BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair S
2013-2014 Regular Session B
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SB 1198 (Hancock) 8
As Amended March 25, 2014
Hearing date: April 8, 2014
Penal Code
AA:mc
JUVENILE JUSTICE:
DATA AND INFORMATION
HISTORY
Source: Human Rights Watch
Prior Legislation: SB 314 (Alpert) - Ch. 468, Stats. 2001
Support: California Catholic Conference of Bishops; Friends
Committee on Legislation of California;
California Alliance for Youth and Community Justice; National
Center for Youth Law; Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice;
Youth Law Center; W. Haywood Burns
Institute
Opposition:None known
KEY ISSUE
SHOULD MORE INFORMATION AND DATA REGARDING YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS BE
COLLECTED AND MADE AVAILABLE PUBLICLY, AS SPECIFIED?
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PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to expand the kind of juvenile data
now collected and reported on by the Department of Justice
(DOJ), including 1) data broken down by county of commitment; 2)
data describing how minors who are remanded to adult court get
there (by a decision of the court, the district attorney, or as
a matter of law) and outcomes from each of these remand
mechanisms; 3) data indicating how many inmates are in prison
for crimes committed when they were under the age of 21, broken
down by offense, age, gender, ethnicity and county of
commitment; and 4) an Internet web-based database operated by
DOJ containing more detailed information about juvenile
offenders, in a format that would allow users to query the
system and download requested subsets of information, as
specified.
The California Constitution provides that, subject "to the
powers and duties of the Governor, the Attorney General shall be
the chief law officer of the State. It shall be the duty of the
Attorney General to see that the laws of the State are uniformly
and adequately enforced. The Attorney General shall have direct
supervision over every district attorney and sheriff and over
such other law enforcement officers as may be designated by law,
in all matters pertaining to the duties of their respective
offices, and may require any of said officers to make reports
concerning the investigation, detection, prosecution, and
punishment of crime in their respective jurisdictions as to the
Attorney General may seem advisable. Whenever in the opinion of
the Attorney General any law of the State is not being
adequately enforced in any county, it shall be the duty of the
Attorney General to prosecute any violations of law of which the
superior court shall have jurisdiction, and in such cases the
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Attorney General shall have all the powers of a district
attorney. When required by the public interest or directed by
the Governor, the Attorney General shall assist any district
attorney in the discharge of the duties of that office." (Cal.
Const. Art. V � 13.)
Current law provides that the Attorney General is the head of
the Department of Justice ("DOJ"). (Government Code � 12510.)
Current law requires DOJ to "present to the Governor, on or
before July 1st, an annual report containing the criminal
statistics of the preceding calendar year and to present at
other times as the Attorney General may approve reports on
special aspects of criminal statistics. A sufficient number of
copies of all reports shall be prepared to enable the Attorney
General to send a copy to all public officials in the state
dealing with criminals and to distribute them generally in
channels where they will add to the public enlightenment."
(Penal Code � 13010(g).)
Current law requires this report to contain statistics showing
all of the following:
(a) The amount and the types of offenses known to the
public authorities.
(b) The personal and social characteristics of
criminals and delinquents.
(c) The administrative actions taken by law
enforcement, judicial, penal, and correctional
agencies or institutions, including those in the
juvenile justice system, in dealing with criminals or
delinquents.
(d) The administrative actions taken by law
enforcement, prosecutorial, judicial, penal, and
correctional agencies, including those in the juvenile
justice system, in dealing with minors who are the
subject of a petition or hearing in the juvenile court
to transfer their case to the jurisdiction of an adult
criminal court or whose cases are directly filed or
otherwise initiated in an adult criminal court.
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(e) The number of citizens' complaints received by law
enforcement agencies under Section 832.5. These
statistics shall indicate the total number of these
complaints, the number alleging criminal conduct of
either a felony or misdemeanor, and the number
sustained in each category. The report shall not
contain a reference to any individual agency but shall
be by gross numbers only.
