Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor and Transportation

The Senate Budget Subcommitee number five on corrections, public safety, judiciary, labor, and transportation will come to order. Good morning. We are holding our Committee hearings here in the Capitol. I ask all Members of the Subcommitee be present in room 112. For once, please be present so we can establish quorum and begin our hearing. I'm just joking.

Today we will hear informational panels on three key public safety issues, investments in alternatives to incarceration, health care and treatment for the justice involved, population, and support for survivors of crime. These issues represent key components in the state's efforts to increase public safety and reduce crime, as well as address compounding issues such as substance abuse and mental health through rehabilitative, humane, and evidence based approaches. To ensure we have time for everything on today's agenda, we are asking panelists to keep their testimony under five minutes.

I would also ask my fellow Committee Members to keep their comments and questions concise. Would any Members like to add anything before we begin seeing none? Let's establish a quorum consultant. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Here. Thank you. The consultant notes a quorum has been established. Let's begin with our first issue, Prop 47 in investments and alternatives to incarceration. We will first hear from Caitlin O'Neill from the Legislative Analyst's office. And can we also have Casey Warmoth, chief of research, board of state and community corrections, approach the table? Thank you. And Tanish Hollins. Is Tanisha in? Okay, yeah. Please approach the table. Tenishe Hollins is the Executive Director of Californians for safety and justice. And so we're going to first hear from Caitlin O'Neil whenever you're ready.

Good morning. Caitlin O'Neill with the Legislative Analyst's office. I'll be speaking today from a handout called overview of selected sentencing changes and avoided state costs. I believe the sergeants have copies of the handout for the audience and my fellow panelists, if they would like some.

So, turning to page one, just to briefly provide a summary of what the handout covers, we include selected sentencing changes enacted in 2012 or later that have impacted the state correctional population, meaning the prison and parole populations, a figure showing the decline in the state correctional population over that period, as well as a discussion of reduced and avoided costs that have resulted from these population declines.

We also include a brief discussion of Proposition 47 and the state savings attributed to it, as well as an overview of trends in the county correctional population over the same period. So, turning to page two, you'll see a summary of the selected sentencing changes since 2012 in the interest of time. I'm not going to go over them, but I'm happy they're here for reference and happy to take questions on them.

Turning to page five, you can see here a figure showing the prison and parole populations since 2012. Specifically, the prison population declined by about 40,000 people and the parole population declined by 33,000 people. Turning to page six, this page and the next page provide an overview of the savings that the state has that have resulted to the state from these population declines. And we think about these savings as having two components.

The first component is the actual budget reductions that have occurred as a result of the population declines and the way that CDCR has accommodated those declines. And the second component which is on the second page, the next page is the avoided costs. That or the cost of the state has likely avoided relative to the alternative State of the world where the population either didn't decline or the population actually increased increased after 2012.

So on page six, talking about that first set of savings, the actual budget reductions that have occurred, those fall into four categories. The first is that the state in 2012 was spending about 10 was spending about $260 million to house about 10,000 people in contractor operated prisons, both in state and out of state. And as the population declined, the state phased out the use of those contract beds so it no longer has to pay that cost.

The second set of cost reductions, or category of cost reduction, is associated with the decline in the number of people housed in state operated facilities. And so as that number declines, the state saves about $15,000 per person per year. And that's on things like food, clothing, certain components of medical care. And so that number has declined by about 33,000 people since 2012, which translates to about half $1.0 billion annually relative to if the population had remained at 2012 levels.

The third cost reduction is that, as you're aware, the state has deactivated various facilities. So when deactivations occur, the state can save on overhead costs like staffing. And the Administration estimates that the closures that have already occurred, as well as the planned Chuckwalla Valley closure next year, will eventually save the state around 770 million annually. And finally, as the parole population declines, the state saves about 11. That currently saves about $11,000 per person per year.

And so with the 33,000 person decline, that translates to about $350 million in less spending than if the population had remained at 2012 levels. So, moving on to page seven, I'll discuss that second component of savings, which is avoided costs. And these are a little bit more nebulous, because we don't know what the alternative State of the world would be had the population not declined. But generally, it falls into three categories, which are prison infrastructure, avoided prison infrastructure, repair costs.

So with the facilities we've closed, we don't have to pay to, you know, repair certain aspects of the facility that we would otherwise have to do. We avoid additional spending on prison capacity. Had the population remained flat or even increased, the state would have to have probably contracted for additional capacity or even built and staffed new prisons. Prison capacity, which would obviously add costs. And then finally, there's just other cost growth that has been avoided by the fact that the prison operations have shrunk overall.

And so instead of, for example, paying for employee comp increases for the staff at 35 prisons, we're paying for those increases for the staff at 33 prisons. Moving to page eight, we provide a brief overview of Prop 47 and the savings and how the savings are allocated. So Prop 47 reduced penalties for certain lower level drug and theft crimes and requires the Department of Finance to estimate the annual savings, which is primarily associated with the decline in the prison population.

And those savings, which were about 113 million in the most recent year, calculated, are transferred into a special Fund and allocated, with 65% going to the Board of Satan Community Corrections for recidivism reduction programs, 25% to support truancy and dropout prevention, and 10% for trauma recovery centers. And finally, page nine shows how the county correctional populations have changed over the same period. And the focus of this handout has really been on the state.

But we just thought it might be helpful to show this, since these sentencing changes that have impacted the state populations have also impacted counties. As you can see, there's been a 150,000 person decline in the total county correctional population over this period. And that brings me to the end of my comments, and I'm available for questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you. I just want to be very clear, because this is often talked about, and you touched on it a little bit here, Prop 47 is highly debated and specifically Prop 47, which obviously is 2014.

And I just want to make it very clear to the public, who may be watching, that this reduced penalties for certain people convicted of non serious and nonviolent property and drug crimes, from felonies to misdemeanors, and allowed certain people who had been previously convicted of such crimes to apply for reduced sentences. Right. And since this has passed, I also want to make it very clear to the larger public that crime, violent crime in particular, has dropped as well, correct? In that same time period.

Violent crime has been bouncing around a little bit. But I. So I would need to look at the specifics and get back to. And in particular, it would depend on the specific period you're asking about. But PPIC did look at Prop 47 and its specific impact on crime. A

nd so, for example, on our Senate Committee on Budget and fiscal review staff report, if you will, on page eight, violent crimes, the rate has dropped. As well as property crimes overall. Right. And so I just want to make that very clear to the public, who often is informed by media that, you know, crime is out of control. Crime is not out of control. And I just want to clearly highlight that, is that it has dropped significantly, both violent crime and property crime. And I think one of the biggest factors of what we're seeing in the media is largely the fact that everybody has a camera.

So we're seeing a little bit more of the day to days, if you will. So I just really, really wanted to highlight that overall, and it states here, overall, violent crime was 55% lower in 2022 compared to the peak rate in 1992. Right. And property crime was 66% lower compared to the peak rate in 1980. So I just wanted to highlight that again, just for reference, that everybody is well aware. We can move on to Tinisch or Kasey. Each of you guys will have five minutes, and we can go there and then, you know, start with questions as well.

Thank you. Good morning, Senator Wahab, Senator Durazzo, Senator Newman, and Senator Seyarto. First, I want to say how grateful I am for the opportunity this morning to discuss Californians for safety and justice's vision for safety, specifically, shared safety. Now, this is the kind of deep and durable community well being that we believe that the state deserves.

The shared safety approach produces, and more importantly, the ways in which dozens of crime and harm prevention programs have been funded by the more than $800 million in savings that Proposition 47 has realized so far is really what emboldens us to be here today to talk about shared safety. We really do believe that this approach to creating community safety has undeniably positive public safety outcomes. And we want to share with you what that looks like.

I think it's helpful to begin by going back 10 years and reminding ourselves what Proposition 47 did and why. One of the consequences of the deluge of disinformation about Prop 47 we've all been subjected to for many years now, is that the fundamental purpose of Proposition 47 has been completely distorted. Proposition 47 was placed on the statewide ballot in 2014 in response to the most significant public safety crisis California has ever faced. Mass incarceration.

Massive prison overcrowding led to the deaths of multiple prisoners every week due to medical neglect. The Federal Government was threatening to take over the state prison system, and three out of every four people released from our prisons were being re arrested for committing a new crime within three years. We were failing by every conceivable measure to provide the safety the people of this state deserve.

The premise of Prop 47 was pretty simple, that if we stopped sending people convicted of petty theft and simple possession of drugs for personal use to state prison for a year and a half to three years at a time at extraordinary taxpayer expense, and instead made those folks eligible for a sentence of up to a year in local jail, we would save money.

The cost savings could then be reallocated back to local communities and invested in a monopoly of supportive services and crime and harm prevention strategies at the local level, run by a wide array of safety stakeholders in which we know work to prevent crime and harm from occurring in the first place. This comprehensive approach would provide superior public safety outcomes that when we only rely on law enforcement to respond to crime and harm after they've already occurred, it's too late.

And that, my friends, is what we call shared safety. A shared safety approach envisions a world in which everyone can attain safety and everyone takes responsibility for fostering it. It's the work of diverse stakeholders who are rethinking how to understand, invest in, and evaluate and achieve safety. Shared safety requires taking joint responsibility across public agencies and in partnership with communities to foster a deep understanding of what the vulnerable populations in the state need. Advance public health in healing and breaking cycles of harm.

And it's time for those investments in public safety to have a more holistic approach and to be funded to scale. To quote the mantra that we often use with the alliance for safety and justice, safety is more than the absence of crime, it is the presence of well being. And for too long, the focus of public safety investments in this state have been imbalanced and ineffective.

The dramatic growth of prison spending and incarceration in the eighties nineties and two thousands came at the expense of prevention and community health, specifically for Low income communities and people of color. Today, people from all walks of life agree that the prison first approach left out too many. Too many have fallen through the cracks, and it's resulted in safety for some and not safety for all.

When voters overwhelmingly passed Prop 47, they understood that we needed a new approach and that we can no longer over rely on incarceration enforcement or policing to achieve safety that we needed to adopt a more shared approach. And despite with the one constituency that has opposed Prop 47 from the very beginning, has tried for years and years to get us to believe.

Prop 47 has been one of the most successful ballot measures in state history, having made good on every promise it made to voters, it right sized sentences for some of the lowest level crimes in the state penal code. It led to durable reduction of state prison population to a level beneath the population cap ordered by the Supreme Court, and it saved more than $800 million. So far, that's been funded widely. Successful programs up and down the state, from large counties to rural towns.

And these towns and cities in our state are relying on community based organizations with deep roots that are successfully reducing recidivism, reducing homelessness, reducing unemployment, increasing community stability, and increasing safety. Not to mention the rate of imprisonment for black people in this state dropped 27% between 2013 and 2021. And we believe that Prop 47 played a key role in this we're learning every day what would be possible if we invested in a shared safety approach rooted in prevention and community well being to scale.

