Existing law makes it a felony for an unauthorized person, as defined, to possess, or use, or to obliterate or destroy the brand registration upon, containers, including milk cases, cabinets, or other dairy equipment, which have a value in excess of $950.

This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to this provision.

Date of Hearing: May 4, 2016

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

Lorena Gonzalez, Chair

ABPCA Bill Id:AB 1860

Author:(Alejo) – As Amended Ver:March 17, 2016

Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: No Reimbursable: No

SUMMARY:

This bill requires the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) to develop a grant program for body-worn cameras. Specifically, this bill:

1. Requires BSCC to develop a grant program to make funds available to local law enforcement entities to purchase body-worn cameras and related data storage and equipment, and to hire personnel necessary to operate a local body-worn camera program.
2. Deletes the transfer requirement from the Penalty Fund to the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund (DTPAF) and repeals this fund and instead requires a transfer to the newly created, continuously appropriated, Body-worn Camera Fund (BCF).
   

FISCAL EFFECT:

GF cost of $25 -$30 million to backfill DTF appropriations to various state agencies. The Governor’s 2017-17 proposed budget includes, in addition to a $1.7 million appropriation to the Department of Education, the following transfers from the DTF:

1. To the Corrections Training Fund, $9,800,000
2. To the Peace Officers' Training Fund, $11,000,000
3. To the Victim Witness Assistance Fund, $4,121,000
4. To the Traumatic Brain Injury Fund, $360,000

COMMENTS

1. Background/Purpose. Under current law, once a month, 25.70% of the state penalty funds deposited in the State Penalty Fund during the preceding month are transferred into the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund. AB 1860 redirects these funds to the newly created BCF, and the funds are continuously appropriated to the BSCC for grants to local law enforcement agencies to finance body-worn cameras.

According to the author, videos of police officers’ interactions with the public will help create accountability and evidence in domestic violence cases or traffic accidents. Body cameras will help us address problems of misconduct, absolve officers who’ve been wrongly accused and help the public understand things from a public safety perspective.

1. Support. According to The League of California Cities, “AB 1860 seeks to take advantage of a three-year federal allocation of $263 million that will be available in the form of matching funds to state and local governments that purchase body cameras.”
2. Opposition. According to The Electronic Frontier Foundation, “police body-worn cameras present serious issues that must be addressed prior to the creation of any grant program, including concerns regarding their constitutionality, their efficacy, the standards governing the disclosure of body camera footage, the privacy of Californians who appear in videos, and public safety. As currently written, AB 1860 does not address these critical interests at all, let alone strike a defensible balance among them.”
3. Related Legislation:
   1. AB 1957 (Quirk), requires a state or local law enforcement agency to make available, upon request, footage from a law enforcement body-worn camera 60 days after the commencement of an investigation into misconduct that uses or involves that footage. AB 1957 is awaiting hearing in this Committee.
      
   2. AB 1940 (Cooper), exempts body-worn camera recordings that depict the use of force resulting in serious injury or death from public disclosure pursuant to the act unless a judicial determination is made, after the adjudication of any civil or criminal proceeding related to the use of force incident, that the interest in public disclosure outweighs the need to protect the individual right to privacy. AB 1940 is awaiting hearing in this committee.
      
   3. AB 65 (Alejo), which was very similar to this bill, was held in this Committee’s Suspense file.
      
   4. AB 66 (Weber), would have stated the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to require local police departments that utilize police body-worn cameras to follow specified procedures. AB 66 was held in this Committee’s suspense file.
      
   5. SB 175 (Huff), would have required each department or agency that employs peace officers and that elects to require those peace officers to wear body-worn cameras to develop a policy relating to the use of body-worn cameras. SB 175 would have required the policy to be developed in collaboration with nonsupervisory officers and to include certain provisions, including, among others, the duration, time, and place when body-worn cameras shall be worn and operational. SB 175 was held in this Committee’s suspense file.
4. Prior Legislation:
   
   1. AB 69 (Rodriguez), Chapter 461, Statutes of 2015, Requires law enforcement agencies to consider specified best practices when establishing policies and procedures for downloading and storing data from body-worn cameras, including, among other things, prohibiting the unauthorized use, duplication, or distribution of the data, and establishing storage periods for evidentiary and nonevidentiary data, as defined.
      
   2. AB 790 (Karnette), of the 2007-2008 Legislative Session, would have redirected 4% of funds from the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund and allocated that money to the Department of Justice to be used to support the California Witness Protection Program. AB 790 was held in this Committee’s Suspense file.
      