It shall be the duty of the department to give
adequate interpretation of the statistics and so to
present the information that it may be of value in
guiding the policies of the Legislature and of those
in charge of the apprehension, prosecution, and
treatment of the criminals and delinquents, or
concerned with the prevention of crime and
delinquency. The report shall also include statistics
which are comparable with national uniform criminal
statistics published by federal bureaus or departments
heretofore mentioned. (Penal Code � 13012 (emphasis
added).)
Current law requires DOJ to "collect data pertaining to the
juvenile justice system for criminal history and statistical
purposes. This information shall serve to assist the department
in complying with the reporting requirement of subdivisions (c)
and (d) of Section 13012, measuring the extent of juvenile
delinquency, determining the need for and effectiveness of
relevant legislation, and identifying long-term trends in
juvenile delinquency. Any data collected pursuant to this
section may include criminal history information which may be
used by the department to comply with the requirements of
Section 602.5 of the Welfare and Institutions Code." (Penal
Code � 13010.5.)
Current law requires the following information be included in
the annual report described above concerning juvenile justice:
(1) The annual number of fitness hearings held in the
juvenile courts under Section 707 of the Welfare and
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Institutions Code, and the outcomes of those hearings
including orders to remand to adult criminal court,
cross-referenced with information about the age,
gender, ethnicity, and offense of the minors whose
cases are the subject of those fitness hearings.
(2) The annual number of minors whose cases are filed
directly in adult criminal court under Sections 602.5
and 707 of the Welfare and Institutions Code,
cross-referenced with information about the age,
gender, ethnicity, and offense of the minors whose
cases are filed directly to the adult criminal court.
(3) The outcomes of cases involving minors who are
prosecuted in adult criminal courts, regardless of how
adult court jurisdiction was initiated, including
whether the minor was acquitted or convicted, or
whether the case was dismissed and returned to
juvenile court, including sentencing outcomes,
cross-referenced with the age, gender, ethnicity, and
offense of the minors subject to these court actions.
(b) The department's annual report published under
Section 13010 shall include the information described
in subdivision (d) of Section 13012, as further
delineated by this section, beginning with the report
due on July 1, 2003, for the preceding calendar year.
(Penal Code � 13012.5.)
This bill would amend this section to do all of the following:
Expand this provision to include "county level"
information;
Include commitment county in the adult court data
described in (1) above;
With respect to adult court filings described in (2)
above, provide that data be classified according to the
manner in which adult court jurisdiction was initiated, and
include commitment county;
With respect to outcomes from adult court filings
described in (3) above, provide that the data be classified
according to the manner in which adult court jurisdiction
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was initiated, and include length of time in custody prior
to disposition, sentencing outcomes and commitment county;
and
Add to the required data, the total number of people who
were under 21 years of age at the time of their offenses
who are currently committed to the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation cross-referenced with the
age, gender, ethnicity, commitment county, and offense of
the individuals.
This bill would require DOJ to post on its Internet Web site all
of the juvenile information described above "in a format that
allows a user to query and download the information for the most
recent reporting year and for prior years or reporting cycles
for which the information is available."
This bill also would require DOJ to post on its Internet Web
site individual offender information used to compile the
juvenile information described above including, but not limited
to (1) the offender's residence ZIP Code at the time of the
offense; and (2) the number of the offender's adjudications
prior to the offense.
This bill would require DOJ to "post on its Internet Web site
annually the number of people under 21 years of age at the time
of their offenses who were sentenced to state prison, including
those sentenced to state prison who were ordered to serve their
terms in a county facility, and the number of those people who
were still serving sentences at yearend, the offense, the
sentence and enhancement for each offense, cross-referenced with
the person's age at the time of the offense, gender, ethnicity,
commitment county, and date of offense."
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the last several years, severe overcrowding in California's
prisons has been the focus of evolving and expensive litigation
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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
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
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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.
In a status report to the Court dated February 18, 2014, the
state reported that as of February 12, 2014, California's 33
prisons were at 144.3 percent capacity, with 117,686 inmates.