We spent more than $14 billion last year on our prison system alone. Our safety investments are still way out of balance. But thanks to Prop 47, we're learning that shared and balanced approach does indeed lead to enhanced safety and community well being. To abandon that approach right now and go back to the approaches that we already knew would fail makes no sense. We need to have the courage to double down and keep moving forward. This is not a time to use a sledgehammer to successful reform.

This is an opportunity to fine tune our approaches to increase safety. And while I share the facts and intentions of Prop 47, I don't want to appear tone deaf. Every californian deserves not only to feel safe, but actually be safe at home, at school, on public transportation. We deserve to experience that safety equitably, regardless of what city and community we live in, business owners and employees deserve to work without fear of being hurt.

And if we invest in and redirected our resources to coordination and to stabilize our most vulnerable populations in the state, build up our prevention and intervention infrastructures, invest in trauma recovery, substance abuse treatment, real opportunities for successful reentry, stabilized housing, then we would allow our law enforcement professionals to focus on solving crime rather than being a generalist and having to solve all of the system's failures. We have to stop this narrative that criminal justice reform is just a code word for lawlessness and lack of accountability.

We have tools within the penal code to hold folks accountable in this state for committing crime. We have agencies that are positioned to do that, but we have a community based infrastructure that we have to continue to invest in if we want safety to be achieved in the State of California. Thank you.

Thank you, Kasey.

Thank you, Senator. Good morning. My name is Kasey Warmuth and I am the chief of research with the Board of State and Community Corrections. I am happy to have the opportunity to share some positive information about the Prop 47 grant program, which is administered by the BSC as required by the ballot initiative. The grant funds are awarded to public agencies to provide mental health services, substance use disorder treatment services, and diversion programs for people who are in the criminal justice system.

Additionally, legislation requires that the grants are awarded competitively, specifies that funds may serve both adult and juveniles, and also allows for the funds to be used for housing related assistance and other community based supportive services. The BSCC further requires that at least 50% of the funds made available to the grantees are passed through to community based service providers. The evaluation of the Prop 47 cohort two grant program highlights how the 92 million in funding that was provided to 21 grantees benefited California.

The grant period began in August 2019 and ended in May of 2023. During this time, grantees spent over $81 million, of which 64 million was passed through to community based service providers. Through the grant funded projects, more than 21,000 people received mental health or substance use disorder treatment or were diverted from the criminal justice system. Program participants also received other supportive services, including case management, legal, housing, and employment services.

At the end of the grant period, 22% of participants were still receiving services, and 32% of participants had successfully completed program requirements. For the evaluation, three outcome measures were examined, recidivism, housing, and employment, focusing on recidivism. First, positive outcomes were achieved for this evaluation. Recidivism was defined as the conviction of a misdemeanor or felony after program enrollment. This does deviate from the usual definition, which is conviction within three years of release from custody or being placed on supervision.

This modification was necessary for the evaluation to accommodate not only the grant term but also that the participants have a variety of release statuses and supervision status. For the participants for which recidivism data were available, 15.3% were convicted of a new misdemeanor or felony. This rate is substantially lower than other reported statewide recidivism estimates, which range from 35% to 45%. In addition to the overall recidivism rate, the evaluation explored recidivism by a variety of factors.

The recidivism rate was 11% for participants who identified as black or African American, compared to 12 to 17% for other race or ethnicity groups. The recidivism rate was 12% for participants who were employed either part time or full time, compared to 15% for those who were unemployed. And finally, the recidivism rate was 11% for those who were living independently compared to 18% for those who were homeless. Focusing on housing outcomes this outcome was evaluated for the 6000 participants who identified housing as a goal.

For those who completed program requirements, homelessness was reduced by 60% compared to program enrollment. Additionally, the proportion of people living independently nearly doubled. Focusing on employment outcomes, this outcome was also evaluated for the approximately 6000 participants who identified employment as a goal. For those who completed program requirements, unemployment was reduced by 50%, again, relative to program enrollment. Most employment gains were in part time employment, although the proportion of participants who were employed full time also increased.

In summary, the benefits of the cohort two Proposition 47 grant program included lower recidivism rates compared to other statewide recidivism estimates and a reduction in homelessness and unemployment. For the thousands of participants who made positive life changes, the benefits are immeasurable. Thank you and this concludes my report. I'm happy to take any questions you may have.

All right, well, one, I just want to thank everyone that has been here. I do just want to say one of the challenges with these concepts of safety is there impacts and successes that can be hard to measure and attribute even for Prop 47 where at least the direct impacts are measured. You know, we're constantly having conversations on Prop 47. There's an effort right now that potentially may or may not go on the ballot.

It's a little mixed in with the fentanyl crisis as well, which is a little problematic as well. And there is significant debate from law enforcement stating whether or not this was impactful or not as well as communities talking about that it was impactful in one way or another. So there's a lot of debate.

But clearly the data shows that it has not only saved the State of California a significant amount of funds, it also prioritized a re evaluation or an update to outdated laws as to what is considered serious and not serious and really ensuring what the punishment is, the punishment that fits the crime in modern times. So I really just want to highlight that, but I specifically want to ask all of you, how can the Legislature think about and highlight the impacts of other reforms?

Don't jump in all at once.

Well, I want to ask you more about your question, Senator Wahab. I do think that overall, it goes back to the statement that I made before, right. That we can't continue to allow the narrative around reform to be a scapegoat for lawlessness and accountability. It goes back to what you said about the punishment fitting the crime. There are lots of tweaks that, that can and should be made through the Legislature as we go through implementing reform. And I think that's for any good legislation.

We're always looking and evaluating on how to improve it to make communities safer. I think data matters, and sometimes that gets thrown out of the window when we start using the public narrative or the fear mongering on social media or the reporting in the media. But the data does matter. So I would encourage the Legislature to continue to look at the data and look to the data.

I think the other way that we can protect and support reform is to look at the systems that are in place right now, the information sharing, the coordination, which continues to be a struggle across the state and especially locally. And so those things should be taken into consideration when we talk about reform and implementation. And then what are the opportunities to improve? I think those are the ways that the legislation can really be helpful.

Thank you, Senator Seyarto.

Thank you. I didn't want to jump into a debate on Prop 47 or that I think we were trying to, you know, everybody's trying to grapple with the differences of information that is available to everybody, and it is vast and it's wide, and it's right here in our own material. You know, one page you read there's no rise in crime and violence. And then the next one you read, it says there's a rise in crime and violence.

So I think what we're, we have a clash of people's lived experiences versus data and things like that, that they're being told they're not really experiencing. And over the years, there's been many numerous attempts to do exactly what you're talking about, ma'am, which is address the shortcomings, recognize that not every Bill is going to be perfect, not every law is going to be perfect, and that we need to address those as we go along. I think the problem is nobody has addressed them.

And so they have gotten to a point where they're quite visible and they're quite visible in people's individual communities. They're quite visible to people who frequent stores that are no longer there because entire chains have pulled out of California citing specifically crime, amongst other things. And so we've allowed it to get out of hand. And yes, that is something that is a stain on Prop 47 and the efforts that were made to do recidivism or to reduce recidivism and also to empty our prisons.

And that to every. That's worked, everybody. There's a lot of people that are not in prison anymore. However, the programs that were supposed to be ramped up and the tools that are supposed to be given to the people to be able to do the rest of it. Probation officers doing some of the drug rehab and all of these things to prepare a person that is incarcerated for the outside world.

A short visit to the prisons will tell you that they're trying like heck to do it, but they don't have the resources to do it. So we're saving a lot of money. But where is that money being redo if we're putting it out into community based organizations and expecting that to reduce crime? I would say, and I would offer that it's failing because we're not reducing the kind of crime that people are very, very aware of in their own communities.

And, you know, I don't speak from other people's experiences. I speak from seeing it and almost seeing it firsthand. You can't tell me it doesn't exist. It does exist, and we need to acknowledge that it does exist. There are some failings, and we need to address those, because if we don't address those failings, guess what? Then the public gets sick and tired of it, and they put on the threatening Proposition that says, hey, you know what? This isn't working. We don't want it anymore.

So that's been the problem for a lot of people is the systems that we were promised and told that we're going to reform and do all this stuff. A lot of those aren't working because we don't give the resources to them. We save money, but then we don't spend the money and reinvest that money in the places where it needs to be reinvested. And a lot of that is in the incarceration part of it because we need to get people ready to come out.

We need to get people rehabilitated from their drug problems or alcohol abuse problems or mental health issues before we send them back out because the community based organizations, as much as they try, are not having the effect that we wanted it to have. So that's, you know, for, you know, I understand this is just the budget for. We're supposed to be reviewing Prop 47 and the investments and the alternatives to incarceration.

But you know, what I'm hearing is a lot of defensiveness about the people who don't think Prop 47 is working anymore. And that defensiveness is not unjustified. It really is not. And we need to do a better job of investing the money in the right places to make sure that when we tell somebody that if they pass this, that these good things are going to happen, we need more than just statistics. They need to be able to feel it. And right now they don't feel it. And I think that's what the issue is. Thank you.

Senator Durazzo.

Thank you very much. Well, maybe some of my questions can also address my colleagues questions or comments, actually. But I would ask of Miss Tanisch, if you could, since you're on the ground implementing so many of the programs that are needed for this shared responsibility for public safety, if you could talk a little bit about how you see on the ground the savings being used. And do you see more savings? Do you see less, I mean, talk about the actual use of the savings from Prop 47.

We've been partnering with organizations, especially over the last two years across the state to uplift the successes of Prop 47 funded initiatives. There are several examples of organizations throughout the state that have been supporting successful reentry, helping folks stabilize their housing and employment, prevention programs in schools, intervention programs. And we can talk about them all day. But here's the truth. The truth is that none of those programs are invested at the scale that the criminal justice system is invested in.

And until we see equitable investment, we're not going to see the same type of outcomes if we over rely on a system, which I think is the failure that you're pointing to, Senator Sereto, the reason why you didn't see a lot of the folks who needed those interventions because they were housed in jail and prison and they weren't getting the treatment they needed and deserved.

And part of that failure is because we failed to invest in the infrastructure that would have prevented that from happening in the first place. So until we see public health scaled up, until we see drug treatment accessibility readily available, there's a shortage of beds in the State of California. It's been going on for years now. It didn't just start with Prop 47, right? Until we see those investments, we won't see the outcomes, but we do see them in community.

They're not as highlighted in the media in the way that the perceived failures. And I can also say that as someone who's been personally impacted by homicide, who's had my car and home broken into, someone who's responded to local businesses in my community across the state that are expressing their fears and concerns, that when we peel back the layers, what people are calling for, for safety is long term safety. And they do trust the organizations and programs that are in their communities to deliver on that.

They want to know how to engage and partner with them. So if we can do a better job of creating those opportunities, we're going to see more investment with them. At the local level, there are great programs that are working right now that demonstrate that.