   3. SB 1761 (Poochigian), of the 2005-2006 Legislative Session, would have changed the percentage of money that is deposited into each of the funds in the State Penalty Fund, and would have created the Child Advocacy Center Fund, into which 4.97% of state penalty funds in the State Penalty Fund would be deposited monthly. SB 1761 was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee Suspense file.
      
   4. AB 204 (Lowenthal), of the 2001-2002 Legislative Session, would have required all funds transferred to the Driver Penalty Assessment Fund, which would otherwise be transferred to the General Fund, be appropriated on an annual basis to the State Department of Education for the purposes of providing driver training instruction in the public schools. AB 204 was held in this Committee’s Suspense file.

Analysis Prepared by: Pedro Reyes / APPR. / (916) 319-2081

Date of Hearing:

Counsel: David Billingsley

ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY

Reginald Byron Jones-Sawyer, Sr., Chair

ABPCA Bill Id:AB 1860

Author:(Alejo) – As Amended Ver:March 17, 2016

SUMMARY:

Requires the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) to develop a grant program to make funds available to local law enforcement entities to purchase body-worn cameras and related data storage and equipment, and to hire personnel necessary to operate a local body-worn camera program. Specifically, this bill:

1. Requires BSCC to develop a grant program to make funds available to local law enforcement entities to purchase body-worn cameras and related data storage and equipment, and to hire personnel necessary to operate a local body-worn camera program.
   
2. Deletes the transfer requirement for the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund and instead require a transfer to the Body-worn Camera Fund.
   
3. Creates the Body-worn Camera Fund, that would continuously appropriate funds to the board for those purposes.

EXISTING LAW:

1. States that there shall be levied a state penalty in the amount of ten dollars ($10) for every ten dollars ($10), or part of ten dollars ($10), upon every fine, penalty, or forfeiture imposed and collected by the courts for all criminal offenses, including all offenses, except parking offenses as specified. (Pen. Code, § 1464, subd. (a)(1).)
   
2. Specifies that after a determination by the court of the amount due, the clerk of the court shall collect the penalty and transmit it to the county treasury. A specified portion shall be deposited in the appropriate county fund and 70 percent of the balance shall then be transmitted to the State Treasury, to be deposited in the State Penalty Fund, which is hereby created, and 30 percent to remain on deposit in the county general fund. (Pen. Code, § 1464, subd. (e).)
3. The moneys so deposited in the State Penalty Fund shall be distributed as follows:
   
   1. Once a month there shall be transferred into the Fish and Game Preservation Fund an amount equal to 0.33 percent of the state penalty funds deposited in the State Penalty Fund during the preceding month, except that the total amount shall not be less than the state penalty levied on fines or forfeitures for violation of state laws relating to the protection or propagation of fish and game. These moneys shall be used for the education or training of department employees which fulfills a need consistent with the objectives of the Department of Fish and Game; (Pen. Code, § 1464, subd. (f)(1).)
      
   2. Once a month there shall be transferred into the Restitution Fund an amount equal to 32.02 percent of the state penalty funds deposited in the State Penalty Fund during the preceding month; (Pen. Code, § 1464, subd. (f)(2).)
      
   3. Once a month there shall be transferred into the Peace Officers' Training Fund an amount equal to 23.99 percent of the state penalty funds deposited in the State Penalty Fund during the preceding month; (Pen. Code, § 1464, subd. (f)(3).)
      
   4. Once a month there shall be transferred into the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund an amount equal to 25.70 percent of the state penalty funds deposited in the State Penalty Fund during the preceding month; (Pen. Code, § 1464, subd. (f)(4).)
      
   5. Once a month there shall be transferred into the Corrections Training Fund an amount equal to 7.88 percent of the state penalty funds deposited in the State Penalty Fund during the preceding month. Money in the Corrections Training Fund is not continuously appropriated and shall be appropriated in the Budget Act; (Pen. Code, § 1464, subd. (f)(5).)
      
   6. Once a month there shall be transferred into the Local Public Prosecutors and Public Defenders Training Fund established pursuant to Section 11503 an amount equal to 0.78 percent of the state penalty funds deposited in the State Penalty Fund during the preceding month. The amount so transferred shall not exceed the sum of eight hundred fifty thousand dollars ($850,000) in any fiscal year. The remainder in excess of eight hundred fifty thousand dollars ($850,000) shall be transferred to the Restitution Fund; (Pen. Code, § 1464, subd. (f)(6).)
      
   7. Once a month there shall be transferred into the Victim-Witness Assistance Fund an amount equal to 8.64 percent of the state penalty funds deposited in the State Penalty Fund during the preceding month; and (Pen. Code, § 1464, subd. (f)(7).)
      