8,768 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,
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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. Stated Need for This Bill
The author states:
Existing law requires the California Department of
Justice (DOJ) to present a report to the Governor
annually that contains the statewide criminal
statistics of the preceding year, including specified
information about the minors who were charged and
convicted as adults in criminal court.
Current statistical requirements were developed
shortly after Proposition 21 took effect in 2000,
which vastly expanded the circumstances under which
juveniles in California may be handled in the adult
criminal system. In 2001, the Penal Code was amended
to add Section 13012.5 which lists specific data
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elements that the DOJ must annually collect and report
on juveniles tried as adults.
As a result of Proposition 21, prosecutors gained the
authority to file juvenile cases directly in adult
criminal court without a fitness hearing in the
juvenile court. Moreover, filing in adult court
became automatic for homicide and other listed serious
crimes. Throughout the state, the number of juveniles
who are handled in the adult system has grown
significantly since 2001. However, the data
requirements adopted in 2001 fall short of what is
needed to provide a full and accurate picture of
transfers, direct files and important sentencing
consequences. For example, data that is currently
collected does not disaggregate adult court outcomes
by the mechanism of transfer to the adult court. Only
statewide rather than county-level data are reported,
and important sentencing details for these cases are
lacking. Policymakers, researchers and the public
need to know more about the social, economic,
corrections and public safety consequences surrounding
these critical cases. Better access to individual
data is needed to assess sentencing practices related
to the adoption of SB 260 (Hancock, 2013) and to
California Supreme Court sentencing decisions such as
People v. Caballero 55 Cal.4th 262 (2012).
SB 1198 will require the DOJ to expand the collection
and reporting statistics on minors whose cases are
handled in adult criminal court. This bill seeks to
provide policymakers and the public with a better
understanding of the criminal justice system as well
as the background of minors being charged as adults.
It will also require that the DOJ continue to post
information required in the annual report on their
website but to do so in a format that allows users to
query and download the material.
2. What This Bill Would Do
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As explained in detail above, this bill would expand the kind of
juvenile data now collected and reported on by DOJ. The key new
features this bill would provide include:
Data broken down by county of commitment;
How minors who are remanded to adult court get there -
by a decision of the court, the district attorney, or as a
matter of law - and outcomes from each of these remand
mechanisms; and
How many inmates are in prison for crimes committed when
they were under the age of 21, broken down by offense, age,
gender, ethnicity and county of commitment.
In addition, this bill would require DOJ to post certain
information concerning juvenile crime and offenders on its
website, including in a format that allows users to query the
system and download requested subsets of information, as
specified.
3. Background: Juvenile Justice Data in California
Currently, the state's key source of annual data concerning
juvenile offenders is prepared by DOJ, Juvenile Justice in
California. The most recently-available report is from 2011.<1>
As explained in that report:
Juvenile Justice in California 2011 provides insight
into the juvenile justice process by reporting the
number of arrests, referrals to probation departments,
petitions filed, and dispositions for juveniles tried
in juvenile and adult courts. Law enforcement agencies
provide information on the number of arrests, and
probation departments provide information on the types
of offenses and administrative actions taken by
juvenile and adult courts.
The California Department of Justice (DOJ) is required
to collect and report statistics on juvenile justice
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<1> The annual report is due on or before July 1st.
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in California. Since 1947, the DOJ's Criminal Justice
Statistics Center has compiled and published data on
California's juvenile justice system. Juvenile
Justice in California 2011 reflects data extracted
from the Juvenile Court and Probation Statistical
System. . . . Referral and petition statistics
reported in Juvenile Justice in California 2011 are
compiled from
data submitted by 57 of California's 58 counties,
representing over 99 percent of the state's juvenile
population. Sierra County is not included in the
referral and petition sections of this report.
Juvenile Justice in California 2011 presents juvenile
justice statistics in four sections: Arrests,
Referrals, Petitions, and Adult Court Dispositions.