So can I ask you specifically about, as part of the crime prevention strategy, talk a little bit more about trauma recovery centers as part of crime prevention, because that's part of the safety that we're all looking for. Right. It's not just how to react and incarcerate and then provide services for them to be rehabilitated. It's about preventing it in the first place. So talk a little bit about that. So you'll hear from one of our colleagues who represents the trauma Recovery center network here in California shortly on the next panel. But the trauma recovery programs are, are amazing. They were underfunded when we started Prop 47, and we've scaled up to have 22 across the state. Now, these programs allow immediate access to victims of crime and survivors. They're not required to have to get a police report to access those services. They get access to clinical services, support groups, home based services.

They can continue to receive these services for over a year in their neighborhoods. The idea is that the services are locally accessible to them and that we remove barriers to access for people who have been harmed. And that really is the prevention strategy for more crime occurring. The saying hurt people, hurt people is a real one.

It's not just a tagline when you have unaddressed trauma, when you have people who have been hurt and victimized, regardless of what their contact has been with the criminal justice system, if we can address the trauma, if we can stabilize their lives, we can get them support. They're less likely to be harmed or commit harm in their communities. And that's what the trauma recovery centers offer.

They offer an opportunity to have an acute intervention to give people ongoing support and to be able to support them in their communities. And we see those programs being successful across the state.

And then one final one, if I can, maybe Miss Warmuth, if you could talk a little bit. I'm a big believer in a good job. When people have good jobs, they, it addresses a lot of the issues that they face that everybody faces and ups and downs in their lives. Could you talk about what your experience has been or what the BSCC, how gets involved with preparing people, I imagine for jobs, a good job.

The BSCC does that through many of our grant funded programs with Prop 47. As I demonstrated in the data, the individuals who were able to get a job were less likely to recidivate than those who, who were unemployed. The work that is done to get people ready for a job is primarily done through the community based service providers. So it's done at the local level and they make connections either through education and skill training or even with providers in the local community.

So it's really addressed at the local level with resources in the community. But there are challenges to that, as demonstrated in the data where a lot of these participants are getting the part time jobs instead of full time jobs.

That are provided when they're still incarcerated.

No.

And also when they're released, all of.

The ones through BSCC. Most of our grants are post release or prior to even being involved in the justice system. So as a diversion.

Thank you. I do just want to say your evaluation notes. Among participants who completed Prop 47 funded programs, who had housing and employment as goals, the proportion who were homeless decreased by 60% and the proportion who were unemployed decreased by 50%. Correct. So clearly these programs work. Right. I think some of the commentary we have, I just want to say that just tackling budget sub five and taking a look at funding and so forth, I often have concerns in a number of different ways.

I was one of the folks that went and took a look at the Norway model. And I say this often. You know, Senator Seardo also talked about how people need the treatment and, you know, support and so forth prior to release, you know, and kind of a warm handoff before they enter just, you know, the regular world again. I do believe that.

And I think that in the system there is a significant failure across the board and where you guys sit, oftentimes there's other representatives that, you know, defend the large budget of, you know, $15 billion almost. Right. And a lack of, you know, hitting certain goals that the larger community wants. You know, we want people to be clean, we want people to be law abiding citizens, we want people to be educated, housed, healthy, and, you know, as the Norwegians say, a good neighbor.

However, I think that there, there is problems here in regards to, to, I'm gonna say, based on systems theory, right, where everything is handled in house by individuals that are not necessarily the professionals in those fields. So when we're talking about healthcare, we should be focused on those individuals that are licensed by the state, that have the educational background, that have the hours and years of service, and that are monitored by the agencies that really are responsible for healthcare. Right. Not in house education.

When we're talking about education and, you know, how we're doing these programs and how are we, you know, educating the inmate population and so forth? Again, who is really administering those types of programs? Who has the oversight over those programs, who has all of these things?

And again, when we're trying to change our criminal justice system to better the larger community as a whole, and we're comparing it to these models internationally, one of the concerns I have is that the community structure of those communities are very different from the United States and California. There are social services built in, in regular society from the very start. We're talking about housing, we're talking about education, we're talking about healthcare.

We're talking about all of these things for the average person to be able to have the support they need before they go into, whether it's a life of crime or they have an incident or, you know, they're more vulnerable and so forth. And I think we have not addressed those concerns.

First and foremost, we have not addressed the concerns in the prisons, and we have not necessarily hit our target, our mark as much as we'd like due to a lack of funding and, you know, years of, of, you know, improvements post release. So I have not been very happy with, you know, let's say, criminal justice as a whole, because we are not hitting our targets in a large scale.

However, I don't want to fall to the rhetoric of, you know, one Proposition being successful or not successful, and kind of the extremist rhetoric that's out there in the media. So I really just wanted to appreciate you guys sharing your, you know, input and insight and some of the data. But I will move on to the next item, issue number two. So, issue number two is healthcare for the justice involved and re entry population. This item is going to be presented in two sub panels.

Committee Members can ask clarifying questions after each sub panel, but please save discussion questions for after the second panel. First, we are going to hear from the Judicial Council and from Andy Gutierrez, recently retired from the Santa Clara County office of the Public Defender. Welcome. That's my county, so thank you. And we are going to start with, I messed up your name last time, so I'm going to say Zlatko Theodorovic.

From Judicial Council. So, thank you. And so, you know, we'll start off, and, you know, next we're going to hear from, obviously, Andy Gutierrez. And I just want to make sure that, you know, all of you guys are ready and you will be timed. Thank you.

And we're timing ourselves as well.

Thank you.

And we have seven minutes.

We understand if we're generous. Yes.

Great. Thank you. All right. Yes. Good morning, everyone. I am Zlatko Theodorovic, Budget Director of the Judicial Council, and I'm just gonna be giving you a quick overview and then turning it over to Judge Hernandez and David Yamasaki to represent the experience from the courts. California currently has over 400 collaborative courts in all but two of our smallest counties, with many jurisdictions having four or more types of collaborative courts. The most numerous types of these courts include adult drug courts, which is the discussion point today.

Adult mental health courts, veterans courts, dependency drug courts, juvenile drug courts, dui courts, reentry courts, homeless courts, community courts, Juvenile Mental Health Courts, just to name a few of them. And they are really foundational and require a tremendous amount of connection with our local partners, both service providers, local law enforcement, probation. So there's a lot of integration that's necessary. The courts are just a sort of a place to come together of all these critical services. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Judge Hernandez to give us some really good insights.

Yes. So, good morning again. Good to see you, Senator, and thank you to all the Members for allowing us to share with you. I think what we talk about is justice through intervention prevention. And when we talk about prevention, early prevention, you have already.

So I don't want to reiterate some of the comments that have been made, but what we can accomplish with treatment courts, specifically these drug courts, mental health courts, as veterans courts, is having the outcomes that you all have just commented on, that when we see folks coming into the criminal justice system, we need to treat the underlying issue, the substance abuse issue, the mental health issue, the housing instability that occurs. What we're able to accomplish in a multidisciplinary approach is nothing short of remarkable.

And I would invite, as I did the last time I spoke, please come in to the courts. Please come in and see what happens when you talk about a participant, whether it's a mental health or a drug court participant at a graduation, and you say, yes, that participant graduated, that participant's life may have been saved from the morgue. It's so much more than that.

It's a rippling effect of thousands of Members of the community, public safety issues, and we are treating the underlying root cause which brought that person, sadly, to penetrate the criminal justice system. In a perfect world, we'd have all diversion, we'd have all prevention in the behavioral health side of it, addressing whether it's substance abuse or mental health, working very collaboratively with our partners, which the court does and does so very proudly. But that's not where we're at. That's not the world we live in.

They do come into our justice system, so we must be responsive and be able to address their high risk, high needs. We know when we talk about cost benefit ratio, when we're addressing them in drug courts and the other treatment courts, the cost benefit analysis is stellar. So what we are doing is we're capturing that data, not just to recidivism. Everybody on this panel and community Members wants to see a reduction in recidivism. That's a huge, significant factor.

But we also capture data relating to their stability and homelessness, their mental health issues, their employment. To Senator Grazo's part, we know when they're employed, we know their outcomes are much better. Their education, getting them their diplomas or post graduation education. All of those things must be captured.

And they are being captured to tell you these programs are working because of the collaborative efforts, not only with the Members like you, but Members of our communities, with our service providers, and everybody being at the table for the outcome of community safety and better outcomes. But I'll turn it over to Mister Yamasaki, being very mindful of my.

Thank you very much, Judge Hernandez. Madam Chair Members, I appear today as the Executive officer for the Superior Court in Orange County, but also as the chair of the court execs Advisory Committee, which endeavors to represent the interests of all the superior courts here in California.

I've also had the privilege of having worked in three different courts in California, and I can tell you that every one of the courts in which I have worked have been very, very committed to supporting the work of the collaborative courts that are in place. They have not become smaller, they've actually expanded because of the commitment that all of the courts convey in terms of supporting the causes and issues that we try to resolve in the courts that we have.

Some might suggest that we are focused in the courts to try to find the path of least resistance to process some of these cases. That is not the situation here in the collaborative courts. They take a lot more time, they take a lot more resources, they need a lot more space, but clearly they're for a very good reason, because lives are changed by those who participate in the program.

One of the validations that I often refer to when I think about the work and the amount of time and energy that these courts are required involves the graduation ceremonies that we have. One such graduation ceremony that I want to share involves one individual who, upon graduation, the judge told everybody in the audience and the individual that he was not sure if this individual was going to live or die.

And it was a very happy moment to see that this individual not only graduated the program, got married, had a child, opened a business, and even offered employment to another graduate of the program. Lives are changed by the work that is done in these courts. These lives are fragile. They need a hand when they need to stand. They need guidance when they need to be guided. And these collaborative courts do a wonderful job through the commitment of the judicial officers, the stakeholders within each case county.

Again, they're not easy to complete and achieve the outcomes. However, everyone is committed to making sure that these programs can continue to sustain and impact the individuals that we face day in and day out, because it does change the lives of many. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have anybody else presenting? All right.

Good morning. Andy Gutierrez, retired public defender county thank you for inviting me to share information about our justice involved and reentry populations from the perspective of a longtime public defender. I've been involved with reentry efforts for the entirety of my 25 year career. Despite progress in the wake of our decarceration efforts, significant barriers remain for our safe reentry population. This reality is not surprising to any public defender.

It is not uncommon for public defender clients to find themselves lost despite a referral to probation, parole, and or a reentry resource center. We asked ourselves why and consider our own role, or lack thereof, in the entire reentry process. Are we just legal advocates and must we rely on others, or can and should we do more?

Thus, during the pandemic, the Santa Clara County Public Defender's office held one on one meetings with systems partners within CDCR, parole, probation, and our re entry resource center to gain a collective understanding as to what each of us is doing. Those meetings led to an understanding that a public defender agency is not only beneficial, but often integral to the reentry process. Likewise, the public defender's office came to appreciate the complexity of programs and operations within CDCR and parole.

Those conversations ultimately led to the development of an intentional reentry program within our post conviction unit. Applying a public health lens to reentry, this model centers the individual two years into this model, we feel have been transformational.

