997-98, funded from penalty assessments), which funds victim/witness centers across the state that focus primarily on victims. Should there be an explicit relationship between these two programs? - continued - AB 856 Page 2 AB 856 3) From 1978 to 1991, the Department of Justice (DOJ) ran the California WPP. The DOJ discontinued program funding in 1992. The California DOJ Law Enforcement Information Center (LEIC) recorded 2,966 felony and misdemeanor arrests for threatening a witness in the past five years. Department of Corrections data show that in 1995-96, 38 persons were incarcerated for intimidating a witness. - continued - AB 856 Page 3