BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 557
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Date of Hearing: June 21, 2011
Counsel: Stella Choe
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Tom Ammiano, Chair
SB 557 (Kehoe) - As Amended: June 15, 2011
SUMMARY : Authorizes the Cities of San Diego and Anaheim, and
the Counties of Alameda and Sonoma, to create a two-year pilot
project to establish family justice centers to assist victims of
domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, cyberstalking,
cyberbullying, human trafficking, and elder or dependent adult
abuse, as defined by law. Specifically, this bill :
1)Defines a "family justice center" as a multiagency,
multidisciplinary service center where public and private
agencies assign staff members to provide services to victims
of crime from one location in order to reduce the number of
times victims must tell their story, reduce the number of
places victims must go to for help, and increase access to
services and support for victims and their children.
2)Defines "victims of crime," "crime victim," or "victim" as a
victim of domestic violence, officer-involved domestic
violence, sexual assault, elder or dependent adult abuse,
stalking, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, or human trafficking.
3)Provides that staff members at a family justice center may be
either full-time or part-time and may be comprised of, but are
not limited to, the following:
a) Law enforcement personnel;
b) Medical personnel;
c) Victim-witness program personnel;
d) Domestic violence shelter staff;
e) Community-based rape crisis, domestic violence, and
human trafficking advocates;
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f) Social service agency staff members;
g) Child welfare agency social workers;
h) County health department staff;
i) City or county welfare and public assistance workers;
j) Nonprofit agency counseling professionals;
aa) Civil legal service providers;
bb) Supervised volunteers from partner agencies; and,
cc) Other professionals providing services
4)States that victims of crime shall not be required to
participate in the criminal justice system or cooperate with
law enforcement in order to receive counseling, medical care,
or other services at a family justice center.
5)States that victims of crime shall not be denied services on
the grounds of criminal history. No criminal history search
shall be conducted of a victim at a family justice center as a
condition of receiving services within a family justice center
without the victim's written consent, unless the criminal
history search is pursuant to an active criminal
investigation.
6)Requires each family justice center to develop policies and
procedures, in collaboration with local community-based crime
victim service providers and local survivors of violence or
abuse, to ensure coordinated services are provided to victims
and to enhance the safety of victims and professionals at a
family justice center who participate in affiliated
survivor-centered support or advocacy groups.
7)Requires each family justice center to maintain a formal
client feedback, complaint, and input process to address
client concerns about services provided or the conduct of any
family justice center professionals, agency partners, or
volunteers providing services in a family justice center.
8)Requires each family justice center to maintain an informed
client consent policy that must be in compliance with all
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state and federal laws protecting the confidentiality of the
types of information and documents that may be in a victim's
file, including, but not limited to, medical and legal
records.
9)States that each family justice center must have a designated
privacy officer to develop and oversee privacy policies and
procedures consistent with state and federal privacy laws and
the Fair Information Practice Principles. At no time shall a
victim be required to sign a client consent form to share
information in order to access services.
10)States that a victim's consent to share information pursuant
to a consent policy shall not be construed as a waiver of
confidentiality or any privilege held by the victim or family
justice center professionals.
11)Requires the family justice centers, the National Family
Justice Center Alliance, and relevant stakeholders, under the
advisement of the Office of Privacy Protection, to provide an
evaluation report that includes outcomes and evaluation data
from the family justice centers, recommended best practices to
ensure privacy of clients and recommendations for future state
legislation. The report must be submitted to the Office of
Privacy Protection for review and comment, and then to the
Assembly Committee on Judiciary, the Senate Committee on
Judiciary, the Assembly Committee on Public Safety, and the
Senate Committee on Public Safety no later than January 1,
2013.
12)Requires each family justice center to maintain a formal
training program with mandatory training for all staff
members, volunteers, and agency professionals of not less than
eight hours per year on subjects including, but not limited
to, confidentiality, information sharing, risk assessment,
safety planning, victim advocacy, and high-risk cause
response.
13)Establishes a sunset date of January 1, 2014.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Authorizes a program for interagency domestic violence death
review teams, composed of professionals such as coroners,
forensic pathologists, prosecutors, domestic violence center
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staff members, county health department staff, county health
department staff, child abuse agency staff members and others.
