Governor Newsom signed 870 bills into law this year. To keep
counties informed of new laws that impact them, CSAC will be
publishing a series of articles to spotlight those laws in each
policy area. This week, the Administration of Justice policy
area provides information on new laws affecting a wide range of
subjects.
The new laws listed below become effective January 1, 2020 unless
noted otherwise.
The Judicial Council and the State Controller’s Office are
pleased to announce the annual Revenue Distribution WebEx
training session, offered to address impacts of newly enacted
legislation to trial court revenue distributions and provide
updates on other related areas of interest. Such as, the pending
bill that would consolidate collections reporting—read the latest
update on Assembly Bill 1818 (Stats. 2019, ch.637) here.
The National Association of Counties (NACo) is offering the
following opportunities that may be of interest to California
county officials involved with Administration of Justice.
Center for Juvenile Justice Reform 2020–2021 Length of
Stay Policy Academy
The Collaborative Comprehensive Case Plans: Facilitating
Behavioral Health Diversion webinar hosted by the California
Council on Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health and the
California Department of State Hospitals (DSH), with funding
support from the California Council on Criminal Justice and
Behavioral Health, will be held on Tuesday, October 29
from 11:30 am – 12:00 pm.
Last week, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC)
released a report titled “Just the Facts: Racial Disparities in
California Arrests.” The report makes the following findings:
The Council of Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health (CCJBH) is
hosting community engagement events throughout the state and
would like to encourage County participation.
Please join the Council on Criminal Justice and Behavioral
Health (CCJBH) for their upcoming Housing Issues, Opportunities
and Resources Workshop on September 18 from 1– 4:30
PM. The meeting location is to be announced. The
purpose of this workshop is to discuss, with critical system
partners, policy and program implementation, identify strategies
to increase housing outcomes, and funding resources for
justice-involved individuals experiencing behavioral health
challenges.
The National Reentry Resource Center, with funding support
from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice
Assistance, will host a the Behavioral Health Needs Framework and
Collaborative Comprehensive Case Plans webinar on September 4
from 11 AM to 12:30 PM.
Last week, the Judicial Council awarded millions of dollars to
fund
pretrial projects in 16 trial courts throughout the state.
This year’s state budget earmarked $75 million to the Judicial
Council to launch and evaluate two-year pretrial projects in
local trial courts.
As the Legislature returns from summer recess, the CSAC
Administration of Justice staff continue to engage in the below
bills as they move through the last month of the legislative
session.
The Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) is requesting
comments on the Adult Reentry Grant Program – Rehabilitation of
Existing Property and Building Draft Request for Proposals (RFP).
The Adult Reentry Grant Program was established in the Budget Act
of 2018 (Senate Bill 840, Chapter 29, Statute of 2018). The grant
program is aimed at providing support to individuals formerly
incarcerated in state prison. SB 840 dedicated $15,000,000 for
the rehabilitation of existing property or buildings for housing
people released from prison.
On behalf of the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, we are pleased to announce that the Division of
Rehabilitative Programs has released a Request for Applications
(RFA) for Round Six of the Innovative Programming Grants for
Victim Impact programs.
CSAC has created a Juvenile Hall Utilization Work Group to
discuss the use of local juvenile detention facility beds
throughout California, as juvenile justice has undergone a
variety of reforms in the past decade.
AB 597 (Levine) extends the sunset date by two years on the
use of “flash incarceration,” which is a period of detention of
up to ten days in a county jail without going before a judge, for
a violation of an offender’s conditions of probation or mandatory
supervision. CSAC supported AB 597, which was sponsored by the
Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC) and signed into law
by the Governor on July 1.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra recently released five
annual criminal justice reports that provide law enforcement
agencies and the public with statewide data on criminal justice
statistics. The reports, as well as the data behind each report,
can be accessed via the OpenJustice website.
A new proposal based on the work of the Commission on the
Future of California’s Court System, seeks to
decriminalize minor traffic offenses by making traffic
infractions a civil violation rather than a criminal violation.
The Futures Traffic Working Group is proposing Judicial
Council-sponsored legislation and is requesting comments on the
proposal.