   8. Once a month there shall be transferred into the Traumatic Brain Injury Fund an amount equal to 0.66 percent of the state penalty funds deposited into the State Penalty Fund during the preceding month. (Pen. Code, § 1464, subd. (f)(8).)
      
4. When establishing policies and procedures for the implementation and operation of a body-worn camera system, law enforcement agencies, departments, or entities shall consider the following best practices regarding the downloading and storage of body-worn camera data:
   
   1. Designate the person responsible for downloading the recorded data from the body-worn camera. (Pen. Code, § 832.18, subd. (b)(1).)
      
   2. Establish when data should be downloaded to ensure the data is entered into the system in a timely manner, the cameras are properly maintained and ready for the next use, and for purposes of tagging and categorizing the data. (Pen. Code, § 832.18, subd. (b)(2).)
      
   3. Establish specific measures to prevent data tampering, deleting, and copying, including prohibiting the unauthorized use, duplication, or distribution of body-worn camera data. (Pen. Code, § 832.18, subd. (b)(3).)
      
   4. Categorize and tag body-worn camera video at the time the data is downloaded and classified according to the type of event or incident captured in the data. (Pen. Code, § 832.18, subd. (b)(4).)
      
   5. Specifically state the length of time that recorded data is to be stored. (Pen. Code, § 832.18, subd. (b)(5).)
      
   6. States that nonevidentiary data including video and audio recorded by a body-worn camera should be retained for a minimum of 60 days, after which it may be erased, destroyed, or recycled, except in specified circumstances. (Pen. Code, § 832.18, subd. (b)(5)(A).)
      
   7. States that evidentiary data including video and audio recorded by a body-worn camera under this section should be retained for a minimum of two years under any of the following circumstances, as specified. (Pen. Code, § 832.18, subd. (b)(5)(B).)
      
5. Appropriates annually from the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund to the General Fund in the State Treasury and from the General Fund to the California Energy Extension Service of the Office of Planning and Research a sum as necessary to establish and maintain a unit for driver instruction within the State Department of Education as specified. (Ed. Code, § 41304, subd. (a).)
   
6. Appropriates from the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund to the General Fund, then to the State School Fund each fiscal year, the sum the Superintendent of Public Instruction certifies as necessary to reimburse on a quarterly basis for each current fiscal year school districts, county superintendents of schools, the Department of the Youth Authority, and the State Department of Education for the actual cost of instructing pupils in the operation of motor vehicles. (Ed. Code, § 41304, subd. (b).)
   
7. Directs that monies, as specified, shall also be appropriated from the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund the sum the Superintendent of Public Instruction shall certify as necessary to reimburse on a quarterly basis for each current fiscal year school districts, county superintendents of schools, the Department of the Youth Authority, and the State Department of Education for the actual cost of replacing vehicles and simulators used exclusively in the laboratory phase of driver education programs, but the amount shall not exceed three-fourths of that part of the actual cost of instructing pupils in the laboratory phase of driver education which is: (1) in excess of ninety-seven dollars ($97) per pupil instructed, and (2) expended by the district, the county superintendent of schools, the Department of the Youth Authority, and the State Department of Education in replacing the vehicles and simulators. Reimbursement for vehicles shall be computed for only that portion of the total mileage used exclusively in the laboratory phase of driver education programs. (Ed. Code, § 41304, subd. (c).)

FISCAL EFFECT:

Unknown

COMMENTS:

1. Author's Statement: According to the author, "Having video of police officers’ interactions with the public will help create accountability. Body cameras will help us address problems of misconduct, absolve officers who’ve been wrongly accused and help the public understand things from a public safety perspective. There are other benefits of police wearing body cameras that don’t get talked about as much, these include providing evidence in domestic violence cases and enhanced evidence collection at accident scenes.”
   
2. Federal Justice Department Grants for Body-Worn Cameras: On September 21, 2015, as part of President Obama’s commitment to building trust and transparency between law enforcement and the communities they serve, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced that the Justice Department has awarded grants totaling more than $23.2 million to 73 local and tribal agencies in 32 states to expand the use of body-worn cameras and explore their impact.  The body-worn camera pilot program announced in May 2015 includes $19.3 million to purchase body-worn cameras, $2 million for training and technical assistance and $1.9 million to examine the impact of their use.  The grants, awarded by the department’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP), build on President Obama’s proposal to purchase 50,000 body-worn cameras for law enforcement agencies within three years. (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-awards-over-23-million-funding-body-worn-camera-pilot-program-support-law)
   
