(1) Existing law, the California Emergency Services Act, creates within the office of the Governor, the Office of Emergency Services, which is responsible for addressing natural, technological, or manmade disasters and emergencies. Existing law generally provides for the compensation of victims and derivative victims of specified types of crimes by the California Victim Compensation Board from the Restitution Fund.
This bill would establish the Flexible Assistance for Survivors (FAS) pilot grant program, to be administered by the Office of Emergency Services. The bill would require the office to establish a grant selection advisory committee to provide grants to qualifying community-based organizations to establish assistance funds to distribute in direct cash assistance to survivors, as defined.
This bill would require the committee when considering grant applications to give preferences to certain organizations, including organizations that are located in, serve, and employ members of communities that experience disproportionately high rates of gun violence and imprisonment. The bill would restrict expenditure of grant funds for administrative expenses to no more than 10%, and would require organizations receiving an award to establish policies and procedures for distributing funds that comply with specified requirements.
This bill would require that cash assistance received under these provisions to be treated in the same manner as the federal earned income refund, as specified, for purposes of determining eligibility to receive specified benefits. The bill would require each grantee to report certain information to the office each year. The bill would require the office to post on its internet website a public report on the impact of the grant program before July 1, 2027, as specified, and would require the office to submit a progress report to the Legislature by July 1, 2025, as specified.
This bill would make the FAS pilot grant provisions inoperative on July 1, 2027, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2028.
Existing law authorizes a person who has been convicted of a felony, imprisoned or incarcerated, and granted a pardon because either the crime was not committed or the person was innocent of the crime to present a claim against the state to the California Victim Compensation Board for the pecuniary injury sustained by the person through the erroneous conviction and imprisonment or incarceration. Existing law requires the board, in cases in which evidence shows that a crime with which a claimant was charged was either not committed at all, or not committed by the claimant, to report the facts of the case and its conclusions to the Legislature with a recommendation that the Legislature make an appropriation for the purpose of indemnifying the claimant.
This bill would repeal the provisions requiring the board to submit a report and recommendation to the Legislature for the appropriation of funds for indemnifying a claimant. The bill would instead require the board to calculate compensation for the claimant, as specified, and approve payment to a claimant if sufficient funds are available upon appropriation by the Legislature. The bill would also provide immunity to the board from liability for damages for any decision on a claim pursuant to these provisions. The bill would require the board to report annually to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee on approved erroneous conviction claims paid in the previous year, as specified.
(2) Existing law authorizes each county to establish a Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund, and authorizes the state to annually allocate moneys into the State Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund to be used for specified purposes relating to improving local probation supervision practices and capacities.
Existing law requires the Director of Finance, in consultation with certain entities, to annually calculate a statewide performance incentive payment and a county performance incentive payment, based upon specified performance metrics, for each eligible county, and to distribute those payments in the following fiscal year, as specified. Existing law, for the 2021–22 fiscal year, instead appropriates $122,829,397 from the General Fund to the State Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund, in lieu of the general funding provisions, to be allocated to counties as specified.
This bill would appropriate $122,829,397 from the General Fund to the State Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund, again in lieu of the general funding provisions, to be allocated to counties in the same manner as in the 2021–22 fiscal year, in the 2022–23 and 2023–24 fiscal years.
(3) Existing law establishes the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to oversee the state prison system. Upon appropriation by the Legislature, existing law requires the department to award funding for a grant program to not-for-profit organizations to replicate their programs at institutions that are underserved by volunteer and not-for-profit organizations, as specified, and requires grant funding be provided to programs that have demonstrated success and focus on offender responsibility and restorative justice principles. Existing law requires these programs to demonstrate that they will become self-sufficient or will be funded in the long term by donations or another source of ongoing funding.
This bill would expand the types of eligible organizations to include not-for-profit organizations with experience in providing programming in a correctional setting. The bill would also remove the requirement that a program demonstrate it will become self-sufficient or funded in the long term.
Existing law also requires the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation to engage in various programs to provide rehabilitative and educational services to state prison inmates, including the California Reentry and Enrichment (CARE) , Grant program to provide grants to community-based organizations that provide rehabilitative services to incarcerated individuals.
This bill would establish the Delancey Street Restaurant Management Program to teach marketable skills useful to incarcerated persons for reemployment opportunities upon their release from state prison, including restaurant operation, service, and hospitality. The bill would exempt the program from specified statutes and regulations, including the Public Contract Code and the State Contracting Manual.