Key features include early engagement intentional reentry starts well before release, oftentimes months extensive support with insight development for every single person who participates reentry planning, including housing, employment, relapse prevention, family engagement, and individualized needs assessments with a trauma informed approach motivational interviewing throughout the process and critically, it involves public defender coordination with systems partners in areas where we previously lacked any involvement. We believe the intentional reentry model, which incorporates a public health lens, has shown early, promising results.

We have helped dozens of people reenter the community with an enhanced reentry experience. By centering the individual, we know that we also center public safety. Additionally, there's enormous fiscal cost savings. Cost savings are realized each year of incarceration, let's say due to an accelerated release allowed by our intentional reentry program.

We call those sole years saved because quantifying the true savings extends beyond the fiscal a snapshot of just one cohort of people impacted by intentional reentry involved a group of 21 men re sentenced from long prison sentences between March 22 through November 23 in San Antonio. Combined, the sentencing, which depended heavily on an intentional reentry approach, resulted in 396 years of incarceration years saved. This resulted in a savings of untold millions of dollars for the state and the County of Santa Claus.

Santa Clara. It is important to note that many of our intentional reentry clients are working, supporting families, and giving back in so many other ways. One of the highlights of our intentional reentry model was using one time grant monies to hire our very first community service advocate with lived experience. This person understands better than most the challenges of an individual facing reentry reentry into the community.

And better than most, they understand how to navigate our complex systems in a manner specific to our client base to truly meet them where they are at. Our CSA has been so instrumental in helping our county's clients with reentry that she was recently awarded a special commendation by our Board of Supervisors. She accomplished that goal in less than three months on a job. I've never received such a commendation, even after 25 years.

That's how important the community service advocate with lived experience is at a public defender office. In the wake of criminal justice reform, public defender agencies are finding themselves more and more involved with the core business of reentry. Given our confidential access to the clients and our relationships with numerous systems partners, we are uniquely situated to enhance the reentry experience and improve public safety. However, this requires resources. This includes funding for social workers, community service advocates, and data analysts for data tracking and program efficacy. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we're going to hear from the remaining panelists on this item, including DHCs, Amity, Santa Clara County, and CDCR. Please come up. We're going to have Autumn Bolan, Deputy Director, Office of Strategic Partnerships, Department of Health Care Services. Or they can go up to that little thingy, you know, I love the lectern. I just want to introduce everybody just while we're here. And then Michelle De La Calle. Okay, great. Director of Systems integration of Santa Clara County.

And then Doug Bond, President and CEO of Amity foundation. And finally, CDCR, Director of legislation and special projects. Perfect. Thank you. And so I'll let you all begin and share your presentations, and I guess we can start with you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Members of this Committee. Committee, I have some wonderful talking points here, but I'd rather just have a conversation with all of you. Amity Foundation's a comprehensive reentry services organization that provides substance abuse treatment, housing, employment, and is a third party administrator for 400 community based organizations trying to develop their capacity to get them to the place where they can actually contract with government agencies. As we've all heard here today, reentry and rehabilitation is complex.

I, too, have been in Norway and have traveled and looked at many of the models around the world and around the country, both that are successful and many that are not successful. I will say that there is no silver bullet and there is no way to replicate one system over to another. Community based orgs really serve as a connecting organization between many government agencies.

We service 67 contracts from city, county, state and federal organizations getting people through the full continuum of care, partnering with our partners at CDCR to provide in prison services and moving them safely into the community. Some solutions that are working well right now are the male and female community reentry programs that allow people to spend the last two years of their incarceration in the community based program, employed in a career path and saving 75% of their income.

It's really hard to stabilize your healthcare without stable living conditions and settings. I would say one of the biggest barriers as we look to the future with Medicaid and we work again in many states, is the definition of homelessness. People that are incarcerated for more than 90 days are not qualified for subsidies with federal HUD rules right now. And so that is a big issue. Los Angeles has had some innovative programs that's created entities like Housing for Health where you can bypass those systems.

But until we get people from treatment and employment with safe and stable housing, we are really going to struggle with reducing recidivism and improving public safety. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning Senator Lisa Heintz and Members. Thank you. Lisa Heintz again, Director and legislation, special projects and I'm overseeing the Calaim initiative. I want to thank this legislative body for its continued support of the rehabilitative programs in our Department. Your commitment and support specifically for the Isudt program, and your focus on enhancing reentry services for the population we serve. As a result of the unprecedented opioid crisis facing this nation, causing addiction, loss of life, homelessness and health disparities, especially impacting our justice involved individuals.

The Department began a whole person care model in January of 2020. We are currently serving over 17,000 persons on medicated assisted treatment, 10,000 participating in our cognitive behavioral interventions and developing a peer support specialist network to help with job placements where they can make an honest living and transition into our communities with our community partners in that space, our whole person care model significantly changed the way that we address substance use disorder, ensuring that our population had access to medicated assisted treatment both while they were incarcerated and on release.

Approximately 30,000 persons release from prison each year and return as our neighbors. CDCR provides all releasing individuals with medi Cal application, benefit assistance, enhanced prerelease services and evidence based assessments, pre scheduled mat appointments for approximately 90% of the releasing population who are on medicated assisted treatment.

We help over 900 releases per month attain clinic to clinic services for their mental health and all releasing individuals who are willing receive 60 days of medication, two doses of naloxone, durable medical equipment, and other services to transition to our community partners over the past year, I'm happy to report that the Department has continued its partnerships with DHCs, counties and community providers under the Calaim initiative. Currently, CDCR is working on the it infrastructure necessary to help a projected 2000 releases per month become calaim eligible.

The Department is utilizing DHCS's path funding to support this it infrastructure and building bridges between both our own networks as well as those in the community and counties. We are building supports necessary for claims reconciliations as well as of January 1, our division of adult parole operations started linking our parole populations directly with their ecms once they were connected to managed care plans.

Our DRP team is working diligently with the stop providers as well as our MCRPs and CCTRPs to ensure that during the phase three of their programming, while they're in their community reentry, they are again identified with their ecms as well as their medi Cal to obtain reimbursable services in our communities.

The calm initiative is the next critical step in successfully supporting the transition of our justice involved populations returning to our communities, and we are excited that, once implemented, Kelly will help address the healthcare and supportive services gaps we have seen in reentry process for years. As you're aware, our justice involved populations, and particularly those releasing from prison, have significant health and behavioral health needs with significant costs to the state.

Again, we are happy to partner with DHCs, our community partners, on this one of a kind opportunity for California to standardize direct linkages to care for this underserved population.

Thank you.

Good morning chair Wahab and distinguished Members of the Committee. I'm Michelle De La Calle, County of Santa Clara Office of System Integration and Transformation for the health system. My role includes all things ..., and currently most efforts are supporting the cutting edge 1115 B Medi Cal waiver aimed to grant Medi Cal services and benefits to to persons in the 90 day prerelease period while incarcerated at our county correctional facilities. The County of Santa Clara is anticipating a go live date in October of 2024.

Santa Clara has four correctional facilities, two adult and two juvenile a comprehensive reentry program, strong behavioral health and physical health departments that serve not only as a safety net for the community, but our key providers within the correctional facilities themselves. Challenges and opportunities are abundant across our county, across the state and nation as we all work to decrease the risk of those exiting incarceration and entering into community.

There's no debate that those exiting correctional facilities with co occurring mental health, medical or substance use disorders are at high risk for negative health outcomes, re incarceration, arrest and a shortened lifespan. The stakes are high and the care delivery is complex to say the least. The stigma of incarceration, mental health, substance use, combined with frequency of poverty, homelessness and gaps in other social determinants of health means there is no silver bullet solution.

In addition, the very at risk population served has variable interest in connecting to service related to mental health and for many unknown factors and even known factors.

Solutions are going to take thoughtful and innovative approaches to address one key shift that counties will need to address is that the care and services found to be effective and supportive while incarcerated need to be known and continued in community with ease to access the key obstacles we are facing and focused on are are one, identifying and communicated anticipated release or discharge dates to care coordination and discharge planning teams.

For counties, this is especially significant for those in their first day or days after arrest while awaiting sentencing as their discharge can be unexpected or sudden with little time to plan. Two, ensuring compliance and privacy while sharing necessary information and data between the myriad of departments with mutual goals in the successful release from any correctional facilities.

Partners include, but aren't limited to, the sheriff's office and other local law enforcement agencies, probation, public defender, District Attorney, pretrial release, collaborative courts and superior courts in all the courts, county mental health, medical care, managed care plans, and social service agencies. That's just to name a few. And three, we need ease of access to the required care, post release care and services that allow for the most success and most optimal care and health in the community.

The County of Santa Clara is using best practices identified in current programs, including reentry centers network with walk in services for mental health, physical health, employment and social service agency support. You heard Mister Gutierrez talk about the intentional reentry programs as well as the collaborative courts that have been mentioned before.

We have behavioral health services and health teams, and we also have calaim services like ECM and community supports that are currently available for eligible individuals in the community, and we're examining how we can use all those to add additional layers of support as people exit into community.

The State of California and the federal waiver to allow the Medi Cal benefits in the 90 day prerelease period and other calaim initiatives are pushing counties and healthcare delivery model delivery system models to rethink and reimagine care that will allow for individuals to thrive and meet and maintain optimal health upon release and maintaining life while in community.

The County of Santa Clara's approach is to look at it from a one county perspective and consider how to engage all involved departments and support cross departmental engagement and solve for some of the most challenging aspects of providing the right care at the right time to the right person in the right setting. I appreciate the time and the discussion around this, and this is powerful and impactful work that can really support the health of all the community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Autumn Boylan with the Department of Healthcare Services. I think my job is actually take a step back and provide an overview of the Calaim justice involved initiative. So thank you to the Members for inviting us to be here this morning. As you've heard today over, you know, about the necessary attention on reentry services. That's really what we're focusing on as part of the Calaim justice involved initiative.

Statewide, over 400,000 individuals are released from carceral settings each year, and at least 80% of those we estimate to be eligible for the Medicare program.

In January of 2023, California became the first state in the nation to receive approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to offer a targeted of Medicaid services to individuals, adults and youth who are incarcerated in state prisons, county jails, and youth correctional facilities across the state for up to the 90 day period prior to the individual's release and reentry back into the community. Prior to this approval, the federal Medicaid inmate exclusion policy prohibited the use of Medicaid funding in carceral settings. And.

And this change that we have before us as states are adopting these waiver programs is historic. It's also unprecedented. And so we're learning a lot as we go to implement this initiative. And again, like Lisa shared just a moment ago, very excited to be partnering with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, as well as our colleagues in Santa Clara County and all 58 counties to implement this initiative.

The waiver is just one component of the department's Calaim justice involved initiative, which also includes requirements that were effective in January of 2023 for county correctional facilities and county social services departments to collaborate to implement mandatory prerelease Medi Cal application processes to help individuals get enrolled in the Medi Cal program so that they're receiving services while they're still in custody, but also eligible for for services immediately upon release.

The demonstration waiver intent is to build a bridge from the carceral setting to community based reentry for the justice involved medical beneficiaries in the state. This offers opportunity for us to provide stabilizing and treatment services while the individual is still in custody, inform a detailed reentry and transition plan, and help to facilitate a reentry process that connects them to community care options funded through the Medi Cal managed care organizations.