California’s 2017 wildfire season was devastating. State of
emergencies were declared by the Governor for the record-breaking
fires in October and December for 13 counties in both Southern
and Northern California. Then, while California was still
recovering, it was struck with the deadliest and most destructive
wildfire in our state’s history: the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte
County killed 85 people, burned 153,336 acres and destroyed
18,804 structures.
The Board of State and Community Corrections today approved grant
awards for three programs. The first is the second round of
Proposition 47 funding approved by the Board, to which voters
allocated the bulk of the state savings for rehabilitative grants
targeting Prop 47-impacted individuals. Approximately $96 million
will go to 23 applicants whose rehabilitative programs were
deemed most promising.
The Council of Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health (CCJBH), is
hosting a kick-off event for the Lived Experience
Stakeholder Engagement process. The process will begin this
summer and continue into the winter, culminating in an RFP to
award competitive grants, as well as written summary reports and
possible recommendations for future activities. Attached
is the draft agenda.
CSAC is excited to announce a grant from Blue Shield of
California for domestic violence recidivism prevention. The grant
funding will allow CSAC to provide research and technical
assistance necessary to create a domestic violence analytical
tool, support a six-county pilot project testing innovative
strategies for preventing recidivism in cases of domestic
violence, and convene a statewide conference in
November.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) recently released a report
to the Legislature regarding the Governor’s proposal to move the
Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) from the California Department
of Corrections and Rehabilitation to the Health and Human
Services Agency.
The LAO opines that there is a lack of detail on how exactly the
Governor envisions this proposal, so the report recommends that
the Legislature consider the trade-offs of making this change,
and presents a series of questions. These questions include:
The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) recently
released a report titled “A Closer Look at Women’s Arrest Rates.”
The report looked at data between 1980 and 2016, and found that
arrest rates in California have dropped for both men and women,
however, the arrest rates have dropped significantly more for men
than women.
NACo is hosting a webinar, Meeting the Needs of Individuals
with Substance Use Disorders: Strategies for Jails, on April
18 from 11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. This webinar will
highlight strategies counties can use to effectively treat
individuals with substance use disorders in the jail, including
the use substance abuse screenings, medicated-assisted treatment
and population review teams.
CSAC is pleased to support
Assembly Bill 597 by Assembly Member Marc Levine. This
measure would extend the sunset date from January 1, 2020 to
January 1, 2026 for county probation departments authorized use
of flash incarceration for probation violations.
The National Stepping Up
Initiative was launched in May 2015 to elevate the crisis of
too many people with mental illnesses in jails and to provide
counties with tools and resources to create sustainable and
data-driven plans to address this challenge. In the four years
since the launch, more than 475 counties have passed a resolution
or proclamation committing to act on this issue.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra recently announced a
new application window for a grant program that provides funds to
cities and counties to help conduct audits of their untested
victim sexual assault evidence kits. Untested Sexual Assault
Evidence Grants are intended to assist in determining the number
of untested victim sexual assault evidence kits throughout
California.
The California Health Facilities Financing Authority (CHFA)
invites counties to submit applications for the Community
Services Infrastructure Grant Program (CSIGP) funding. The
deadline to apply is April 30, 2019 at
5 p.m. The application is available on the CSIGP webpage
on CHFFA’s website.
The National Association of Counties (NACo) and The Pew
Charitable Trusts will host a webinar,
Rigorous Evidence 101 & Research Clearinghouses, on March
27 from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Staff from the
Pew-MacArthur Results First Initiative (Results First) will
provide a brief overview of different types of evidence, explain
what constitutes rigorous evidence and discuss how to find it by
accessing research clearinghouses.
The Council on Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health
(CCJBH) will meet on March 21 from 9 a.m. to 3
p.m. at the California Department of Veterans Affairs, Medal
of Honor Hall at 1227 O Street in Sacramento.
The agenda topics will include the story of a county’s commitment
to reduce the incarceration of individuals with behavioral health
issues, especially those with complex needs, through robust
partnerships between criminal justice and behavioral health
systems despite limited resources.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office recently released the
Overview of State Criminal Fines and Fees and Probation Fees
handout. The handout was presented to the Assembly Public Safety
Committee at their Informational Hearing on the Financial
Implications of Criminal Justice Fines and Fees held February
5th.
