Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 6 on Public Safety

All right, we're going to call to order the Assembly Budget Subcommitee Number six, which covers public safety. We will be hearing issues that involve children and youth today and have a number of law enforcement representatives in the hearing as well as tribal representatives.

We really appreciate the time that you are taking away from your official duties to speak to these very important issues. We are also hearing from the Director of the Office of Youth and Community Restoration on our last item related to youth diversion programs.

And last but certainly not least, I want to thank and welcome all those that are here to lift up the voices of those that need to be heard in public safety. Budget speakers are listed in speaking order for each of the items.

Please keep your remarks within the allotted time communicated to you by my staff and remember to introduce yourselves prior to speaking. We will now move out of order because Member Lackey wanted to be here for the first two items and being able to be out there.

I see that everybody's here for issue four, which is the tribal youth diversion programs. So we're going to start with issue four. Kaylin O'Neill, Catherine Lucero, Chairman James, Tara, Lynn Appena, and Lorraine Orozco from San Pasqu.

Thank you so much. We'll move forward with LAO.

Thank you. Caitlin O'Neill with the Legislative Analyst Office. I was asked to provide some brief background on the Tribal Youth Diversion Grant Program. It was funded by one time General Fund augmentations to the Board of State and Community corrections of about 1 million from the 2018-19 Budget act and 10 million from the 19.

It provides competitive grants to tribes to implement diversion programs using trauma informed, community based, health based and health based interventions with the goal of diverting American Indian youth from entering or furthering their involvement in the justice system.

The authorizing statute required BSCC to prioritize programs that address the needs of Indian children who experience high rates of arrest, suicide, alcohol and substance abuse and have average high school graduation rates that are lower than 75%.

Based on limitations of the available data as well as consultation with experts, BSEC determined that all federally recognized tribes in California were presumed to meet these criteria. Consistent with its typical practice for administering competitive grants, BSCC convened working groups of experts to develop the RFPs as well as evaluate the proposals.

According to BSCC, these working groups included subject matter experts on American Indian populations and culture, historical trauma youth diversion programs, trauma informed care, health and wellness, and law enforcement. There have been two cohorts of grantees. In both cases, the grant period was three and a half years.

The first cohort funded two tribes and started in July 2019 and the second cohort funded nine tribes starting in July 2020. Grantees from the first cohort were eligible to apply for the second cohort as long as they submitted a new project or proposed a new project. There were various types of interventions that were funded.

For example, interventions included partnerships with tribal and superior courts as well as schools to respond to and reduce risky, risky behavior such as truancy by referring youth and families to trauma informed and culturally relevant services.

Activities also included promoting protective factors like cultural awareness, education and outreach activities such as through traditional games or dance and song traditions, local myth and stories, et cetera, as well as providing academic support, college and career workshops, and mentoring services.

And that brings me to the end of my overview and I'm happy to answer questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Well, thank you so much. Moving on to Katherine Lucero.

Thank you, Honorable Chair and staff. Thank you for allowing me to speak for briefly about generally about diversion and then more specifically about how my office is continuing to support positive outcomes for tribal youth. As you are aware, there are several levels of diversion.

There is a community led diversion that partners with law enforcement agencies to keep youth from going to juvenile hall and to court. There's also probation diversion. There's also deferred entry of judgment that is offered by the District Attorney. And then there's judicial diversion where a judge can offer a non violent offender an alternative to formal probation.

I want to focus for a minute on community led diversion because it is shown to have the best outcomes for children and youth who have committed low level and nonviolent offenses. There are three major benefits to diversion.

First of all, desistance from offending refers to the fact that most youth referred to the justice system will stop offending without intervention. Second, swift accountability. Former court processing brings stigma and delays and diversion offers quick accountability.

Effectiveness of diversion is that research shows that diverted youth have better outcomes than youth formerly processed in court and are less likely to have future justice system involvement. A comprehensive CROSSROADS study showed that diverted youth had better or equal results from formerly processed Youth on all 19 measures studied in that study.

Now I will move to the next question focusing primarily on Native American youth and Are there any funds that currently support tribal youth diversion through our federal Title II formula grants through the Office of Juvenile justice and Delinquency Prevention.

The Coyote Band of Pomo Indians are leading a Coyote Valley 2023 youth chronic absentee Diversion Program out of Mendocino County. The grant funds the services of a youth counselor and a student academic advocate among other important positions in this program. They receive $350,000 over a three year period for a total of $1.50 million over that three years.