As we've heard today, people who are now or have spent time in jails and prisons experience disproportionately higher rates of physical and behavioral health diagnoses. They're at a higher risk for injury and death as a result of trauma, violence, overdose, and suicide than people who have never been incarcerated.

Incarcerated individuals also have more probability of having a behavioral health disorder and are more likely than those without a disorder to be homeless in the year prior to their incarceration, less likely to be employed prior to their arrest, and more likely to report a history of physical or sexual abuse of people incarcerated in the state and federal prison system. Nationally, the mortality rate two weeks post release from prison has found to be 12.7 times higher than the normal mortality rate.

While we know incarcerated individuals face significant, complex medical conditions, we also know that over the past decade, the proportion of incarcerated individuals in California jails with an active mental health case has risen by 63%, and California's correctional healthcare system drug overdose rate for incarcerated individuals is three times the national rate. In addition, the issue of poor health outcomes and death for individuals who've been incarcerated is a critical health equity issue.

As we all know and have heard today, individuals of color in the State of California are disproportionately incarcerated compared with all other races and ethnicities. Our goal is to provide appropriate fiscal and behavioral healthcare intervention at earlier opportunities to reduce acute service utilization and adverse health outcomes while providing a coordinated reentry into the community for incarcerated individuals in California. Through this initiative, individuals will receive a targeted set of prerelease services.

They will have a care manager helping them connect to both physical and mental health and substance use disorder services, including the provision of medication assisted treatment or mat services prior to their release and in the community post release, they will have a warm handoff to county behavioral health agencies to treat serious mental illness and substance use disorders, a supply of medications and DME upon release at discharge, and help with accessing other health related and community supports in addition to healthcare when they reenter the community.

This also includes ensuring that all pre release justice involved individuals are automatically eligible for the enhanced care management benefit that's also a part of the Calaim initiative. It's an intensive care management approach that is building off of the whole person care pilots and the model that was developed previously under our waiver programs.

It provides whole person wrap around support to ensure that an individual's health needs are met across all providers, practitioners, and needs, including connecting them with community supports that are critical to success of the reentry population, including recuperative care, housing navigation services, housing topology, housing tenancy and sustaining services, and databilitation programs. We've already heard that the pre release services provision will begin starting in October of 2024. Correctional facilities will have up to 24 months to go live on a quarterly basis starting in October.

The waiver also authorizes the PATH program are providing access to transforming health, which provides critical investments to our colleagues at CDCR, our county partners for county jails and youth correctional facilities to invest in the necessary infrastructure to stand up this program. And I will say that, you know, this is going to take some time. We're working diligently with correctional facilities and county partners to provide technical assistance and implementation support.

We have a justice involved advisory group made up of implementation partners who has advised us on all aspects of the policy, including the rollout of this initiative, to make sure that we get it right. And in October of this year, we released the policy and operational Guide for planning and implementing the Calium justice involved initiative, which is a detailed guide that includes all requirements and outlines the plan for implementing the waiver.

One of the challenges that the Department has heard most frequently from county jail partners is the need for flexibility. We just heard this from our colleagues at Santa Clara County because of the unpredictability of release dates and the large proportion of individuals that are incarcerated and released within the first 72 hours in county jails.

And in the guide, we've outlined a short term model for county jails that includes best practices for the first seven days of incarceration with expectations of specific actions that our county jail partners will take, starting with the 8th day of incarceration to help connect users to care managers and all of these services under the pre release services program. This is an immensely complex initiative.

There's going to take a lot of investment in terms of infrastructure, and we are working diligently with our state and county partners who have not previously had the infrastructure necessary to build a Medicaid program. So we're really excited about this opportunity. It's a big lift for the state, for our county partners, for our community based organizations. But the lift is worth it.

We know that this justice involved initiative will result in gaps, reduced gaps in care, improved health outcomes, and prevention of unnecessary admissions to inpatient hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes and emergency departments, as well as reducing overdose, suicide, homelessness, and recidivism.

Thank you. I know you were speed reading at the end, so appreciate that. Okay, we have two panels. I know it was in two sets, so I'm going to ask the other panelists, come to the lectern or the mic up there, but I will start with Senator Seyarto. If you have any questions, comments, concerns for both panels. Of course.

The other panel, please. All right, so everybody's made a great case for why we need to continue to not only put funding in, but increase funding. As you know, our budget is pretty ugly this year. In the court system that you're talking about, all these different programs, are there hearing delays due to lack of availability of judges, courtrooms, or anything like that? Because we do have a lot of programs that we have handed down.

I don't know if we are handing down the right resources to be able to carry out the duties, because the duties certainly are laudable. The outcomes depend on our ability to actually get them done.

So a short answer would be yes. There's always going to be delays when we don't have enough resources, which we're always in need of more resources. And this is, I think you've heard, a very intensive. When we talk about supervision and involve how many appearances should be made, especially when you talk about evidence based practices and best practices. So, yes, are there delays, but do we work overtime to address and be as flexible as we can to address those needs?

I think we would all expand, in every single 58 of the 58 counties, we would expand our collaborative treatment courts had we have the resources to be able to do so. And that means staffing partners, wraparound services, as well as the court. Essential. But I don't know if there's else from the Executive perspective.

Thank you so much. So the appropriation that we get, the Judicial Council gets, receives from the Legislature, is parsed out through a particular formula. The formula is measures how long it takes to process a typical case. But some of the things that we have seen are post disposition hearings that we additionally have to take, take on, and that has taxed a lot of the resources that we have because it's more focused on the filing and the disposition of the matters.

But as more responsibilities are passed on to the courts, we have to juggle some of the resources to make sure that we can process the cases timely. So I guess the simple answer is yes, it does definitely have an impact on courts.

This also impacts, I think, another Department, and I think anybody here can answer or help answer this question a little bit in order to ensure accountability for people that are making this transition. There are certain departments, probation Department being one of them, that I would imagine are pretty critical in ensuring that people actually get to the courtroom or that they're following the program that they're supposed to.

Supposed to be releasing, because that's another, you know, this is very expensive, and then that leads to another very expensive program. We have to make sure it all works in order for any of it, too. So what role do they play in.

Probation is key for us, I would say, in every single one of our treatment courts, whether we're speaking in the juvenile setting, which they are instrumental in a juvenile setting for supervision, but the intensive supervision that occurs in treatment and collaborative courts, probation is a key role on that.

As far as what is happening outside of the courtroom, of course, their input when we all sit down at the table and do a staffing to discuss particular participants is very informative, but so more important is what is happening out in the field. And again, supervision, interacting with the service partners to make sure that that participant is in compliance and availing themselves to the resources that we are putting in place in the treatment plan.

Thank you. Anybody here? Importance of that bridge? People to help people over that bridge. Because in the non incarcerated population, it's hard enough to get people to go get the help that they need and the incarcerated population that is being released. I would think it's really important for us to ensure that they don't do the same thing.

So I'll say it's a collaborative effort. We work in partnership with parole and probation. We're currently working on contracts in 32 counties with managed care plans. We're also co located in many of the parole and probation offices. It is a partnership between the individuals that we have with both learned and lived experience to work side by side with parole and probation to make sure that we can be an effective tool so they're not responding to some of the service needs that individuals need in the community.

I will say from a personal basis, I spent years in foster care. Both my parents were incarcerated. I was able to go to the organization that I now run because of a judge that believed in my father. The organization got him out of, or the judge got him out, put him at Amity foundation. His parole officer was my baseball coach and the organization, the judicial system in parole all work together.

So I could say from a personal perspective is that you really need collaboration to make sure that community functions, the outcomes of that investment 30 years later now means that my children won't be in the same situation that I was in and so on and so forth.

oh, did you want to comment on that? I'm sorry.

No, I'm fine. I also want to just mention that the division of adult parole operation is embedded in the MCRPS therapies for the.

All of you mentioned employment being a super key to this, but we have lots of employment out there. But we have a lot of, it's part time employment, very Low paying, and not because it's necessarily Low paying. It's because that's the job skill level that those type of employments offer.

What kind of employment bridges do we need to have to enable people to have the kind of meaningful employment, not just a pay, you know, hourly pay employment, but I'm talking meaningful employment to keep them from recidivism.

So we have an entire Department that's focused entirely on reentry employment services and gross sector industries for individuals as a community. We look at gross sector industries, we have to look at this for folks that are returning home. A lot of the housing stock that's being built right now for homelessness, built by people that are coming home from incarceration. They're starting out in the mid forties and going up to nineties an hour, leaving with tens of thousands of dollars.

I will say the Calaim initiative is another. We're working with community colleges to train substance abuse counselors that are formerly incarcerated to provide substance abuse treatment for those that are actually in need in the community or incarceration. And we're also providing case management training that are career opportunities for people to navigate and do the enhanced care management services for people as that part of the Medicaid benefit.

And so we need to look at it holistically of how can people that are coming home be part of the solution and part of the workforce and make sure that they have family sustainable wages, not just livable wages.

Right. And that's, to me, that's really important right now in California, we're struggling a little bit with our employment sectors. And so it's this, it's the sectors that I'm concerned about. Which sectors are the most important sectors for us to be encouraging in California?

Yeah, that's a great question, Senator. I would say healthcare. We also need to reduce barriers for people that are formerly incarcerated so they can actually clear and work in the healthcare fields as well. There are multiple sectors that we look to that we want to make sure that people have the opportunities in tech. There's a lot with EPA right now that we're working on with the Federal Government as well. In Department of Labor. I think there are many growth sector opportunities for people to focus on.

And I will say as somebody that's been in Norway, Finland, and many places around the world, we are far more innovative in our employment services approach and looking at employment opportunities for those that are formerly incarcerated.

Thank you very much,

Senator Duraza, Nothing. Senator Newman. Nothing. All right. I do just want to highlight a couple things. One, I really do appreciate Santa Clara County being present, you know, one of the counties that I represent, and consistently they have been very much focused on reentry. So I really appreciate that as a whole.

I, again, it kind of touches back on the pieces that I've mentioned in the last panel or the last issue area where I think that CDCR can do a lot more, either, more specifically, making sure that, you know, individuals, before they are released, are already scheduled and the paperwork is done and they are on services by the time that they get released. I think that a lot more coordination should happen and can happen.

I know calaim is a big effort there, but I just don't understand why it's taking this long sometimes. I've said this a million times. I also think that we've talked about homelessness and housing, and we know that there's, there are barriers, significant barriers to folks that are trying to re enter society and are unable to rent because of their background. And I know that there are efforts to kind of change that.

But, you know, if you've done your time, you should be able to very easily re enter society. But we have been making it harder and harder. So I really want us to focus on that on as well. And I know in Santa Clara County very specifically, there are efforts around that, but still, you know, not in the total 58 counties. And I also want to say labor specifically. You know, for example, the carpenters, these are, you know, middle income types of jobs.

