BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair A
2013-2014 Regular Session B
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AB 1623 (Atkins) 3
As Amended April 21, 2014
Hearing date: June 10, 2014
Penal Code
AL/JRD:sl
FAMILY JUSTICE CENTERS:
CO-LOCATED, MULTI-DISCIPLINARY VICTIM SERVICES
HISTORY
Source: National Family Justice Center Alliance
Prior Legislation: SB 557 (Kehoe) - Ch. 262, Stats. 2011
SB 733 (Leno) - 2010, vetoed
AB 1669 (Leno) - 2007, vetoed
AB 50 (Leno) - Ch. 884, Stats. 2006
Support: American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees, AFL-CIO; Alameda County Family Justice
Center; Alameda County, Office of the District
Attorney; American Academy of Pediatrics; California
Association for Health Services at Home; California
Coalition Against Sexual Assault; California Catholic
Conference, Inc.; California District Attorneys
Association; California Law Enforcement Association of
Records Supervisors; California Correctional Peace
Officers Association; California Probation, Parole, and
Correctional Association; California State Association
of Counties; California Teachers Association; Chief
Probation Officers of California; Dress for Success;
Family Justice Center Sonoma County; L.A. County
Probation Officers Union; National Association of
Social Workers - California Chapter; One SAFE Place,
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Shasta; Riverside Sheriffs' Association; Sacramento
County, Office of the District Attorney; San Diego
County District Attorney; San Diego Family Justice
Center VOICES Committee; San Diego Police Department;
Stanislaus Family Justice Center; County of San Diego
Opposition:None known
Assembly Floor Vote: Ayes 78 - Noes 0
KEY ISSUES
SHOULD LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS BE AUTHORIZED
TO ESTABLISH FAMILY JUSTICE CENTERS?
SHOULD FAMILY JUSTICE CENTERS BE REQUIRED TO COMPLY WITH SPECIFIED
PROVISIONS REGARDING ELIGIBILITY FOR SERVICES, PERSONNEL TRAINING,
CLIENT PRIVACY, AND OPERATIONS?
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to 1) explicitly authorize a city,
county, city and county, or nonprofit organization to each
establish a family justice center (FJC) and 2) to set
requirements regarding the eligibility for services, personnel
training, client privacy, and operations of FJCs.
Existing law authorizes each county to create a county task
force on violent crimes against women. The purpose of a county
task force may include coordinating services and responses among
governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations serving women
who are victims of violent crimes. (Penal Code �� 14140(a) and
14141(d).)
Existing law authorizes each county to establish interagency
domestic violence death review teams to assist in reviewing
domestic violence deaths and facilitating interagency
communication. (Penal Code � 11163.3.)
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Existing law provides that information developed by or shared
among members of domestic violence death review teams shall
remain confidential, as specified. (Penal Code
�11163.3(e)-(g).)
Existing law authorizes the Department of Justice (DOJ) to work
with specified agencies and organizations to develop a protocol
for the integration and coordination of state and local efforts
to address fatal domestic violence through the creation of a
statewide, collaborative domestic violence death review team.
(Penal Code � 11163.5.)
Existing law authorizes the 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 � 11174.34.)
Existing law requires child protective services agencies, law
enforcement, prosecution, child abuse and domestic violence
experts, and community-based organizations serving abused
children and victims of domestic violence to develop, in
collaboration, protocols to facilitate coordinated responses to
cases of domestic violence in homes in which a child resides.
(Penal Code � 13732.)
Existing law provides that a victim has a privilege to refuse to
disclose, and to prevent another from disclosing, a confidential
communication between the victim and a sexual assault counselor,
a domestic violence counselor, or a human trafficking
caseworker. (Evidence Code � 1035.)
Definition
This bill defines "family justice centers" (FJC) as multiagency,
multidisciplinary service centers where public and private
agencies assign staff members to provide services to victims of
domestic violence, sexual assault, elder or dependent adult
abuse, or human trafficking 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.