There are five of the 15 community based organization that are specifically working with our tribal youth that OYCR is funding through their budget. We have a community based expansion initiative building on and expanding and sustaining community based organizations.

Five of the organizations are getting a combined funding of $2.4 million through OYCR's contract with Sierra Health foundation which focuses on that community based capacity building. Also, they are building a juvenile services network using the Calaim justice and the other Behavioral Health Connect initiatives within the chhs. OICR is within the California Health and Human Services Agency.

We are funding Three Sisters Garden out of Yolo County, Two Feathers out of Humboldt, Foster Hope out of Sacramento, Bright Futures for Youth out of Nevada and Spirit Works out of Siskiyou. These CBOs have listed that at least 10% of their services are available to tribal youth. However, two feathers out of Humboldt is strictly for tribal youth.

We do have other diversion opportunities. Arcata out of Humboldt is also getting Title 2 funding out of our OJJDP Contract City of Gilroy in Santa Clara, Operation New Hope in San Bernardino.

Also getting community based organization capacity building money from OYCR are API Rise out of San Bernardino, Kindful Restoration out of Riverside and San Bernardino, Project Aware out of San Diego, Young Visionaries out of San Bernardino, Sister warriors in LA and San Francisco, Eden Youth out of Alameda and Homeboy Industries in LA and Nested Integral Coaching Constellation out of Los Angeles.

There was a question posed to OYCR how can we better integrate and distribute juvenile justice resources in a way that includes the culturally diverse needs of Native American youth?

Oicr as you know, has taken over all the Juvenile Justice Grant Administration and we also have an OICR Systems Change and Equity Policy Chief that has a tribal relationship building and honoring the rights of Native youth in her portfolio. Today she is at the Governor's Tribal Summit across town.

The community traditions are the exact healing remedy that our children and youth who find themselves informal justice systems need to get connected again to themselves, to those who love and cherish them and and to their communities.

First we have to build relationships, listen to the needs of our particular tribal communities and then look at our vast California health and Human services initiatives to operationalize them to the communities. And we need to support capacity building for as long as it takes so that communities are not tied to only government grants and contracts.

Sustainable funding is what we're after at oycr. As you know, oicr as I have mentioned, is located within CHHS and there are a number of initiatives that we are making sure integrate our juvenile justice youth and our tribal youth. That is why we're at the table at many meetings.

We want our youth not to go to formal carceral systems, but when they do, we want them to go home to their communities feeling welcomed and supported with reliably funded network of services. You also asked about our California Tribal Families Coalition grant.

The collaboration between OICR and the California Tribal Families Coalition was forged to better understand the challenges that probation has and faces when it comes to serving our Native youth.

Since the OYCR California Tribal Funding Project started in 2023, there have been surveys, listening sessions, presentations and informal gatherings, all with the goal of gathering data and insights into how the juvenile justice system, and specifically probation officers, can most effectively work with tribal youth and their communities.

Thus far, there have been five formal listening sessions bringing together over 200 people and dozens of tribes. Further, there have been meetings and presentations throughout California with tribal leaders, tribal community Members, tribal service providers and probation personnel, which has served as both training and relationship building opportunities.

On the information and data front, the project included a survey of California probation officers. One important finding from the survey highlighted that respondents said that they had limited knowledge about Native youth, tribes and tribal services.

They also identified knowing that knowing more Native American organizations, providers, agencies that could provide services for Native youth would be helpful to them. And I do have a breakdown and I can give that to your staff chair if you so desire.

I did want to also inform you about the Ombuds data and the number of complaints submitted from tribal youth. The division has received two complaints from youth who identified themselves as Native. One from Northern California and one from Southern California. Our office has an ombuds division.

Every incarcerated youth can call our helpline or when we visit tell us very directly if they have any complaints about the carceral setting. We just collected data. And with regard to tribal youth I can tell you that Statewide there were zero youth who had been adjudicated for PC 290 offenses.

That statewide the number of youth transferred from an LRP which is from the SYTF to an LRP was 3. So that's a less restrictive program from a highly restricted program. The number of youth for whom a transfer hearing was ordered was one.

So one youth, a transfer hearing was ordered to be tried as an adult and the number of youth whom that hearing was held was one. We get a variety of data and we analyze it to make sure that we understand where the hot spots and the hot issues are.