Obviously, it is a physical job, if you will, but labor largely provides a very stable income, a lot of benefits and much more. And they aren't as strict on background checks unless it's a specific project. Right. That requires some, some extra effort there.

But as much as possible, you know, I want to make sure that, you know, we are really focusing on good quality jobs for individuals, regardless of their background, high paying jobs as much as possible possible, because we all know that the root of a lot of the problems that we see in the people that are incarcerated is poverty. That's first and foremost on top of any other personal issue, whether it's substance abuse, mental health and other things like that.

So I do just want to highlight that as much as possible. I still would like to see a little bit more transparency in some of the programs and oversight in the programs. I think CDCR in the past, you know, presentations on previous days, they stated that they have 12 programs that with 700 subcontractors for these types of programs, for re entry and much more. I think that's problematic, right.

So as much as we can kind of narrow a little bit of the scope and who we're working with and some real rigorous auditing of the efficacy of the programs, right. To see that these programs actually do work, what is the track record when a person is released? If they recidivate, how quickly do they recidivate? Why do they recidivate? If there are surveys pre release and post release, and even a year later to see, you know, what other models, what successes can be measured.

And if you can't measure it, it's a problem too. Right. And I know that that is more administrative and so forth, but if we can't say that these programs work because of this or we're continuously improving it, you know, we heard in the previous item almost $1.0 billion has been saved because of Prop 47 and so forth. Right. But what are we doing with that? You know, if the money is going somewhere again, is there a successful model? Right.

We've seen also the homeless audit that just was released. Right. Lots of money is being spent, but are we seeing any progress? Right. And so clearly we can visibly see some problems. Right. And other problems we can't see as much or it's not highlighted or given enough time. So I really just want everybody here that presented, I want to thank you guys for your work, your commentary and your testimony here. But I also would like to see a lot more work.

And the reason why I'm highlighting this is because as we are talking about the budget and yeah, we're talking about the budget for this year, year that's in front of us, we have to be looking at the next three years. I want to be very clear to everybody that we are seeing significant harm to our budget, you know, moving forward. And so if we have these successful programs, we want to promote the successful programs, right.

Not necessarily just a program because it's a program and we've done it forever. Right. That's status quo. Nobody wants that. Right. We need to see and measure these successes because we're going to have harsher cuts in the years to come. And so I'm forewarning everybody because that's the mentality that we should be having, not this year. We have to think next year, the year after, and just overall, the bettering programs and so forth and the service to the community. So thank you, guys. We're going to move on to issue number three.

Madam Chair, if I could just. Yes. No, I just want. Senator, I really appreciate your last comments and about working together, finding the right, successful programs. I just want to thank you for those, for those comments. And I know with Amity I visited with the programs and also with Miss Holland's arc, there are organizations that are not just to themselves, but they actually reach out and create not only partnerships, but help each other how to be successful. And I just want to appreciate that. Thank you very much.

First we're gonna hear, and I'm just gonna go across the board from the LAO, the Office of Emergency Services, and the victim Compensation board, which we will have. Jared Sippel, and I apologize if I missed your last name from the Legislative Analyst's Office. We're also going to hear from Lynda Gledhill, the executive director of California Victim Compensation Board, and Gina Buccieri-Harrington, assistant director for grants management, Office of Emergency Services. Thank you. We can start from the left, or LAO, if you would like to.

Thank you, Chair Wahab, members of the subcommittee, my name is Jared Sippel and I'm with the LAO. I'm here to provide you with a summary of a report that our office did back in 2015-16 on improving the state's victim programs, as some of the recommendations from that report relate to kind of ongoing efforts and interest to consolidate victim programs into a single agency.

And before I jump into summarizing the report, I just wanted to provide kind of like a little bit of context for some of the terminology from our report at that time. So the state funds victim services through numerous programs. Today, those are primarily administered by the Office of Emergency Services and the Victim Compensation Board, both of whom have representatives here and who will be talking in more detail about their respective programs.

So, at the time of our report, VCB was referred to the Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board. And then in 2016, its government claims function was shifted to the Department of General Services. So this transfer occurred after the time that our report was written. And so, just for ease and simplicity, today I'm just going to refer to it as the board.

So, our prior review of the state's victim programs found that the state lacked a comprehensive strategy for assisting crime victims, primarily because the state lacked a lead agency for coordinating the state's efforts to assist victims. Specifically, our assessment had a few key findings. The first was that victim programs at the time lacked coordination. So, for example, at the time, staff at the board and OES indicated that they generally did not collaborate on some of the state's larger victim programs.

Second, many of the state victim grant programs were small and appeared duplicative and finally, many of the grant, or several of the grant programs were narrowly targeted, which undermined prioritization because it limited the types of potential applicants that could apply for those programs. So, to address these findings, we made a few key recommendations. The first, we recommended that the legislature restructure the board to better focus on victim programs.

So as part of that, we recommended approving the governor's proposal to move the government claims function out of the board into DGS, which, I mentioned earlier was done in 2016. We also recommended changing the board's membership to include additional expertise in and victims issues. And then, second, we recommended shifting all of the major victim programs from OES to the restructured board. And then finally, we recommended that the restructured board issue a comprehensive strategy.

And we recommended that that strategy include an assessment of the appropriate numbers, scope, and priority of victim grant programs, that it ensures that the state is applying for and receiving all eligible federal grant funds and then, finally, that it establishes a process for periodic evaluations of the state's victim programs. And while we haven't conducted a comprehensive assessment of the status of a recommendation since that report, we do know that OES and the board have taken some steps to address those recommendations.

So, for example, OES and the board have published a strategic plan on victim services, which is promising from a collaboration and coordination perspective. However, one of the key recommendations does remain unimplemented, which is to shift all of the major victim programs from oes to the board.

OES and VCB have taken steps to look at what such a transition would look like, and as part of the 1920 budget, the governor and the legislature agreed in concept to consolidating the victim programs from OES and the board into a new department under the Government Operations Agency.

However, in order to allow the administration more time to work out the details of that consolidation, the implementation of this new department was to to the 2021 budget, at which time the administration said they would bring forward a more detailed proposal. However, today, that proposal has not been submitted. We continue to think that housing all of the victim programs under a single department would be an important step in improving the state's victim programs.

And again, we look forward to the administration's proposal for doing so in the future, and with that, I'm happy to answer questions at the appropriate time. Thanks.

Thank you. We'll go to Lynda.

Good morning. Thank you. Madam Chair and members, the California Victim Compensation Board reimburses victims of violent crime for crime related expenses. We provide compensation when costs are not covered by other sources and have a 70,000 maximum reimbursement with traditional limits in certain key categories. In the fiscal year of 2022 to 23, we received 39,000 applications, paid out $46.7 million in compensation, and had an 85% approval rate. Our largest compensation categories were funeral and burial costs, income loss and mental health bills.

CalVCB is funded through a variety of sources. We received in the 2022 to 23 fiscal year. $58 million came from the Restitution Fund, which is made up of fines and penalties, assessments levied on persons convicted of crime, 39.5 million in General Fund transfers, and 20.2 million from the Federal Victims of Crime Act Grant.

As you know, the Votra federal grant provides grants for both the compensation side and the victim assistance side, and I do want to note that no anticipated changes in funding levels are expected on the compensation side. 12 VCB also runs the trauma recovery centers. This is a grant based program. Organizations apply to VTRCs, and Cal VCB awards money based on the number of applicants and funding available. CAL VCB currently funds 22 TRCs throughout the state. This year there's an estimated $12.9 million in funding.

The TRC funding comes from the Restitution Fund, which has 2 million guaranteed for the TRC program, 2.2 million in General Fund that was incorporated in the Budget act of 2022, and the rest is from the Safe Neighborhood and Schools Fund. This is a variable amount. This year it's estimated to be $8.7 million. As in 2022 to 23 it was $16 million. So as you can see, that number varies and it impacts the number amount of money available for the TRC grant program.

In the Budget act of 2022, Cal VCB received $23 million from the General Fund. This money was used to provide minimum funding to all of the then current TRCs established pilot programs in northern and Central California, provide emergency cash assistance, and create a technical assistance program. Of the 23 million in additional funding provided to TRCs in the 2022 budget, 17.7 has been either expended or encumbered.

Cal VCB runs a few other programs, including the erroneously convicted Persons program, which processes claims from persons seeking compensation as an erroneously convicted. That rate is set at $140 per day for every day of wrongful conviction. There's currently a $7 million General Fund appropriation for that program, but the amount can increase if necessary based on the amount of claims that we receive and approve by the board. The overage this year in this current budget year is expected to be $3.3 million.

We're also launching a $3 million public awareness campaign with funding from the Budget Act of 2022. The aim of this campaign is to increase awareness of Cal VCB services among Californians, particularly those from underserved communities. Finally, as Aelia mentioned, there's previously been discussion about consolidation between Cal OES and Cal VCB. The last time this was discussed, we had to put it on pause due to COVID-19 and the state is only just beginning to recover from the pandemic as a whole.

Now, given the current budget situation, we are not in a position to start looking at consolidation because a re-ord would likely require additional position and costs. I will say, however, that Cal VCB has led an effort to coordinate between all state entities, including Cal OES, but other state entities, both in the administrative branch but also in constitutional offices that help victims of crime. We have met often to coordinate outreach efforts, coordinate materials, and learn what everyone in the state does to help victims of crime.

It is actually quite spread out throughout different state entities. These entities have found these discussions beneficial and we continue to collaborate as colleagues as we all are trying to do the same thing, which is help victims of crime restore their lives. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We're going to move on to Gina.

Good morning. I'm Gina Buccieri-Harrington. I'm assistant director over grants management for the governor's Office of Emergency Services. In grants management, we have 106 programs with 45 separate fund sources. 80 of those programs support victim services in California. Of those 80 programs, 38 victim services programs are funded with the Victims of Crime Victims Assistance formula grant program, otherwise known as VOCA. One of the topics in discussion today is concerning the decline of the VOCA funds over the recent years.

The largest award California received was $396.6 million. In federal fiscal year 2028. The amount of funding decreased each year since then. In state fiscal year 2122 Cal OES received appropriated 100 was appropriate $100 million and with that additional funding we were able to stabilize the funding the VOCA funding for three years. Last year we anticipated a possible 30% reduction. At that time, we began alerting our sub-recipients of the possible reductions and worked with the VOCA Advisory Committee.

This committee is comprised of 16 members of the victim services field, including counsel from the Senate Public Safety Committee. This committee assisted us in providing recommendations for funding reductions for all programs. With approval, Cal OES began taking steps to start reduction plans. Since then, new information has resulted in a 43.4% reduction for fiscal year from fiscal year 2023 to federal fiscal year 2024 California share being reduced from $153 million to $87 million. With this, our sub recipients will experience an even greater reduction in funding.

Cal OES is currently in the process of determining the future allocations for all of these programs. I wanted to highlight three of our largest victim services programs, one of them being the Victim Witness program, which provides all 58 counties funding for comprehensive services to assist victims and witness of all types of violent crime. Secondly, our Domestic Violence Assistance program, which provides funding to 104 centers and shelters for comprehensive support services to domestic violence victims and their children, including emergency shelter, counseling, court accompaniment, and advocacy.