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Staff at a FJC may be comprised of, but are not limited to, the
following:
Law enforcement personnel;
Medical personnel;
District attorneys and city attorneys;
Victim-witness program personnel;
Domestic violence shelter staff;
Community-based rape crisis, domestic violence, and
human trafficking advocates;
Social service agency staff members;
Child welfare agency social workers;
County health department staff;
City or county welfare and public assistance workers;
Nonprofit agency counseling professionals;
Civil legal service providers;
Supervised volunteers from partner agencies; and,
Other professionals providing services.
Eligibility for Services
This bill prevents a FJC from denying victims services on the
grounds of criminal history and prohibits conducting criminal
history searches on a victim at a FJC without the victim's
written consent, unless the criminal history search is pursuant
to an active criminal investigation.
This bill prohibits a FJC from requiring a crime victim to
participate in the criminal justice system or cooperate with law
enforcement in order to receive counseling, medical care, or
other services at a FJC.
Operations and Evaluation of Family Justice Centers
This bill requires each FJC to consult with specified relevant
agencies in partnership with survivors of violence and abuse and
their advocates in the operations process of the FJC and to
establish procedures for the ongoing input, feedback, and
evaluation of the center by survivors of violence and abuse and
community-based crime victim service providers and advocates.
This bill requires each FJC to develop policies and procedures,
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in collaboration with local community-based crime victim service
providers and local survivors of violence and abuse, to ensure
coordinated services are provided to victims and to enhance the
safety of victims and professionals at the center who
participate in affiliated survivor-centered support or advocacy
groups.
This bill requires each FJC to maintain a formal client
feedback, complaint, and input process to address client
concerns about services provided or the conduct of any FJC
professional, agency partners, or volunteers providing services
in the center.
Client Privacy Protections
This bill provides that nothing in the provisions of this bill
is intended to abrogate existing laws regarding privacy or
information sharing and requires FJC staff to comply with the
laws governing their respective professions.
This bill requires each FJC to maintain a client consent policy
and to be in compliance with all 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, legal, and victim counselor records.
This bill requires each FJC to 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. This bill provides that at no
time shall a victim be required to sign a client consent form to
share information in order to access services.
This bill requires each FJC to obtain informed, written,
reasonably time-limited consent from the victim before sharing
information obtained from the victim with any staff member or
agency partner, except in either of the following cases:
1. A FJC is not required to obtain victim consent before
sharing information obtained from the victim with any staff
member or agency partner if the person, with the sensitive
information, is a mandated reporter, a peace officer, or a
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member of the prosecution team and is required to report or
disclose specific information or incidents. These persons
are required to inform the victim that they may share
information obtained from the victim without the victim's
consent.
2. Each FJC is required to inform the victim that
information disclosed to staff or partner agencies at the
FJC may be shared with law enforcement without the victim's
consent if there is a mandatory duty to report, or the
client is a danger to himself or herself, or others. Each
FJC is required to obtain written acknowledgement that the
victim has been informed of this policy.
This bill provides that a victim's authorization for sharing
information within a FJC shall not be construed as a universal
waiver of any existing evidentiary privilege that makes
confidential any communications or documents between the victim
and any service provider. This bill prohibits the disclosure,
to any third party, of any oral or written communication or any
document authorized by the victim to be shared for the purposes
of enhancing safety and providing more effective and efficient
services to the victim, unless that third-party disclosure is
authorized by the victim, or required by other state or federal
law or by court order.
This bill provides that an individual staff member, volunteer,
or agency that has victim information governed by the provisions
of this bill shall not be required to disclose that information
unless the victim has consented to the disclosure or it is
otherwise required by other state or federal law or by court
order.
This bill provides that disclosure of information consented to
by the victim in a FJC, made for the purposes of clinical
assessment, risk assessment, safety planning, or service
delivery, is not a waiver of any specified privilege or
confidentiality provision, the lawyer-client privilege, the
physician-patient privilege, the psychotherapist-patient
privilege, the sexual assault counselor-victim privilege, or the
domestic violence counselor-victim privilege.
