BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair S
2011-2012 Regular Session B
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SB 1522 (Leno) 2
As Amended April 26, 2012
Hearing date: May 8, 2012
Welfare and Institutions Code (URGENCY)
MK: dl
DEVELOPMENTAL CENTERS:
REPORTING REQUIREMENTS
HISTORY
Source: Disability Rights California
Prior Legislation: SB 110 (Liu) - Chapter 617, Stats. 2010
AB 2100 (Wolk) - Chapter 481, Stats. 2008
AB 1188 (Wolk) - Chapter 16, Stats. 2005
AB 430 (Cardenas) - Chapter 171, Stats. 2001
Support: The Association of Regional Center Agencies; The Arc
California; United Cerebral Palsy California; an
individual
Opposition:None known
KEY ISSUE
SHOULD THE LAW SPECIFY THE TYPES OF SERIOUS INJURIES INVOLVING A
RESIDENT THAT MUST BE REPORTED TO A LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY BY
A DEVELOPMENTAL CENTER?
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PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to specify what types of serious
injuries a developmental center must report to a local law
enforcement agency.
Existing law requires mandated reporters to report the physical
and financial abuse of elderly and dependent persons in a
long-term care facility to local ombudsperson or local law
enforcement agency. (Welfare and Institutions Code (WIC) �
15630(b)(A).)
Existing law provides a mandated reporter in a long-term care
facility other than a state mental health hospital or state
developmental center, who has knowledge, or reasonably suspects
abuse that is not mandated to be reported, may report the known
or suspected abuse to the long-term care ombudsperson program.
Except in an emergency, the local ombudsperson shall report the
case of known or suspected abuse to the Department of Health
Services. (WIC � 15630(c)(1) to (2).)
Existing law requires the local ombudsperson and local law
enforcement agency, except in an emergency, to report any case
of known or suspected abuse to:
The Department of Health Services for a case occurring
in a long-term health care facility;
The Department of Social Services for a case occurring
in a residential care facility for the elderly or in an
adult day care facility;
The Department of Health Services and the California
Department of Aging for a case occurring in an adult day
health care center; or,
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The Bureau of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse. (WIC �
15630(b)(1)(A)(i) to (iv).)
Existing law provides that if the suspected or alleged abuse
occurred in a state mental hospital or state developmental
center, the report shall be made to designated investigators of
the State Department of Mental Health or the State Department of
Developmental services, or to the local law enforcement agency.
(WIC �15630(b)(1)(B).)
Existing law requires a developmental center to immediately
report all resident deaths and serious injuries of unknown
origin to the appropriate local law enforcement agency. This
reporting requirement does not substitute for the reporting
requirement of a mandated reporter. (WIC � 4427.5)
This bill instead provides that a developmental center shall
immediately report the following incidents involving a resident
to the local law enforcement agency having jurisdiction over the
city or county in which the developmental center is located,
regardless of whether the Office of Protective Services has
investigated the facts and circumstances relating to the
incident:
A death;
A sexual assault;
An assault with a deadly weapon or force likely to
produce great bodily injury; or
An injury to the genitals when the cause of the injury
in undetermined.
This bill provides that if the incident is reported to the law
enforcement agency by telephone, a written report of the
incident shall also be submitted to the agency, within two
working days.
Existing law provides that the reporting requirements in Welfare
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and Institutions Code Section 4427.5 are in addition to and do
not substitute for the reporting requirements of mandated
reporters. (W&I � 4427.5)
This bill also provides that the reporting requirements are in
addition to any other reporting and investigative duties of the
developmental center and the department as required by law.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
("ROCA")
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In response to the unresolved prison capacity crisis, since
early 2007 it has been the policy of the chair of the Senate
Committee on Public Safety and the Senate President pro Tem to
hold legislative proposals which could further aggravate prison
overcrowding through new or expanded felony prosecutions. Under
the resulting policy known as "ROCA" (which stands for
"Receivership/Overcrowding Crisis Aggravation"), the Committee
has held measures which create a new felony, expand the scope or
penalty of an existing felony, or otherwise increase the
application of a felony in a manner which could exacerbate the
prison overcrowding crisis by expanding the availability or
length of prison terms (such as extending the statute of
limitations for felonies or constricting statutory parole
standards). In addition, proposed expansions to the
classification of felonies enacted last year by AB 109 (the 2011
Public Safety Realignment) which may be punishable in jail and
not prison (Penal Code section 1170(h)) would be subject to ROCA
because an offender's criminal record could make the offender
ineligible for jail and therefore subject to state prison.