And then we try to issue reports that are analytical with some policy suggestions. I'm here for you if you have any other questions. I could probably talk for way too long.

Well, thank you so much for your testimony. Now we'll go to Chairman Joe James of the Yurok Tribe.

Good afternoon. My name is Joe James, Chairman of the Yurok Tribe. The Yurok Tribe is located in Humboldt and Del Norte county in Northern California. Today I'm talking in support of the Yurok Diversion 4 funding and resources.

Why I say that is I could easily myself personally could easily got caught up without having got caught up and ending on the wrong path As a young boy. But having strong background my parents culture community throughout the elementary school system. They weren't advocates, they were mentors, they were support.

So we want to speak about how important helping our young juveniles, our young boys or young girls and get in the resources maybe they don't have because of. Because of the area. We're isolated, we're rural.

Up there in Humboldt County and Dornard County cultural is a huge part community is a huge part being a small community up there, you know, I wanted to speak on the importance of having advocates there on the ground. We have a tribal court system that believes in wellness and we've done a lot of great work in wellness.

We want to be on the prevention side up front, not on the back end. And we're all doing the great work that we're hearing today on. Again, look at also as an investment, look at the thousands, if not millions we're spending on incarceration.

Doing that work up front through prevention and through diversion to help our children is much needed. So I just wanted to today speak on behalf of support of the youth diversion programs funds. It is much needed for us. And again, I think of that now when we talk about, I think of a different. A different context.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s, being as a young boy running around on or near our reservation, I was very fortunate to be surrounded by mentors. Now you can call them advocates, you know, sending them through the school system. If we sarb. That's not the answer. The answer is boots on the ground advocates.

How can we uplift? Help them education wise, advocate wise. As you mentioned, community resources. And again, we're looking at ways to bring them together with wellness and community and culture. And I think there's a good opportunity here and it's already been done already and we'll continue to do that work.

Letting Kira speak on behalf of the support of funding and resource for youth diversion program. It is much needed. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Chairman. Next we'll go to Tara Lina Pina, chief operations officer, Yurok tribe.

Hi, good afternoon. Tara Lynn Appena, chief operations officer for the Yurok tribe. I've had the pleasure of serving the Yurok tribe for the last 20 years and I just want to build on what Chairman James has shared and advocate for funding for tribal court and youth diversion program funding.

These are critical to survival and success of the Yurok families in our region and to build on what Chairman James had said about the culturally relevant program we do within the tribal court.

Our tribal court is led by chief judge Abby Abinanti, who is a York tribal Member, the first Native American woman to pass the bar and serve as a state court judge. And she takes the approach of the tribal court is extended family with specialized skills. We're here to help you.

We are the overly involved auntie, uncle, cousin here to help. And that we are from. Not once you turn 18, you're out the door, but throughout your life. She shared a story also of one of the court orders was that she had told the adult, the father, that he had to read to his child every night.

And that was able to help the family from the child moving forward and then the father to have more, I guess like a sense of pride that he was involved in his son's life. So I want to also talk about what we did with our last round of funding. We're able to hire a Staff Attorney, two caseworkers.

We've taken initiative to build a comprehensive solution and a program that provides legal advocacy, case management and direct support to students at risk. We helped our youth navigate truancy, secure IEPs and address the underlying issues that contribute to their struggles in school. Lines of communications were opened up between school officials, families, families and court advocates.

The Yurok Tribe has over 1000 youth and had the goal of reaching over 700 youth. However, our capacity is nowhere near sufficient to meet the overwhelming demand for services. We were forced to turn away a lot of families and unable to realize the potential of this program. The evidence is clear. Our approach works.

Youth in our program had successfully graduated from high school and gone on to college, including now enrolled in Cal Poly Humble and College of the Redwoods. We've helped our team and families break the cycle of absenteeism, improve the academic performance and avoid juvenile justice involvement. So we can't do it alone.

And we and we're with the current amount of funding and so we're asking for support to continue to this programming. Currently we're able to Fund one employee who helps, but the need is immense.

And just also want to share that California youth who go through pre arrest diversion programs like the York Youth diversion program are 2.5 times less likely to reoffend than youth who are not diverted. So I urge you to continue to prioritize and fully implement tribal youth diversion program program and our youth cannot afford to wait any longer.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for that testimony. We'll now move to Lorraine Orozco, Executive Director, Department of Education for the San Pasqua Band of Indians.