(4) Existing law, within the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, creates the Division of Juvenile Justice, headed by a director, to operate facilities to house specified juvenile offenders. Existing law requires the Division of Juvenile Justice to close on June 30, 2023, and provides for the transition of youth who are currently housed within a Division of Juvenile Justice facility to the care and custody of counties.
This bill would specify that, during the closure of the Division of Juvenile Justice, the director shall have the authority to transfer powers, functions, duties, and responsibilities of the division to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and, upon final closure of the division, all remaining powers, functions, and duties shall succeed to, and be vested with, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The bill would also specify that any action concerning the transferred powers, functions, duties, responsibilities, obligations, liabilities, and jurisdiction shall continue in the name of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The bill would also specify that no contract or agreement to which the division is a party shall be void or voidable by reason of its closure, but shall continue in full force and effect with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation assuming all of the rights, obligations, and duties of the division.
This bill, immediately prior to the closure of the division, would authorize specified persons 18 years of age or older who are subject to the custody, control, and discipline of the division to consent to voluntarily remain in institution under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The bill would provide a process for the person making that decision and place requirements for continued services on the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The bill would also, unless the committing court orders an alternative placement, upon closure of the division, require the State Department of State Hospitals to continue to provide evaluation, care, and treatment of state hospital patients referred to the division and would specify additional service and notifications required for those patients.
Existing law authorizes a juvenile court to order placement of a ward at the Pine Grove Youth Conservation Camp if specified criteria are met, including if the county has entered into a contract with the Division of Juvenile Justice and the division has found the ward amenable. Existing law authorizes the division to enter into contracts with counties to operate the Pine Grove Youth Conservation Camp through a state-local partnership, or other management arrangement, to train justice-involved youth in wildland firefighting.
This bill would transfer the duties of the Division of Juvenile Justice to operate the Pine Grove Youth Conservation Camp to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
(5) Existing law, commencing January 1, 2022, and subject to appropriation, requires the Department of Justice, on a monthly basis, to review the records in the statewide criminal justice databases and identify persons who are eligible for automatic conviction record relief. Existing law makes a person eligible for automatic conviction record relief if, on or after January 1, 1973, they were sentenced to probation, and completed it without revocation, or if they were convicted of an infraction or a misdemeanor, and other criteria are met, as specified. Existing law, commencing August 1, 2022, prohibits a court from disclosing information concerning a conviction for which automatic conviction relief was granted, except to the person whose conviction was granted relief or a criminal justice agency, as defined.
This bill would delay the August 1, 2022, implementation date until January 1, 2023.
Existing law requires the Department of Justice to maintain state summary criminal history information, as defined, and to furnish this information to various state and local government officers, officials, and other prescribed entities, if needed in the course of their duties. Existing law requires the department to disseminate every conviction rendered against an applicant, except for a conviction for which relief has been granted, as specified. Existing law requires the department to provide the Commission on Teacher Credentialing with every conviction rendered against an applicant, retroactive to January 1, 2020, regardless of whether relief was granted. Existing law makes it a crime to furnish a record or information obtained from a record to a person who is not authorized to receive the record or information.
The bill would, until January 1, 2023, require the Department of Justice to disseminate every conviction rendered against any applicant under these provisions without regard to whether relief was granted for the conviction. The bill would, beginning January 1, 2023, again require the dissemination of convictions for which relief was granted only to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Because this bill would require the dissemination of additional state summary criminal history information, the unauthorized furnishing of which is a crime, the bill would expand the definition of an existing crime and would impose a state-mandated local program.
(6) Existing law requires the Secretary for Environmental Protection to award grants for the development and implementation of a course for the training of community-based nonprofit organizations or public prosecutors and investigators in specified public agencies in the investigation and enforcement of environmental laws. Existing law authorizes the secretary to award local assistance grants to local environmental regulators for the investigation and enforcement of environmental laws.
This bill would instead require the courses to be for the training of community-based nonprofit organizations or public prosecutors, or community-based nonprofit organizations and staff of other specified public agencies. The bill would authorize the secretary to award grants for the purpose of training community-based nonprofit organizations, in addition to the above-described entities.
The bill would authorize the secretary to also award local assistance grants to community-based nonprofit organizations to address environmental violations that occur in or disproportionately impact disadvantaged communities and to support inclusion of residents of disadvantaged communities in environmental enforcement efforts, among other things. The bill would authorize the secretary to allow local regulators to subgrant funding to community-based nonprofit organizations.
(7) Existing law provides various authorities for the resentencing of persons convicted of crimes including persons convicted of crimes, or enhancements that have been subsequently repealed or reclassified.