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Training Requirements
This bill requires each FJC to maintain a formal training
program with mandatory training for all staff members,
volunteers, and agency professionals of at least eight hours per
year on subjects including, but not limited to, privileges and
confidentiality, information sharing, risk assessment, safety
planning, victim advocacy, and high-risk case response.
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the last several years, severe overcrowding in California's
prisons has been the focus of evolving and expensive litigation
relating to conditions of confinement. On May 23, 2011, the
United States Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its
prison population to 137.5 percent of design capacity within two
years from the date of its ruling, subject to the right of the
state to seek modifications in appropriate circumstances.
Beginning in early 2007, Senate leadership initiated a policy to
hold legislative proposals which could further aggravate the
prison overcrowding crisis through new or expanded felony
prosecutions. Under the resulting policy, known as "ROCA"
(which stands for "Receivership/ Overcrowding Crisis
Aggravation"), the Committee held measures that created a new
felony, expanded the scope or penalty of an existing felony, or
otherwise increased the application of a felony in a manner
which could exacerbate the prison overcrowding crisis. Under
these principles, ROCA was applied as a content-neutral,
provisional measure necessary to ensure that the Legislature did
not erode progress towards reducing prison overcrowding by
passing legislation, which would increase the prison population.
In January of 2013, just over a year after the enactment of the
historic Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011, the State of
California filed court documents seeking to vacate or modify the
federal court order requiring the state to reduce its prison
population to 137.5 percent of design capacity. The State
submitted that the, ". . . population in the State's 33 prisons
has been reduced by over 24,000 inmates since October 2011 when
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public safety realignment went into effect, by more than 36,000
inmates compared to the 2008 population . . . , and by nearly
42,000 inmates since 2006 . . . ." Plaintiffs opposed the
state's motion, arguing that, "California prisons, which
currently average 150% of capacity, and reach as high as 185% of
capacity at one prison, continue to deliver health care that is
constitutionally deficient." In an order dated January 29,
2013, the federal court granted the state a six-month extension
to achieve the 137.5 % inmate population cap by December 31,
2013.
The Three-Judge Court then ordered, on April 11, 2013, the state
of California to "immediately take all steps necessary to comply
with this Court's . . . Order . . . requiring defendants to
reduce overall prison population to 137.5% design capacity by
December 31, 2013." On September 16, 2013, the State asked the
Court to extend that deadline to December 31, 2016. In
response, the Court extended the deadline first to January 27,
2014, and then February 24, 2014, and ordered the parties to
enter into a meet-and-confer process to "explore how defendants
can comply with this Court's June 20, 2013, Order, including
means and dates by which such compliance can be expedited or
accomplished and how this Court can ensure a durable solution to
the prison crowding problem."
The parties were not able to reach an agreement during the
meet-and-confer process. As a result, the Court ordered
briefing on the State's requested extension and, on February 10,
2014, issued an order extending the deadline to reduce the
in-state adult institution population to 137.5% design capacity
to February 28, 2016. The order requires the state to meet the
following interim and final population reduction benchmarks:
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.
If a benchmark is missed the Compliance Officer (a position
created by the February 10, 2016 order) can order the release of
inmates to bring the State into compliance with that benchmark.
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In a status report to the Court dated May 15, 2014, the state
reported that as of May 14, 2014, 116,428 inmates were housed in
the State's 34 adult institutions, which amounts to 140.8% of
design bed capacity, and 8,650 inmates were housed in
out-of-state facilities.
The ongoing prison overcrowding litigation indicates that prison
capacity and related issues concerning conditions of confinement
remain unresolved. While real gains in reducing the prison
population have been made, even greater reductions may be
required to meet the orders of the federal court. Therefore,
the Committee's consideration of ROCA bills -bills that may
impact the prison population - will be informed by the following
questions:
Whether a measure erodes realignment and impacts the
prison population;
Whether a measure addresses a crime which is directly
dangerous to the physical safety of others for which there
is no other reasonably appropriate sanction;
Whether a bill corrects a constitutional infirmity or
legislative drafting error;
Whether a measure proposes penalties which are
proportionate, and cannot be achieved through any other
reasonably appropriate remedy; and,
Whether a bill addresses a major area of public safety
or criminal activity for which there is no other
reasonable, appropriate remedy.