Allows each organization to share with other members of the
team information in its possession concerning the victim who
is the subject of the review or any person who was in contact
with the victim and any other information deemed by the
organization to be pertinent to the review. States that any
information shared by an organization with other members of a
team is confidential, but permits the disclosure to members of
the team of any information deemed confidential, privileged,
or prohibited from disclosure by any other statute, as
specified. (Penal Code Section 11163.3.)
2)Mandates the Attorney General, subject to available funding,
to work with the state domestic violence coalition to develop
a protocol for the development and implementation of
interagency domestic violence death review teams for use by
counties, which shall include relevant procedures for both
urban and rural counties. The protocol shall be designed to
facilitate communication among persons who perform autopsies
and the various persons and agencies involved in domestic
violence cases so that incidents of domestic violence and
deaths related to domestic violence are recognized and
surviving nonoffending family and household members and
domestic partners receive the appropriate services. (Penal
Code Section 11163.5.)
3)Authorizes the Department of Justice (DOJ), with the
cooperation of specified organizations and agencies, to
coordinate and integrate state and local efforts to address
fatal child abuse and neglect, and to create a body of
information to prevent child abuse. (Penal Code Section
11174.34.)
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)Author's Statement : According to the author, "The Family
Justice Center statute defines family justice centers for the
first time in California law. Family Justice Centers have
been identified as a 'best practice' by the U.S. Department of
Justice and involved collaboration among public and private,
non-profit agencies providing intervention and prevention
services to address domestic violence, sexual assault, and
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other forms of abuse. While the composition of Centers vary
by community, the general concept of providing all the
services for victims under one roof has been identified as an
effective approach to increase safety and offender
accountability by avoiding the need for victims to travel from
agency to agency, telling their story over and over in order
to receive help. There are now fifteen such Centers in
California and fifteen more in early stages of planning. The
Family Justice Center Alliance is the umbrella organization
for Family Justice Centers in California and around the United
States and gathers non-identifying, aggregate data from
existing Centers to document outcomes and impacts of this
multi-disciplinary model. In order to ensure that victims
receive the same level of service and privacy protections,
there need to be statewide standards for the Family Justice
Center model."
2)Fair Information Practice Principals : This bill requires each
family justice center to develop policies consistent with
state and federal privacy laws as well as the "Fair
Information Practice Principals." According to the California
Office of Privacy Protection's Web site, the following
principals, known as the "Fair Information Practice
Principals", are the basis for many privacy laws in the United
States, Canada, Europe and other parts of the world.
"Openness. There should be a general policy of openness about
developments, practices and policies with respect to personal
data. Means should be readily available for establishing the
existence and nature of personal data, and the main purposes
of their use, as well as the identity and usual residence of
the data controller.
"Collection Limitation. There should be limits to the
collection of personal data and any such data should be obtain
by lawful and fair means and, where appropriate, with the
knowledge or consent of the data subject.
"Purpose Specification. The purpose for which personal data are
collected should be specified not later than at the time of
data collection and the subsequent use limited to the
fulfillment of those purposes or such others as are not
incompatible with those purposes and as are specified on each
occasion of change of purpose.
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"Use Limitation. Personal data should not be disclosed, made
available or otherwise used for purposes other than those
specified as described above, except with the consent of the
data subject or by the authority of law.
"Data Quality. Personal data should be relevant to the purposes
for which they are to be used, and, to the extent necessary
for those purposes, should be accurate, complete, relevant and
kept up-to-date.
"Individual Participation. An individual should have the right:
a) to obtain from a data controller, or otherwise,
confirmation of whether or not the data controller has data
relating to him; b) to have communicated to him, data relating
to him within a reasonable time; at a charge, if any, that is
not excessive; in a reasonable manner; and in a form that is
readily intelligible to him; c) to be given reasons if a
request is denied and to be able to challenge such denial; and
d) to challenge data relating to him and, if the challenge is
successful, to have the data erased, rectified, completed or
amended.
"Security Safeguards. Personal data should be protected by
reasonable security safeguards against such risks as loss or
unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification or
disclosure of data.
"Accountability. A data controller should be accountable for
complying with measures which give effect to the principles
stated above." �Fair Information Practice Principals, found
at (as of
June 14, 2011).]
3)Confidentiality Issues and Privacy Laws : This bill allows for
the sharing of crime victims' information with and by staff
members and other family justice center professionals.
Victims of sexual assault and other victims of crime serviced
by family justice centers will often provide personal health
information or undergo counseling or medical examinations
which would fall under medical privacy laws and privilege
laws.