By virtue of the location in code where these provisions have been codified, the application of these provisions to certain individuals, including those sentenced to death or imprisonment for life, is prohibited or ambiguous.
This bill would renumber these provisions and place them in a new article, thereby making certain provisions that exclude certain persons from their use inapplicable to these renumbered provisions.
(8) Existing law generally authorizes a court to dismiss an action or to strike or dismiss an enhancement in the furtherance of justice. Existing law requires a court to dismiss an enhancement if it is in the furtherance of justice to do so, except if dismissal of that enhancement is prohibited by any initiative statute.
This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to those provisions.
(9) Under previous law, safety and security officers of Exposition Park were granted limited arrest authority, but were not peace officers. Existing law, commencing on January 1, 2022, instead grants peace officer status to these officers, but requires the completion of specified training requirements.
This bill would, until January 1, 2025, reinstate limited arrest authority for those Exposition Park safety and security officers appointed before March 1, 2022, who have not yet completed the training required to be peace officers.
(10) Existing law makes peace officer and custodial officer personnel records and specified records maintained by any state or local agency, or information obtained from these records, confidential and prohibits these records from being disclosed in any criminal or civil proceeding except by discovery. Existing law sets forth exceptions to the confidentiality of certain records, including, among others, sustained findings involving force that is unreasonable or excessive, that an officer failed to intervene against another officer using unreasonable or excessive force, unlawful arrests and unlawful searches, and sustained findings that an officer engaged in conduct involving prejudice or discrimination on the basis of specified protected classes. For the records described above, existing law generally requires those records to be released at the earliest possible time, but no later than 45 days from the date of the request. For incidents that occur prior to January 1, 2022, those records are subject to the 45-day maximum disclosure deadline as of January 1, 2023. Existing law allows state and local agencies to exceed that 45-day timeframe under certain conditions, such as during an active criminal or administrative investigation, as specified.
This bill would correct an erroneous cross-reference to clarify that the above-described records relating to incidents that occur prior to January 1, 2022, are subject to the 45-day maximum disclosure deadline as of January 1, 2023.
(11) Existing law authorizes a judge in a case where a misdemeanor is being prosecuted, over the objection of the prosecuting attorney, to offer diversion to the defendant. Existing law prohibits this type of diversion when, among other things, the current charged offense is willfully inflicting corporal injury upon a spouse, cohabitant or former cohabitant, fiancé or fiancée, or the mother or father of the offender's child or battery against those same victims or a person with whom the offender has, or has had, a dating or engagement relationship.
This bill, instead, would prohibit this type of diversion from being offered to a defendant who is charged with any offense involving domestic violence, as defined. By increasing the number of defendants who are no longer eligible for diversion, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(12) Existing law requires the Attorney General to collect and analyze information relating to anti-reproductive-rights crimes, as defined, including, but not limited to, the threatened commission of these crimes and persons suspected of committing the crimes or making threats. Existing law requires the Attorney General to collect this information from local law enforcement agencies and produce an annual report for the Legislature beginning January 1, 2023.
This bill would additionally require the Attorney General to collect information relating to anti-reproductive-rights crimes from local district attorneys and elected city attorneys. The bill would change the due date for the first report to January 1, 2025, and would authorize the Attorney General to submit these reports either electronically or as part of any other report they submit to the Legislature. By requiring data collection from local district attorneys and elected city attorneys, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(13) Existing law authorizes a law enforcement agency that has seized or received custody of a deadly weapon under specified circumstances to sell or destroy that weapon.
This bill would instead no longer authorize the sale of that weapon and would require the weapon to be destroyed. The bill would also require the law enforcement agency to make specified notifications. By requiring additional duties of local law enforcement agencies, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(14) Existing law subjects a minor between 12 to 17 years of age, inclusive, who violates any federal, state, or local law or ordinance, and a minor under 12 years of age who is alleged to have committed specified serious offenses, to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, which may adjudge the minor to be a ward of the court.
Existing law authorizes a court to order a ward who is 14 years of age or older to be committed to a secure youth treatment facility, operated by the county of commitment, for a period of confinement if the ward is adjudicated and found to be a ward based on the commitment of a specified serious offense, that adjudication is the most recent offense for which the ward has been adjudicated, and the court has made a finding on the record that a less restrictive, alternative disposition for the ward is unsuitable. Existing law requires the court to set a maximum term of confinement for the ward in a secure youth treatment facility.
This bill would, among other things, provide that the specified serious offense that qualifies the ward for commitment to a secure youth