COMMENTS
1.Need for This Bill
According to the author:
Family Justice Centers are a best practice model for
delivering supportive services to victims of various
crimes, but mostly focused on victims of sexual and
domestic abuse. This model works by bringing together
specialized resources in one location to provide
better and more convenient services to victims and
their children. The key difference between Family
Justice Centers and other multi-disciplinary models is
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the presence of police officers and prosecutors.
The full-time presence of these criminal justice
system professionals in Family Justice Centers creates
special issues, necessitates special policies and
procedures and requires separate definitions in state
law to protect victim confidentiality and promote
responsible information sharing among community-based
and government-based agencies.
Each service provider at Family Justice Centers is
bound by the standards of their respective profession;
however there is currently no over-arching structure
in law defining the boundaries between these
partnerships.
This is unacceptable because there are currently 17
Family Justice Center's operating in California with
six additional sites under development. Last year,
California Family Justice Centers helped 14,000
clients.
This bill will ensure that helping victims is the
first priority at Family Justice Centers.
Specifically, AB 1623 will protect victims by
explicitly stating that they need not participate in
the criminal justice system in order to obtain
services and that informed client consent is required
before information can be shared among partner
agencies
In 2011, the legislature adopted legislation (SB 557)
to study four Family Justice Centers in California,
with the goal of the identifying challenges to the
effectiveness of these centers. One of the
recommendations of that study was that all family
justice centers should implement policies to ensure
that survivors of abuse do not have to involve the
criminal justice system in order to access services
and that no information be shared with law enforcement
without the victim's agreement.
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2.Background: Family Justice Centers as Multiagency,
Multi-disciplinary Service Models
The FJC model was originally developed in San Diego, which
opened a center in 2002. The idea behind the FJC model is to
create a coordinated, single-point-of-access center offering
comprehensive services for victims of domestic violence, thereby
reducing the number of locations a victim must visit in order to
receive critical services. The United States Department of
Justice, through its Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), has
identified the FJC model as a best practice in the field of
domestic violence. According to the OVW, FJC outcomes include:
a reduction in the rate of homicide; increased victim safety;
improved offender prosecution; reduced fear and anxiety for
victims and their children; increased efficiency among service
providers through the provision of collaborative services; and
increased community support for the provision of services to
victims and their children. (Casey Gwinn and Gael Strack, Hope
for Hurting Families: Creating Family Justice Centers Across
America (Volcano Press 2006).) According to the author, there
are currently seventeen FJCs in California and another six under
development.
In 2011, the Legislature enacted a pilot project to establish
FJCs in San Diego, Anaheim, and Alameda and Sonoma counties. (SB
557 (Kehoe), Chap. 262, Stats. 2011.) The two-year pilot
project was in place through January 1, 2014 and required an
evaluation of the four centers to be reported to the
Legislature. The evaluation was to include, among other things,
subjective and objective measurements of the impacts of
co-located multi-agency services on victims and their children,
barriers to receiving needed services, and any recommended best
practices and model protocols.
The evaluation found that the pilots "successfully served a
significant number of survivors and addressed multiple service
needs, supporting the need for co-located multi-agency service
models." (EMT Associates, Inc., Final Evaluation Results: Phase
II California Family Justice Initiative: Statewide Evaluation
(July 2013) (FJC Report).) The FJC Report revealed that
domestic violence victims "benefited from a comprehensive
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service approach that considered the context of a safe and
supportive environment, an all-in-one service approach that
included the therapeutic and legal needs of survivors, and
individualized services that emphasized emotional support and
survivors getting the help that they needed. These benefits
combined to form a 'whole system approach' that is greater than
the sum of its parts. The importance of a supportive approach
that integrates both legal and therapeutic needs of survivors in
a multi-level approach that considers context, process, and
individualized services has been identified in the research and
was central in these findings." (Id. at 3.)
The FJC Report also found that the biggest barrier to obtaining
services from a FJC was the lack of awareness of the FJC itself.
