AB 2010 (Chau): This bill would prohibit an
officer or employee of a juvenile facility, as defined, from
possessing any chemical agent, as defined, in a juvenile
facility. The bill would allow pepper spray to be used in a
juvenile facility as a last resort when necessary to suppress a
riot when authorized by a juvenile facility administrator or
designee. The bill would require that all use of pepper spray be
documented, as provided. The Board of State and Community
Corrections (BSCC) acted to provide juveniles in local detention
facilities additional protections by enacting regulations that
would limit the use of chemical agents in juvenile facilities in
a manner that helps to maintain the safety and security of these
facilities. Assembly Bill 2010 fails to take such a measured
approach and employs a very restrictive standard that could put
both juveniles and the facilities at risk. CSAC is opposed to AB
2010.
SB 931(Hertzberg): This bill would amend the
Lanterman-Petris-Short Act to specify that custody status cannot
be used as the sole reason to postpone the psychiatric
conservatorship evaluation process. Under existing law and
practice, individuals suffering from severe mental illness often
find themselves confined in the county jail for substantial
periods of time, and are not evaluated for conservatorship status
and appropriate treatment options until the conclusion of their
criminal case. Delaying conservatorship evaluations often has the
effect of keeping these persons in custody longer than necessary.
Senate Bill 931 seeks to address this issue by prohibiting a
conservatorship investigator from failing to schedule an
investigation based solely upon the custody status of the
individual. CSAC supports SB 931.
SB 1303 (Pan): This bill would require that counties with
a population greater than 500,000 separate the office of
sheriff-coroner and establish a new medical examiner office.
Currently, county boards of supervisors have the statutory power
to do this. SB 1303 would have significant fiscal impacts on the
larger counties by requiring them to create the new office and
would put forensic pathologists in the role of administrator
instead of performing exams. Ultimately, SB 1303 would remove a
county’s local control to decide how to organize their
sheriff-coroner operations and could result in unnecessary
upheaval in counties. CSAC and UCC are opposed to SB 1303.