   “This vital pilot program is designed to assist local jurisdictions that are interested in exploring and expanding the use of body-worn cameras in order to enhance transparency, accountability and credibility,” said Attorney General Lynch.  “The impact of body-worn cameras touches on a range of outcomes that build upon efforts to mend the fabric of trust, respect and common purpose that all communities need to thrive.” (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-awards-over-23-million-funding-body-worn-camera-pilot-program-support-law)
   
   The grants, which require a 50/50 in-kind or cash match, can be used to purchase equipment and require that applicants establish a strong implementation plan and a robust training policy before purchasing cameras.  Each agency awarded a grant is responsible for developing a plan for long-term storage, including the cost of storing data.
   
   In addition to funds to help purchase body-worn cameras and train officers in their use, grants under the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s (BJA’s) Smart Policing Initiative will support police departments in Miami, Milwaukee and Phoenix as they examine the impact of body-worn cameras on citizen complaints, internal investigations, privacy, community relationships and cost effectiveness.  Each of these three departments will partner with a research institution to gain insight on the merits of deploying body-worn camera programs. (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-awards-over-23-million-funding-body-worn-camera-pilot-program-support-law)
3. Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund: This bill plans to use funds from the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund and send those funds to the newly created, Body-worn Camera Fund. The Driver Training Penalty Assessment was set up to provide funds in accordance with Education Code section 41304. Education Code Section 41304 lists the fund priorities as follows.:
   1. Establish and maintain a unit for driver instruction within the State Department of Education;
      
   2. Reimburse actual cost of instructing pupils in the operation of motor vehicles;
      
   3. Reimburse actual cost of replacing vehicles and simulators used extensively in the laboratory phase of driver education programs; and
      
   4. Transfer to other funds pursuant to Control Section 24.10 (b) of the annual Budget Act.
      
4. Budget Act and Budget Bill Expenditures Already has Claims on the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund:
   
   As part of the budget process, money from the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund has been allocated to pay for other policy objectives.
   
   Control Section 24.10 of the 2015-16 Budget Act and AB 103 (Budget Bill) transferred funds from the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund as follows:
   
   a) To the Schoolbus Driver Instructor Training in the Department of Education $1,737,000
   b) To the Corrections Training Fund, $9,800,000
   c) To the Peace Officers' Training Fund, $14,000,000
   d) To the Victim Witness Assistance Fund, $4,121,000
   
   The 2016-17 Budget projections are:
   
   a) To the Schoolbus Driver Instructor Training in the Department of Education $1,763,000
   b) To the Corrections Training Fund, $9,800,000
   c) To the Peace Officers' Training Fund, $11,000,000
   d) To the Victim Witness Assistance Fund, $4,121,000
   e) To the Traumatic Brain Injury Fund, $360,000
5. Argument in Support: According to The League of California Cities, “This measure will require the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) to develop a grant program to fund the acquisition for local law enforcement personnel of body cameras and related data storage and equipment. This measure also creates a special fund, entitled the Body-worn Camera Fund, from which monies will be continuously appropriated for use by the BSCC in operating the grant program.
   
   “Monies from the Driver Penalty Assessment Fund will be used to fund this program. This measure is progressive in nature in that it avoids both any direct impact on the State General Fund, as well as any mandate on local agencies, which will be free to apply to the BSCC on a voluntary basis for funds to acquire body cameras.
   
   “AB 1860 seeks to take advantage of a three-year federal allocation of $263 million that will be available in the form of matching funds to state and local governments that purchase body cameras.”
   
6. Argument in Opposition: According to The Electronic Frontier Foundation, “EFF believes police body-worn cameras may be useful in protecting civil liberties, but only if they are adopted with robust community input and used in line with a policy that ensures the cameras promote transparency and accountability of police action.
   
   “We therefore urge that, before authorizing a funding mechanism to expand their availability to law enforcement agencies, you amend your bill to require that potential grantees obtain robust community input prior to submitting funding or other acquisition requests or applications. Furthermore, we urge you to amend your bill to require that potential grantees adopt policies that address the many constitutional and other concerns associated with the use of body-worn cameras, including appropriate limits on data collection, data retention, and dissemination to other agencies.
   
   “First, police body-worn cameras monitor and record parts of an officer’s field of vision. As a result, they frequently capture the activities of civilians who are not suspected of any involvement in a criminal act, effectively placing the public at large under new forms of potentially constant visual surveillance. Indiscriminate surveillance has always raised serious Fourth Amendment issues as well as privacy issues under Art. I., § 1 of the California Constitution.
   