In addition, the evaluation found that victims had concerns and
misinformation about immigration and child welfare issues before
coming to the FJC, but reported concerns largely dissipated
after visiting the FJC. Specifically, "survivors concerns
included fear of deportation, fear of having children removed,
and a lack of awareness of legal services to address immigration
and citizenship" (Id. at 4.)
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The FJC Report made a number of recommendations for FJC
operations, mostly regarding improved data collection and
reporting, to enable more robust evaluations of FJCs and to
further improve service delivery at FJCs.
3.Confidentiality and Privacy Protections
California law provides that confidential communications between
victims and sexual assault counselors, domestic violence
counselors, and human trafficking caseworkers are privileged
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 1035, et seq.)
Under the federal Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), medical records and other
personal health information are confidential, subject to
specified exceptions and procedures. (Pub. Law 104-191; 45 CFR
Pts. 160, 164.) In fact, 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.
FJCs, where law enforcement, domestic violence counselors and
even medical personnel are co-located together, raise both
privacy and confidentiality issues. Victims of domestic
violence and other victims of crime serviced by FJCs will often
provide personal health information or undergo counseling or
medical examinations - which would fall under medical privacy
and privilege laws. To address those concerns, the bill
contains a number of provisions designed to both safeguard
information and ensure that victims using the FJC understand how
their information may be shared between FJC member staff and
other FJC professionals.
Each FJC must maintain a client consent policy that is in
compliance with all state and federal laws protecting the
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victim's confidentiality, including, but not limited to,
confidentiality of medical, legal, and victim counselor records.
A victim must not be required to sign a client consent form to
share information in order to access services from the FJC.
Under the bill, each FJC 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.<1>
The bill also requires each FJC to obtain informed, written,
reasonably time limited, consent from a victim before sharing
information obtained from that victim with any FJC staff member
or partner. A FJC is not, however, required to obtain consent
from the victim before sharing information from the victim with
a staff member or partner if the person is a mandated reporter,
a peace officer, or a member of the prosecution team and is
required to report or disclose specific information or
incidents. Mandatory reporters are required to inform the
victim that they may share information from the victim without
his or her consent. Additionally, each FJC must inform the
victim that information shared with staff members or partner
agencies at a FJC may be shared with law enforcement
professionals without the victim's consent where there is a
mandatory duty to report, or the victim is a danger to
themselves or others. Each FJC must obtain written
acknowledgement that the victim has been informed of this
policy.
The bill prohibits the disclosure, to any third party, of any
oral or written communication or any document authorized by the
victim to be shared for the purposes of enhancing safety and
providing more effective and efficient services to the victim,
unless that third-party disclosure is authorized by the victim,
or required by other state or federal law or by court order.
Additionally, disclosure of information authorized by the victim
in a FJC, made for the purposes of clinical assessment, risk
assessment, safety planning, or service delivery, is not a
waiver of specified privileges, including lawyer-client
privilege, physician-patient privilege, or domestic violence
counselor-victim privilege.
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<1> The Fair Information Practice Principles are privacy
principles established by the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security for protecting personal information.
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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. The
bill clarifies that crime victims are not required to
participate in the criminal justice system or cooperate with law
enforcement in order to receive counseling, medical care, or
other services from the FJC.
Finally, each FJC is required to maintain a formal mandatory
training program for all staff members, volunteers, and agency
professionals on, among other things, privilege, confidentiality
and information sharing.
4.Integrated Services for Crime Victims
The objective of an FJC is to bring all victim services together
under one roof to provide enhanced assistance to victims.
According to those in support, in order for those various public
and private groups to work together optimally, collaboration and
coordination is key. This bill seeks to enhance that
collaboration in two ways. First, each FJC must consult with
community-based victims' organizations, as well as the victims
themselves and their advocates, in the operations process of the
FJCs. Second, the FJCs must establish procedures for ongoing
input, feedback and evaluation of the FJCs by victims, advocates
and service providers, along with a complaint process. These
required lines of communication should help improve not only the
collaboration among the various stakeholders, but also the
services delivered to victims.
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