BILL ANALYSIS Ó SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair 2015 - 2016 Regular Session AB 71 (Rodriguez) - Criminal justice: reporting ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Version: July 6, 2015 |Policy Vote: PUB. S. 7 - 0 | | | | |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes | | | | |--------------------------------+--------------------------------| | | | |Hearing Date: August 17, 2015 |Consultant: Jolie Onodera | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. Bill Summary: AB 71 would require law enforcement agencies to annually report to the Department of Justice (DOJ) incidents involving the use of force by and against peace officers, and incidents of peace officer-involved shootings, as specified. Fiscal Impact: Potentially significant one-time and ongoing state-reimbursable local costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (General Fund) annually to track and report the detailed information for each type of incident. Initial costs would be dependent on the tool prescribed for data reporting by the DOJ. Annual costs would be dependent on the number of incidents subject to the reporting requirements and the associated workload to collect and report this data. One-time significant costs potentially in the hundreds of AB 71 (Rodriguez) Page 1 of ? thousands of dollars (General Fund) to the DOJ to develop the database and complete programming to enable reporting of the specified data by law enforcement agencies. Minor ongoing costs for DOJ to report the specified incident data for its own officers. Minor, absorbable impact to the California Highway Patrol (CHP), Department of State Hospitals (DSH), Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), and the Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW), assuming the number of incidents to be reported is minimal. Background: In response to the rash of highly publicized deaths of civilians by peace officers, and amid protests in numerous cities across the nation, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order on December 18, 2014, creating the Task Force on 21st Century Policing in an effort to strengthen community policing and trust among law enforcement officers and the communities they serve. In its Final Report of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, dated May 18, 2015, with respect to policy and oversight, the Task Force recommended the following: To achieve this end, law enforcement agencies should have clear and comprehensive policies on the use of force (including training on the importance of de-escalation), mass demonstrations (including the appropriate use of equipment, particularly rifles and armored personnel carriers), consent before searches, gender identification, racial profiling, and performance measures - among others such as external and independent investigations and prosecutions of officer-involved shootings and other use of force situations and in-custody deaths. These policies should also include provisions for the collection of demographic data on all parties involved. All policies and aggregate data should be made publicly available to ensure transparency. Additionally, U.S. Senators Boxer and Booker recently introduced S. 1476, the Police Reporting Information, Data and Evidence Act of 2015 (PRIDE Act) on June 2, 2015. This bill would authorize federal grants to eligible states to report annually to the U.S. DOJ on any incident in which a law enforcement officer is AB 71 (Rodriguez) Page 2 of ? involved in a shooting, and any other instance in which use of force by or against a law enforcement officer or civilian results in serious bodily injury or death. This bill was recently referred to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. This bill seeks to enact state statute requiring data collection and reporting by state and local law enforcement agencies consistent with the data reporting requirement included in the pending federal legislation. Proposed Law: This bill would require, commencing January 1, 2017, each law enforcement agency to annually furnish to the DOJ in a manner defined and prescribed by the AG, a report of all instances when a peace officer employed by that agency is involved in any of the following: An incident involving the shooting of a civilian by a peace officer. An incident involving the shooting of a peace officer by a civilian. An incident in which the use of force by a peace officer against a civilian results in serious bodily injury or death. An incident in which the use of force by a civilian against a peace officer results in serious bodily injury or death. For each incident reported above, this bill requires the information reported to the DOJ to include the following information: The gender, race, and age of each individual who was shot, injured, or killed. The date, time, and location of the incident. Whether the civilian was armed, and if so, the type of weapon. The type of force used against the officer, the civilian, or both, including the types of weapons used. The number of officers involved in the incident. The number of civilians involved in the incident. A brief description regarding the circumstances surrounding the incident, which may include the nature of injuries to officers and civilians and perceptions on behavior or mental disorders. AB 71 (Rodriguez) Page 3 of ? This bill requires the DOJ to annually include a summary of information contained in the reports in its annual crime report, as specified, classified according to the law enforcement jurisdiction. In cases involving a peace officer who is injured or killed, this bill requires the report to list the officer's employing jurisdiction and the jurisdiction where the injury or death occurred, if different. Related Legislation: S. 1476 (Boxer and Booker) 2015, The Police Reporting Information, Data and Evidence Act of 2015 (PRIDE Act), was introduced on June 2, 2015, and would authorize federal grants to eligible states to report annually to the U.S. DOJ on any incident in which a law enforcement officer is involved in a shooting, and any other instance in which use of force by or against a law enforcement officer or civilian results in serious bodily injury or death. This bill has been referred to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. AB 953 (Weber) 2015 would require each state and local agency that employs peace officers to annually report data to the AG on all "stops," as defined, conducted by the agency's peace officers, and require that data to include specified information. The bill would also require the AG to analyze the data collected, report its findings from the first analysis by January 1, 2019, issue reports each January 1, thereafter, and make the reports available to the public by posting them on the DOJ website. This bill is scheduled to be heard today by this Committee. Staff Comments: The DOJ could potentially incur one-time moderate costs in the mid- to high hundreds of thousands of dollars (General Fund) to develop the database and complete programming to enable reporting of the specified data by law enforcement agencies. This bill requires each state and local law enforcement agency report specified data to the DOJ on an annual basis. There are currently 482 cities and 58 counties in the State. While statewide costs cannot be estimated with certainty, given the AB 71 (Rodriguez) Page 4 of ? large number of local agencies and the types of data required to be collected and reported, these activities could result in significant one-time and ongoing costs, potentially in excess of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. To the extent local agency expenditures qualify as a reimbursable state mandate, agencies could claim reimbursement of those costs (General Fund). For context, the Commission on State Mandates' statewide cost estimate for Crime Statistics Reports for the DOJ reflects eligible reimbursement of over $13.6 million per year for slightly over 50 percent of local agencies reporting. The costs to individual agencies would vary widely and depend on various factors, including but not limited to the size of the agency, the number of incidents to be reported, the method of collecting the data (which is not specified in the bill), the workload involved to collect and report the data as prescribed by the DOJ, and any potential training conducted by each agency. The CHP has indicated the costs associated with meeting the reporting requirements of this bill would be absorbable. Although the bill increases workload associated with the reporting of specified incidents, the CHP has indicated these types of incidents are infrequent, and the reporting requirements are not anticipated to create a significant burden on existing resources. -- END --