   “Second, the rationale for encouraging law enforcement use of body-worn cameras is to make police behavior more accountable to the public. Such accountability requires at least the limited disclosure of footage from body-worn cameras, for which the proposed measure includes no provision. EFF believes that civilians must have appropriate access to such footage.
   
   “Conversely, to the extent local laws and regulations allow them to do so, police officers may be able to edit or suppress footage of incidents revealing potential abuses—or, alternatively, not to record those incidents in the first instance. Any legislation or program enabling such surveillance must address these transparency and accountability concerns about body-worn cameras, or run the risk of creating a solution worse than the problem it was enacted to address.
   
   “Finally, rules governing the disclosure of footage from police body-worn cameras are not only problematic when unspecified, but also raise profound privacy concerns for individuals depicted in body camera footage, including victims and witnesses of crime. Reasonable witnesses may refrain from sharing their observations with police officers if such concerns are not addressed.
   
   “These are difficult issues, to be sure. But the state already requires government policies for surveillance technologies like automated license-plate recognition systems and Stingrays (SB 34, SB 741). Moreover, if the state funds acquisition or use of police body-worn cameras, it should not and cannot disclaim responsibility for their use.
   
   “In sum, police body-worn cameras present serious issues that must be addressed prior to the creation of any grant program, including concerns regarding their constitutionality, their efficacy, the standards governing the disclosure of body camera footage, the privacy of Californians who appear in videos, and public safety. As currently written, AB 1860 does not address these critical interests at all, let alone strike a defensible balance among them.”
   
7. Related Legislation:
   
   1. AB 1957 (Quirk), would require a state or local law enforcement agency to make available, upon request, footage from a law enforcement body-worn camera 60 days after the commencement of an investigation into misconduct that uses or involves that footage. AB 1957 is awaiting hearing in the Assembly Judiciary Committee.
      
   2. AB 1940 (Cooper), would exempt body-worn camera recordings that depict the use of force resulting in serious injury or death from public disclosure pursuant to the act unless a judicial determination is made, after the adjudication of any civil or criminal proceeding related to the use of force incident, that the interest in public disclosure outweighs the need to protect the individual right to privacy. AB 1940 is awaiting hearing in this committee.
      
   3. AB 65 (Alejo), would have required BSCC to develop a grant program to make funds available to local law enforcement entities to purchase body-worn cameras and related data storage and equipment, and to hire personnel necessary to operate a local body-worn camera program. AB 65 would have created the Body-worn Camera Fund, that would continuously appropriate funds to the board for those purposes. AB 65 was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
      
   4. AB 66 (Weber), would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to require local police departments that utilize police body-worn cameras to follow specified procedures. AB 66 was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
      
   5. SB 175 (Huff), would require each department or agency that employs peace officers and that elects to require those peace officers to wear body-worn cameras to develop a policy relating to the use of body-worn cameras. SB 175 would require the policy to be developed in collaboration with nonsupervisory officers and to include certain provisions, including, among others, the duration, time, and place when body-worn cameras shall be worn and operational. SB 175 is on the Assembly Inactive File.
      
8. Prior Legislation:
   
   1. AB 69 (Rodriguez), Chapter 461, Statutes of 2015, Requires law enforcement agencies to consider specified best practices when establishing policies and procedures for downloading and storing data from body-worn cameras, including, among other things, prohibiting the unauthorized use, duplication, or distribution of the data, and establishing storage periods for evidentiary and nonevidentiary data, as defined.
      
   2. AB 790 (Karnette), of the 2007-2008 Legislative Session, would have redirected 4% of funds from the Driver Training Penalty Assessment Fund and allocated that money to the Department of Justice to be used to support the California Witness Protection Program. AB 790 was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee Suspense File.
      
   3. SB 1761 (Poochigian), of the 2005-2006 Legislative Session, would have changed the percentage of money that is deposited into each of the funds in the State Penalty Fund, and would have created the Child Advocacy Center Fund, into which 4.97% of state penalty funds in the State Penalty Fund would be deposited monthly. SB 1761 was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee Suspense File.
      
   4. AB 204 (Lowenthal), of the 2001-2002 Legislative Session, would have required all funds transferred to the Driver Penalty Assessment Fund, which would otherwise be transferred to the General Fund, be appropriated on an annual basis to the State Department of Education for the purposes of providing driver training instruction in the public schools. AB 204 was held in the held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee Suspense File.

REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:

Support

California Peace Officers’ Association

League of California Cities
Peace Officers Research Association of California

Opposition

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Analysis Prepared by:

Gregory Pagan / PUB. S. / (916) 319-3744