California law provides that confidential communications between
victims and sexual assault counselors, domestic violence
counselors, and human trafficking case workers are privileged
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communications that may be disclosed upon consent by the
victim, or under circumstances where a court orders disclosure
of information as relevant evidence for a related criminal
proceeding if the court determines that the probative value
outweighs the effect on the victim, the counseling
relationship, and the counseling services. (Evidence Code
Sections 1035 to 1038, et seq.)
Under federal law, the Health Insurance Portability Act of 1996
(HIPAA) provides that medical records and other personal
health information shall be confidential, subject to specified
exceptions and procedures. (Pub. Law 104-191; 45 C.F.R. Pts.
160, 164.) Under HIPAA, covered entities may disclose
protected health information to law enforcement officials for
specified law enforcement purposes, such as court orders, to
identify suspects or witnesses, to find missing persons,
information about a crime victim, notice of death and related
matters.
This bill addresses confidentiality and privacy issues by
requiring each family justice center to maintain an informed
client consent policy that is in compliance with all state and
federal laws protecting the victim's confidentiality, develop
and oversee privacy policies and procedures consistent with
state and federal privacy laws and the Fair Information
Practice Principals. This bill requires each family justice
center to maintain a formal mandatory training program for all
staff members, volunteers, and agency professionals on
confidentiality and information sharing. Additionally, this
bill prohibits searching a victim's criminal history without
the written consent of the victim, unless the search is
pursuant to an active criminal investigation which would most
likely involve a domestic violence investigation of the
victim's abuser.
4)Argument in Support : According to the Community Resource
Center , "The Community Resource Center is a strong supporter
of the San Diego Family Justice Center - one of the pilot
sites.
"It is time to gather study data and consider statewide Family
Justice Center legislation at the conclusion of the study.
"President Obama's Director of the Office on Violence Against
Women, The Honorable Susan B. Carbon greeted over 550
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attendees at the International Family Justice Center
Conference in San Diego a few weeks ago and provided the
necessary background to support this legislation: ' . . . I
want to recognize the national Family Justice Center Alliance
for their vision, their extraordinary leadership, and their
ongoing partnership in the journey to end domestic violence
and all other forms of violence against women. The Family
Justice Center model is the natural progression of the
coordinated community response to violence against women which
is at the very foundation of the Violence Against Women Act.
At its core, the Family Justice Center model is about
providing the most effective, efficient, meaningful, and
compassionate services possible to victims of domestic
violence, their children, as well as their families. In many
circumstances, Family Justice Centers are now expanding to
include services for victims of child abuse, sexual assault,
teen dating violence and elder abuse. The Family Justice
center model is a victim-centered model, one that transforms
the delivery of victim services by bringing together
advocates, law enforcement, prosecutors and other intervention
professionals in one location to work together to serve
victims and their children and hold offenders accountable.'
"It is time for the Family Justice Center model to be recognized
in state law and for standards to be set to ensure the best
possible services to victims and their children in
California."
5)Argument in Opposition : According to the American Civil
Liberties Union , "SB 557 would authorize the establishment of
multidisciplinary centers to assist victims of domestic
violence, human trafficking and other crimes, and would
involve the sharing of victims' information among people from
various disciplines, including law enforcement.
"�O]ur concern is that when the victim is talking to a law
enforcement officer s/he knows that information provided may
be used in a criminal proceeding; however, when the victim is
sitting in front of an intake worker, social worker in the
hopes of receiving services, s/he is not on notice that the
information may be shared with law enforcement officers.
"We're hoping there's some way to address our concern and remain
consistent with the mission of family justice centers."
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REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
National Family Justice Center Alliance (Sponsor)
Alameda County District Attorney
California Catholic Conference
California National Organization for Women
California Peace Officers' Association
California Probation Parole and Correctional Association
California Protective Parents Association
City of Anaheim Police Department
City of San Diego, Family Justice Center
Community Resource Center
Community Service Programs, Victim Assistance Program
County of Shasta District Attorney
Crime Victims United of California
Disability Rights California
Family Justice Center Sonoma County
Inter-Tribal Council of California, Inc.
San Diego City Attorney
San Diego County District Attorney
Sonoma County Board of Supervisors
Stanislaus County Office of the District Attorney
State Public Affairs Committee of the Junior Leagues of
California
One private individual
Opposition
American Civil Liberties Union
Analysis Prepared by : Stella Choe / PUB. S. / (916) 319-3744