Under these principles, ROCA has been applied as a
content-neutral, provisional measure necessary to ensure that
the Legislature does not erode progress towards reducing prison
overcrowding by passing legislation which could increase the
prison population. ROCA will continue until prison overcrowding
is resolved.
For the last several years, severe overcrowding in California's
prisons has been the focus of evolving and expensive litigation.
On June 30, 2005, in a class action lawsuit filed four years
earlier, the United States District Court for the Northern
District of California established a Receivership to take
control of the delivery of medical services to all California
state prisoners confined by the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation ("CDCR"). In December of 2006,
plaintiffs in two federal lawsuits against CDCR sought a
court-ordered limit on the prison population pursuant to the
federal Prison Litigation Reform Act. On January 12, 2010, a
three-judge federal panel issued an order requiring California
to reduce its inmate population to 137.5 percent of design
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capacity -- a reduction at that time of roughly 40,000 inmates
-- within two years. The court stayed implementation of its
ruling pending the state's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On May 23, 2011, the United States Supreme Court upheld the
decision of the three-judge panel in its entirety, giving
California two years from the date of its ruling to reduce its
prison population to 137.5 percent of design capacity, subject
to the right of the state to seek modifications in appropriate
circumstances. Design capacity is the number of inmates a
prison can house based on one inmate per cell, single-level
bunks in dormitories, and no beds in places not designed for
housing. Current design capacity in CDCR's 33 institutions is
79,650.
On January 6, 2012, CDCR announced that California had cut
prison overcrowding by more than 11,000 inmates over the last
six months, a reduction largely accomplished by the passage of
Assembly Bill 109. Under the prisoner-reduction order, the
inmate population in California's 33 prisons must be no more
than the following:
167 percent of design capacity by December 27, 2011
(133,016 inmates);
155 percent by June 27, 2012;
147 percent by December 27, 2012; and
137.5 percent by June 27, 2013.
This bill does not aggravate the prison overcrowding crisis
described above under ROCA.
COMMENTS
1. Need for This Bill
According to the author:
Current law (Welfare & Institutions Code Section
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4427.5) requires a developmental center to immediately
report "all resident deaths and serious injuries of
unknown origin to the appropriate local law enforcement
agency, which may, at its discretion, conduct an
independent investigation (emphasis added)." The
Department of Developmental Services has an internal
policy - which has not been adopted as a formal
regulation as required by California law - about which
type of "serious injuries of unknown origin" must be
reported to local law enforcement.
According to testimony at the recent informational
hearing by the Senate Human Services Committee, this
internal DSS policy calls for virtually all injuries of
unknown origin, even relatively minor ones requiring
only five sutures for treatment, to local law
enforcement. Testimony at the hearing indicated that
the number of reports transmitted to local law
enforcement agencies may dilute the effectiveness of
this reporting requirement, and local law enforcement
agencies may be more likely to respond to and
investigate incidents if they received fewer reports
about more serious incidents.
2. Specifying What to Report to Local Law Enforcement
Under existing law, developmental centers are required to report
the death or serious injury of one of their residents to local
law enforcement. This bill instead provides that the following
specified incidents shall be reported to the local police:
A death;
A sexual assault;
An assault with a deadly weapon or force likely to
produce great bodily injury; or
An injury to the genitals when the cause of the injury
is undetermined.
The concern is that under existing law there is no definition of
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serious injury so no consistency in what is reported and an over
reporting of incidents that could easily be investigated by the
Office of Protective Services. The intent is to specify what
needs to be reported to local law enforcement allowing law
enforcement to investigate the most serious cases and not be
overburdened unnecessarily.
3. Other Legislation
SB 1051 (Liu) also being heard today, would require DDS to
report to the state-designated protection and advocacy agency
any unexpected or suspicious death, sexual assault allegation
implicating an employee of a developmental center or state
mental hospital and any report made to a local law enforcement
agency involving developmental center residents, and makes other
changes.
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