BILL ANALYSIS
SB 118
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 30, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES
Jim Beall, Jr., Chair
SB 118 (Liu) - As Amended: June 15, 2009
SENATE VOTE : 34-0
SUMMARY : Child welfare services: incarcerated parents
SUBJECT : Directs counties to include information about
incarcerated parents who receive services required by the court
to reunify that parent with his/her children. Specifically,
this bill:
1)Requires that the case plan include information about a
parent's incarceration.
2)Encourages the Department of Social Services and counties to
consult on ways to incorporate this information as a required
field in the statewide database.
3)Encourages the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation,
county welfare departments, and county sheriffs to develop
protocols facilitating information exchange about incarcerated
parents.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes child welfare services, including foster care, for
children who are dependents of the juvenile court because they
have been abused or neglected and for children who are wards
of the juvenile court due to truancy and other statutory
violations.
2)Includes family reunification services among those child
welfare services to assist a parent to reunify with his/her
child if the court finds that is in the best interests of the
child.
3)Establishes that each child receiving child welfare services
have a case plan that includes information, including any
family reunification services prescribed by the court.
4)Provides that counties shall act as the arm of the state in
SB 118
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providing child welfare services to dependents and wards and
their families.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : The author observes that expanded and lengthened
criminal sentences have resulted in a growing number of children
whose parents are in jail or prison. Research finds that at
least one-third of the children in the child welfare system have
experienced the arrest of a parent. To improve child welfare
services to these children, especially when there is a
possibility of parent and child being reunified, improvements
need to be made to the child welfare services case management
system. The author believes that information about a parent's
incarceration should be in a child's case plan.
Strengthening recent reunification efforts
AB 2070 (Bass), Chapter 482, Statutes of 2008, increased the
length of time that reunification services are available to
incarcerated parents of children receiving child welfare
services. The author of this bill believes that for AB 2070 to
achieve its goal of promoting the reunification of parent and
child, whenever possible, children's case plans need to include
information about whether the parent is incarcerated.
In 2003, the California Research Bureau (CRB), at the California
State Library, released a report, entitled "California Law and
the Children of Prisoners." The CRB reported that in California
prisons, nearly 80% of women and 67% of men are parents. The
CRB also found that the connections between imprisoned parents
and child welfare services are limited and tenuous at best, even
when a child is in foster care and a reunification plan is in
place.
The state's child welfare services case management system does
not necessarily record that the child has a parent in jail or
prison. Since the release of the CRB's report, additional
organizations and individual academic researchers have added to
the information available to policy makers. The Urban
Institute's Justice Policy Center reported in 2008, in "Broken
Bonds: Understanding and Addressing the Needs of Children with
Incarcerated Parents, that "one of the greatest needs within the
policy community lies in obtaining better records of the number
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of children with incarcerated parents." The Journal of Public
Child Welfare included a recent article by researchers at the
University of Illinois who confirmed that emotional and
behavioral problems are more prevalent in children whose parents
have been involved with the criminal justice system than those
who have not, and they argue that child welfare caseworkers can
have success with parents who are now out of jail or prison.
Related legislation
SCR 20 (Liu) encourages designated entities to distribute the
Children of Incarcerated Parents Bill of Rights to children of
incarcerated parents, and to invite discussion and encourage
relevant departments to use the Bill of Rights as a framework
for analysis and determination of procedures when making
decisions about services for these children. This resolution is
currently pending in the Assembly Judiciary Committee.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Friends Outside (sponsor)
Los Angeles Dependency Lawyers, INC. (sponsor)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
Arkansas Voices for the Children Left Behind, Inc.
California Commission on the Status of Women
California Society for Clinical Social Work
Contribute
County of San Diego
County Welfare Directors Association (CWDA)
John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes
Juvenile Court Judges of California
National Association of Social Workers, CA chapter (NASW-CA)
The National Bill of Rights Policy Partnership for Children of
the Incarcerated
5 individuals
Opposition
None received
Analysis Prepared by : Frances Chacon / HUM. S. / (916)
319-2089