The arrest data were reported by law enforcement
agencies and law enforcement referral data were
reported by probation departments. Comparisons
between arrest data and referral data should not be
made because of differences in the way data were
reported between the two sources. . . .<2>
The 2011 report contains the following information about
juvenile offenders remanded to adult court that year:
Of the 548 adult-level court dispositions received:
93.4 percent (512) were for males.
6.6 percent (36) were for females.
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<2>
http://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/cjsc/publications/mi
sc/jj11/preface.pdf?
3.5 percent (19) were for juveniles 14
years of age.
10.0 percent (55) were for juveniles 15
years of age.
28.5 percent (156) were for juveniles 16
years of age.
58.0 percent (318) were for juveniles 17
years of age.
8.8 percent (48) were white.
55.5 percent (304) were Hispanic.
28.5 percent (156) were black.
The other race/ethnic group accounted for
7.3 percent (40) of the dispositions.
Of the 548 adult-level court dispositions received:
84.1 percent (461) resulted in a
conviction.
14.2 percent (78) were dismissed.
1.1 percent (6) were acquitted.
0.4 percent (2) were certified to
juvenile court.
0.2 percent (1) were diversions
dismissed.
Regardless of gender, age, and race/ethnicity
juveniles in adult court were convicted in the
majority of cases.
Females were more likely to receive a
dismissed (22.2 percent) and certified to
juvenile court (2.8 percent) disposition compared to
males (13.7 percent and 0.2
percent, respectively).
Juveniles 14 years old were more likely
to have a dismissed disposition (21.1 percent)
compared to other age groups.
In general, the younger the juvenile the
greater the likelihood for a dismissed
disposition. The older the juvenile, the greater
likelihood for a convicted disposition.
A greater percentage of Hispanic
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juveniles received a convicted disposition (88.2
percent) compared to all other race/ethnic
groups.
Hispanic juveniles were also the least
likely to receive a dismissed dispositions (9.9
percent) compared to all other race/ethnic
groups.
Of the 461 convictions received:
63.8 percent (294) were sentenced to
adult prison or the Division of Juvenile Justice
(DJJ).
30.4 percent (140) received probation
with jail.
2.2 percent (10) received probation.
1.7 percent (8) received jail.
1.5 percent (7) received another
sentence.
0.4 percent (2) received a fine.
Males were more likely than females to be
sent to adult prison or the Division of Juvenile
Justice (65.9 vs. 29.6 percent).
Females were more likely to be sentenced
to probation with jail than were males (66.7 vs.
28.1 percent).
Regardless of age, juveniles convicted in
adult court were most likely to be sentenced to
adult prison or the Division of Juvenile Justice.
Regardless of race/ethnic group,
juveniles convicted in adult court were most
likely sentenced to adult prison or the Division
of Juvenile Justice.
In addition to the annual report on juvenile justice, DOJ also
maintains the following data relevant to juvenile offenders:
The Monthly Arrest and Citation Register (MACR) database
provides information on felony and misdemeanor level
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arrests for adults and juveniles and status offenses (e.g.,
truancy, incorrigibility, running away, and curfew
violations) for juveniles. The following data elements are
included in this file: race/ethnicity, date of birth,
gender, date of arrest, offense level, status of the
offense, and law enforcement disposition. MACR data are
published in Crime in California, Homicide in California,
Juvenile Justice in California, and the Criminal Justice
Profile series. Age, gender, race/ethnicity, and offense
information from the MACR are forwarded to the FBI for
publication in Crime in the United States. The MACR data,
in a consistent format, is available from 1979 to the
present.
The Juvenile Court and Probation Statistical System
(JCPSS) database is designed to collect, compile, and
report statistical data on the administration of juvenile
justice in California. It provides information on a
juvenile's process through the juvenile justice system from
probation intake to final case disposition. Data from the
JCPSS database is available in an electronic format from
2004 to the present.<3>
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<3> http://oag.ca.gov/cjsc/databases.