Thirdly, our rape crisis programs, which provides funding to 84 rape crisis centers for comprehensive intervention and support services to victims of sexual assault. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Do we have any questions from the committee members? Senator Newman?

I do. So I appreciate the presentation. I have a question about what's the nexus between victim compensation and restitution? You know, we've met recently with lots of inmates who, you know, have to apply the restitution against hourly wages that are incredibly low. So is there any relationship at all? How do those two things fit together? And I'm glad that we could. Mr. Soderborg's coming up. I appreciate that.

Drew Soderborg, Legislative Analyst Office so there is a connection? There can be a couple different connections. So individuals who are convicted of crime can either receive a restitution order, which is an order to directly pay restitution to their victim. They can also be subject to restitution fines, which are generally applied to criminal convictions. And those restitution fines are deposited in the Restitution Fund, which supports the victim compensation program.

But there's no direct relationship between an award a victim might receive. It wouldn't be debited against the restitution obligation. At some point, they're disconnected.

So what can end up happening is a person who is owed restitution by somebody who's in prison can instead receive it from, from the board. And then the board will then attempt to collect, so they will essentially get it upfront so that they don't need to wait for those inmate fees to accumulate. And then the board will seek to collect that from the person who's in prison over time.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Senator Seyarto.

What about people that are not incarcerated? They have a judgment against them. They're owed restitution, but they are never, ever able to collect because they can't chase down the person that owes them.

Right.

So those eligible for that also correct.

Those folks can go to the board. I think the victims compensation board can speak to that more directly, though.

Thank you.

Victims are eligible for. So there's two different things, right? The Restitution Fund is the pot of money that we pay compensation out of. Victims are apply to our program if they have bills that are related to the crime that they can't pay in some other way, and then we will help them by reimbursing those bills. So the Restitution Fund is our pot of money.

Occasionally we do, do a victim pass through where we'll collect the money and then distribute it to the victim if they have, if they want to receive it in perhaps like a larger lump sum than a little bit each day.

Right. Because that makes more sense for victims to be able to do that. And then the Fund collect from the person that owes them because that way they don't ever have to interact with those.

Right. We receive that. We work with CDCR and have that system so that we can bundle, you know, often the money might come in small increments and then we would bundle it at the request of the victim, whatever frequency they would prefer, and we send them that money.

Right. Because there's, I think, some instances where people are pretty much disabled by the act and they're waiting for these payments to dribble. And in the meanwhile, their financier's going south. And so that hopefully we have programs that help that. Thank you.

Just real quick follow up just on the mechanics. So where the VCB assumes the responsibility and then, you know, essentially will collect or receive that restitution from the incarcerated person. How do you, do you track that? Sort of very rarely, I would assume. Do they ever sort of pay it off? Right. I mean, my understanding is the vast majority of people owning restitution don't make full payment. Is that correct?

And if so, do you carry that as dead or how do you reflect that with, with the VCB's accounting?

So I can provide, we can get back to you with more detail about how that victim passed through works. But, yes, I mean, there are times where we don't collect everything from the, from the inmate, and so those restitution orders remain outstanding. And, you know, that's, that there's a different way. But victims who need assistance from us for reimbursing bills kind of is a separate thing. We will pay that. We have four sources of funding.

That's General Fund, that's other, that's not related to the restitution order directly.

Yeah. You know, just future reference for me anyway, you know, the issue is the fairly minimal pay that you receive in prison and the fact that, one, you know, the harmed party really gets fully reimbursed. But two, that inmate, post prison carries a debt that's often really hard to retire, has a huge impact on their post prison experience. And so something that we need to think about. But I'm glad for the explanation about how the mechanics work right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Durazo.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is for, I think, Miss Gledhill. The percentage of claim denials, the number of claim denials, and the percentage team.

So 85% approval rate. So 15% denial rate. Some of those are duplicate applications. We do receive those as well.

And what do you find to be the biggest problem for those whose claims are denied?

It could be the lack of proof that a crime occurred, either through a crime report or some other means, depending on what type of crime it is.

It could also be involvement in the crime, or it could be. Again, it could be a duplicate application. That often is. That often happens as well.

And with regards to. There was an AP investigation found that black applicants represented a higher than what should have been denial. Are there any changes that you. You have considered either in policy or regulation that would help address the racial disparity?

So in our application process, that kind of information is optional.

So we don't have complete records in terms of the demographics of our claimants, either for approval or denial, because that is optional information. I would say that there have been statutory changes that have been proposed. Whether or not those would make a significant difference, I think, is something we would have to wait and see and measure to the extent that we could, given our demographic information.

Okay, I'm going to just ask you a very, very specific question about what could happen.

Are there any gaps in help for victims and their family? If the victim recently lost a job, is unemployed at the time of their victimization, you know, would they be. Would the family be ineligible for help, just as a specific example?

Yeah. And we're happy to work with your office more directly on that. I mean, income loss is based on the previous year's tax return. So if they were just recently unemployed. Not necessarily, although you do need to be unemployed at the time of the crime.

So that might be the difference. If they were unemployed at the time of the crime itself. That is one of the rules surrounding income loss. But again, happy to work with your office on that matter specifically.

Great. Thank you very much. And then a question for Ms. Buccieri Harrington. This is with regards to the funding that we're losing. Right. From the Federal Government, is it correct? About $200 million, something along those lines that we could be.

Last year we received 153 million to this year, 87 million. So it's over 200 comparing a year to last year to this year.

And so how much is that? Dollar for dollar? How much the money that the state would have to backfill to make up for that from the cut right now.

To stabilize the funding with no cuts, the field is approximately 100 million.

100 million. So that's more or less what it would take to stabilize. And I know we're all concerned about the impact that all this is having on the victims themselves. Can you talk about that a little bit more in terms of what you see the impact it will have on doesn't. Especially domestic violence, child abuse?

Well, absolutely. The impact is just a reduction to those particular subrecipients to be able to pay for personnel to provide the advocacy needed and the wraparound services that those agencies do, plus the shelters. So it's gonna have an overall impact.

We don't know exactly what that's gonna be yet, but given the fact that we know that we were starting at 30% last year alerting the field of that, and now it's knowing to the feds it's going to be, the impact is going to be a lot larger than that. We're just now looking and analyzing how that's going to.

Okay. And I know we had secured funding for the flexible assistance for survivors, and that's being proposed for delay. How would that grant program help and meet the needs of crime victims?

That program is specifically cash for those victims, different than our other programs. Our other programs allow for cash assistance, but it's not the whole program for the flexible assistance program. It's specifically for victims and for cash for those victims.

Okay. And so are there. Give me an example. There are. It's where cash is given and versus like a re. What's the other way of getting.

Well, the. In the programs we have now, they are allowed to choose cash or services for victims, which is. And we also provide advocacy, which is personnel to provide that. The flexible assistance is only. Our community based organizations can apply for a grant that would be specifically only for cash to victims.

Thank you.

Thank you. We'll move on to our next panel. Our next panel will be Grace Glaser from public affairs and policy manager of Valor or Valor, I'm assuming, and Doctor Gena Castro Rodriguez, executive director of National Alliance of Trauma Recovery Centers. And also Anthony DiMartino, government affairs director of Californians for Safety and Justice. And we'll start with Miss Glazier and move on to Doctor Gena Castro Rodriguez and then Anthony.

Good afternoon, chair and committee members. I'm Grace Glaser and I'm the public affairs and policy manager at Valor, a national anti sexual violence organization and California Sexual Assault Coalition representing the 84 rape crisis center programs across the state that support survivors of sexual violence. Daily Valor is one of many organizations that make up the California VOCA Advocacy Alliance, a statewide coalition dedicated to supporting survivors of crime advocates and their communities. Our large coalition represents 400 programs across the state.

The Victims of Crime act, widely referred to as VOCA, was established in 1984 by Congress and created the Crime Victims Fund, the nation's largest funding source for crime victim services. Supporting hundreds of thousands of survivors annually, VOCA is the only funding stream in California and nationwide that supports comprehensive services for survivors of crime. Due to shifting prosecution styles and payouts needed to support services across the country, this funding source has slowly depleted, leaving us in a crisis to address how to Fund these programs.

As a result, Cal OES, which administers these funds, alerted advocates in August 2023 of anticipated funding cuts to VOCA. Last week, the Office for Victims of Crime released their state allocations only including 87 million for California crime services for fiscal year 24. This equates to a 43% reduction from the 153.8 million allocation last year. These funds support survivors of child abuse, elder abuse, human trafficking, domestic violence and sexual assault, and so much more.

They Fund nonprofit organizations as well as government based approaches such as the DA victim witness programs. These organizations provide housing services, culturally specific therapy, crisis response support with applying for victims compensation, and direct legal services. Along with connecting survivors to other community based organizations, they are a deeply embedded part of our state's safety net for survivors. If the state does not step up to support these programs, an entire continuum of care will be devastated. These programs are the first responders for survivors.

The call to a domestic violence hotline is often the first call when a survivor is looking for a way to leave and find a safe. Long before the survivor even considers law enforcement or seeking a restraining order. Advocates at a domestic violence program will help the survivor navigate through these processes. In addition to helping with housing, counseling and services for their children, the rape crisis center hotline is often the first call a survivor makes after experiencing sexual assault.

Rape crisis center advocates are called out to hospitals to meet a survivor through a sexual assault forensic exam, an obtrusive and invasive exam in the immediate aftermath of an assault. These programs are not a supplement to a state's response to survivors. They are the response should these cuts be rolled out without state assistance? To backfill this steep reduction, rape crisis centers will have to turn away at least 20,000 survivors from sexual assault, forensic exams and counseling.

7000 fewer children who are survivors of child abuse will not receive support through trauma informed forensic interviews and advocacy. Local programs will have to reduce their staff by 50%, leading to increased wait times to access these vital services. And some programs are facing the worst decision, closing their doors entirely to their communities to avert these cuts and deadly outcomes. In the immediate term, the only option is for the state to allocate funding in this year's budget.

It will be months, if not another year, before Congress finalizes their FY 25 budget and Cal OES will begin implementing cuts long before that. Service providers and survivors seeking help cannot wait that long. There are no other state, county, or civil city level funding sources that can step into this gap or that fund such a wide range of victim services.

The magnitude of VOCA as a funding source and the size of the cuts means there are no small tweaks programs can make to adjust without survivors feeling dramatic impacts. These organizations already run on tight budgets. There is no way to absorb these cuts without massive and severe consequences. That is why Assemblymember Reyes is leading our budget request, and we have a bipartisan group of 23 assembly members who have joined the request.

In the long term, we are co sponsoring AB 2432 by Assemblymember Gabriel to establish a new funding stream through penalties on corporate bad actors. But even if it's signed into law, it'll take time for those penalties to be assessed, collected, and distributed. Programs and survivors cannot wait that long without immediate budget action. The survivor who is currently calling right now, requesting to be connected to an advocate as we meet during this really important hearing, deserves to know that that call will be answered.

Thank you for your time and attention to this urgent funding crisis.

Good afternoon, Chair Wahab and committee members, and thank you for the opportunity to address the committee today. I'm the executive director of the National Alliance of Trauma Recovery Centers. We have 22 trauma recovery centers here in California and 30 across the United States. We're an evidence based treatment program for victims of violence and trauma. We treat all forms of interpersonal violence and particularly proud of our work with families and loved ones of homicide victims because that is a service that's not readily available in California.

The mission of the National alliance of Travel Trauma Recovery Centers is to advocate and increase access to trauma informed care for vulnerable and marginalized survivors who are impacted by violence and systemic inequities. We strive to create a world where every survivor of violence gets the help that they need to heal. When we treat trauma, we not only help that person, we help their family and the whole community.

And treating trauma prevents future victimization for that person and their family, as well as future violence by treating the mental health, substance abuse, and trauma issues that were caused by violence. UCSF developed this trauma recovery center model in 2001, and in 2005, we were part of a randomized treatment trial that found significant clinical and cost effectiveness. In the model, we have higher rates of engagement and services, 82% effectively linked to community services, and we also have an increase in sexual assault survivors receiving mental health services.

So we went from a baseline of 6% to a standard 72% of interaction in mental health services for our survivors. We also have another outcome that we didn't anticipate, but we also. Our work provides increased number of police reports that survivors file because they have a lot of support and they have treatment, and they have someone there to help them with it. So we were able to increase that also. We also show significant improvements in mental health and daily functioning.

We have a 44% decrease in PTSD symptoms, 43% decrease in depression symptoms, and 96% of our survivors said they feel better emotionally. We're also cost effective. We cost 34% less than service as usual, fee based service, someone going to an individual therapist or treatment center and paying for therapy. The model was codified in California legislation in 2013, and that's when we began to replicate the model. And in 2017, we did.

We worked on secondary legislation to help define the standards and minimum requirements and best practices for the model. So the model has a format which, if used with fidelity, then we can get to the outcomes that I just discussed. We've replicated across California. As I said, we now have 22, and we have 30 more in 12 states across the US.

Part of the work that I do at the National Alliance of Trauma Recovery Centers is oversee the committee that runs the 52 trauma recovery centers across the US. We work to create a learning environment to help share best practices, and then also to help replicate the model.

So we have four to six new trauma recovery centers coming on this year, and we work very closely with our partners at the alliance for Safety and justice to reach communities across the country that don't have access to trauma treatment. The model is unique in that it is well developed in understanding the reactions of people who experience trauma. So we have a very survivor centered service.

We identify the kinds of barriers like stigma or avoidance or fear that are very common for people who've experienced being a victim of crime. We provide coordination across systems that crime victims touch. So the legal system, the health system, financial systems, and housing. And we are inclusive in our treatment. So the survivor just has to go to one place to receive services instead of being siloed in different services.

Any survivor can be treated with comprehensive case management, mental health services, group therapy, and advocacy in one spot. We also focus on underserved communities. We know that communities that live in poverty, that have experienced systemic inequities, that suffer with challenges that come from their communities themselves, like immigration challenges or language barriers or high crime areas, are the least served in our public systems.

And so we actually outreach and target those communities so that we can get to the underlying causes of violence and help to affect those. We are also clinically cost effective and have high positive results.

Thank you.

Can I just say? The last thing is about the funding. So, we're funded through the Safe Neighborhood Schools act, the restitution Fund, and the General Fund. And, of course, as we've been discussing, we are facing big cuts across the trauma recovery centers in California. So this year, we had seven trauma recovery centers up for renewal, and they got an average of 46% cut to each of those centers.

That's extremely challenging for us to continue to provide those services and for survivors to continue to have that as a resource, but also, it's going to result in laying off staff members, it's going to result in ending treatment for survivors, and it's going to take away services from our communities. So we're very concerned about that. And part of it is that the model that we're funded under is a contract system.

So every year, anyone can apply to be a TRC, and it does not take into consideration the existing services and continuing to Fund those. So the pot is spread out. For instance, those seven organizations that are existing were cut 46% this year, but two new trauma recovery centers were funded at a very small amount, and they will.

None of the TRCs will have enough resources to effectively run the model to the efficacy that we know we can get to and the outcomes that we know we can get to.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, chairs and senators. My name is Anthony DiMartino, and I'm the government affairs director for Californians for Safety and Justice. At the heart of our work is crime survivors for Safety and Justice, a network of more than 200,000 crime victims nationally and 52,000 here in California. When asked, survivors overwhelmingly say they want investments in healing and violence prevention over more incarceration. However, the amount we spend on victim services represents about 1% of the amount California spends on corrections.

Or put another way, California spends 85 times more on corrections than than on victim services. California has made strides to support survivors, but has also fallen behind national best practices and must do more to meet recovery needs. Survivors contend with crushing post victimization debt, while traumatized financial help can offer stability and safety. Every state has a victim compensation program funded by state and federal dollars. You heard about that earlier. Staff at CAL VCB are dedicated to helping survivors and are doing tremendous work every day.

But the compensation program is limited by outdated state statute that creates unnecessary hurdles to help the federal office for victims of crime just released new proposed regulations for state compensation programs for the first time in over two decades. I'll speak to a little bit of some of the rules that they are proposing. The rules would require state serve survivors regardless of conviction, history or incarceration. In California, survivors on probation or parole for some convictions cannot get help.

California is only one of seven states with these restrictions. Incarcerated survivors are also ineligible. This denies help to Californians who are most vulnerable. Nationally, nearly nine out of 10 people with records have been crime victims, compared to fewer than half without a record. California is out of step with the rest of the country and will soon be out of compliance with federal rules. The proposed rule would also restrict states from denying help based on vague victim blaming restrictions.

In California, these subjective judgments are typically driven by initial law enforcement assessments and apply even in cases where the victim is killed. This sends the message to survivors that they don't deserve help, compounds trauma and prevents access that makes communities safer. An Alameda County grand jury report found that black applicants were nearly twice as likely as white applicants to be be denied compensation based on these subjective determinations. The proposed federal change reflects data that these restrictions are vulnerable to biases.

The rule would also clarify that states don't need to make compensation contingent on police reporting or cooperation. Six in ten violent crime victims do not report immediately, making most survivors ineligible for compensation. That same Alameda County grand jury report also found that black victims are disproportionately denied due to subjective cooperativeness assessments, driving disparities due to implicit bias. California allows alternatives to a police report for survivors of gender based violence, but not other victimizations.

Other states have made these changes in recent years, including Louisiana, New Mexico and Illinois. Lastly, the proposed federal rule would make other changes that California can leverage, including clarifying ways states can reduce paperwork hurdles recognizing more safety related expenses and clarifying states can include victims that may not be explicitly recognized under federal or state law. For example, California has yet to clearly recognize victims of police use of force as eligible, and the proposed rule reaffirms that the state can.

The rules reflect a federal shift toward getting survivors help quickly over bureaucratic processes that scrutinize survivors. This is also reflected in AB 160, which was a budget trailer Bill passed in 2022 which would strengthen the compensation program. AB 160 was contingent on a budget appropriation and the Legislature must still act to implement it. Some of the most urgent changes to increase access to law support and speed up help are estimated at just $3 million per year, which would not be felt immediately.

California's compensation program also remains reliant on unstable and unjust fines and fees. The state has wisely appropriated general funds in recent years to stabilize the program and must continue to act to fund the program with general funds and other sustainable sources. As I close, I just want to say providing urgent help to survivors is a critical part of the of state safety strategy and cannot wait. Survivors have waited long enough for a program that meets immediate needs quickly.

We urge the legislature to work to reinstate funding for the Flexible Assistance for Survivors grant program so that Cal OES can get this vital help out in the communities. Thank you so much for your ongoing efforts to improve support for crime survivors. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you all for your testimony. Sincerely, no comments or questions. Our other colleagues will be back, so let us now go to public comment. Thank you to the panelists. Are there any members of the public here who'd like to testify with respect to today's panel items? Please proceed.

Thank you. My name is Trent Murphy and I'm here today on behalf of the California Association of Alcohol and Drug Program Executives, also known as CAADP, to address a pressing concern in relation to re-entry services that affects over 3000 individuals and the potential loss of those services. The issue stems with the unexpected depletion of contingency funds within the stock provider budgets contracted with CDCR. Stock providers provide crucial services such as case management, transitional housing, mental health services, and substance use disorder treatment.

Despite the successful utilization of these funds during the COVID-19 pandemic to accommodate early releases from state prisons, recent directives from the CDCR have left stop providers in a State of emergency because they do not have access to these funds.

With just over two months left in the fiscal year, the refusal to allow the use of contingency funds have left stop providers scrambling to find alternative solutions to the populations they serve without immediate intervention, the consequence is dire, the forced discharge of 3000 participants from services by the end of May 2024, leading them without the vital support they need.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just want to, again, you know, for those of you guys who have stayed in these meetings in the past couple months, 30 seconds for public comments. Thank you.

Briefly, Kim Lewis, representing the California Coalition for Youth in support of the backfill for the VOCA loss of funds. We know that our young people experience experiencing homelessness, are often victims of trafficking violations. Anywhere from 19% to 40% of young people are victims. And so hope you can really consider finding some additional resources for this so we don't lose those supports.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Josh Gauger on behalf of the Chief Probation Officers of California, chief probation officers have long supported benefits of collaborative drug courts and as key public safety partners of the judicial branch on their implementation. We are eager to engage in the conversation on how to maximize their use and success. From our perspective, the key of their success is the combination of close judicial oversight and monitoring with intensive community supervision and substance use disorder treatment in lieu of incarceration.

Lastly, relative to the CalAIM and Justice involved initiative, we do have some concerns that there's not enough attention at the state level to avoiding building new silos. With this implementation, probation oversees adherence and success with court ordered case and treatment plans and fulfills the role of much of what was discussed today. Thank you.

Thank you chair and committee staff. Ryan Morimune with the California State Association of Counties, representing all 58 counties, first and foremost appreciate the discussion on all three panels on these critically important issues.

We know counties are on the front line in key implementers or key stakeholders in all three items, but in particular, just as it relates to issue three, which is also on behalf of the urban counties of California, Rural County representatives, California and the County of Ventura, just, you know, appreciate further conversations with the legislature and administration on how we can stabilize funding for VOCA grants. Obviously, those cuts are critical to the core services that are provided on a local level. Thank you.

Thank you. And for anybody who would like to make additional comments. Again, you guys are free to email us or reach out to our staff, set up a meeting or anything like that. So let me just ask, are there any other members of the public that would like to make any comments? Seeing none again, I want to thank all of you guys who participated in public testimony today.

If you're not able to testify today again, you can submit your comments or suggestions in writing to the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee or visit our website. Your comments and suggestions are important to us, and we want to include your testimony in the official hearing records. Thank you, everyone, for your participation. We have concluded the agenda for today's hearing. The Senate Budget Subcommittee number five on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor and Transportation is adjourned.