Good afternoon. Lorraine Orozco. I'm the Director of education for San Pasqual. I'm happy to be here. As was mentioned, there were two core cohorts with the tribal diversion monies and programs.

We participated in the second cohort and we were able to obtain funding for our youth on the reservation which allowed us to network with all the systems and organizations within justice for our youth and tribal court as well. So our partnership with tribal court, Tribal court in our area services nine reservations.

We Were able to have a partnership with tribal court for a youth court. We worked with Judge Devon Lamaisva and her staff, and we were able to put together training for our youth to engage in peer court. And an actual peer court hearing was established. Finally. It takes a while to build.

We have a lot of training for our students, training for our youth to participate, and that was one of our accomplishments. And also partnerships with tribal police. As you know, in Southern California, we have very small tribes. We need to service all our students with on very minimal resources.

And so what we were able to do with tribal diversion was to increase school success, support partnerships with the school district, partnership with our Title 6 programs that have limited funding to service our Native American students as well. With the partnership, we're able to increase and. And work together with the parents, the family, the community.

I agree with Chairman James that it should be in front of the program as prevention. We know our youth. Our youth need their community. They need advocates for culture. They need their advocates to stand up and help them through the public school systems. We attend the public school systems and also with our health organizations too.

So a wraparound approach to our students with mind, body, spirit, the way we do in our ways.

Thank you so much for your testimony. And diving into it a little bit deeper, getting to the cultural aspect of intervention diversion to the tribal governments here represented. Do you believe that it's best equipped through the tribal government to move forward in these types of programs affecting our youth?

For us, we believe in partnerships. We believe in bridges. But anytime we're talking to our own youth, because we. We know we all have generational trauma and things going on, on or near, depending on a family. And again, we. We want our. Our court systems, our advocates on the ground, being able to work with them.

But again, we. We have a strong working relationship with others because again, it takes more than just a. A tribe. Again, it's just a. We have a number of indigenous people statewide. But again, I would advocate for the tribe.

Thank you. Thank you for that. And Chairman James, the cultural aspect of individual tribes, Yurok tribe, Yavaitham Tribe, the individuals that are connected to those tribes. And the cultural aspect. Can you talk a little bit more to that of how that paves the way for those to continue to move forward?

Yeah. You know, including our culture for our brothers and sisters you mentioned in Southern California up on there in Northern California, to provide that identity of who we are as Indian people. We never forget where we come from, where we're at and where we're going. And Again, we keep that in mind and grounded for us.

I just wanted to speak to. You mentioned the partnership and the work we have been doing sharing our cultural statewide through northern, Central and Southern. It's important. It's important. You never know where you are at in a specific day or time. You know, you rely on your teaching, your way of life, of who you are, your grandparents.

You give thanks to Christ every day, who you are. I do want to provide a brief. Growing up in the school system up there in northern Humboldt and Hoopa, as a young boy, we talk about the school system. It was a diversion, but it was our cultural setting.

During that time, we was able to have mentors come into the school system and look at us. They weren't teachers, they were cultural practitioners that wanted to help with us. As part of that, we'd be pulled aside. Teaching our cultural identity, who we are, we always knew that. But they were there to help as your elders.

And you're looking down on us and helping us in the school system. We mentioned the IEP system, the SARB to your parents. We mentioned Terry Lynn, mentioned our courts. We said, we want you to read for them because you never know that family never had that. That father or mother figure in that house.

And being able to provide that. That family setting to them, in a cultural setting to them, it helps them. And so again, cultural is important and it should be driven by our indigenous people here to help our youth.

And on the tribal component, also you mentioned tribal courts and ultimately creating a youth court and the ties to the schools and how does that work within the tribal community?

So unfortunately, we weren't able to continue this program, but we did were able to hire one tribal attorney and then two advocates who, who worked with about 30 youth. And the goal was 600.

However, when you are going to the schools and you're having the individual education plans developed, that meetings are for an hour to three hours long. So I think it's a challenge in our area with the amount of the vast area between Humboldt County and Del Norte county, the lack of rural area.

So I think that's all I have to answer that. I don't know the exact specifics other than the challenges that we're facing.

Well, thank you so much for that. And San Pasquale, you mentioned that within the court system itself established a youth court and the ties to the local school district. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that and the resources there that could be still needed in this component?

Yes. So we were just only beginning after three years with the program to establish, train and do these things. We were at the beginning. We're at the beginning and we see the benefits and the encouragement of the community, the tribal governments and the schools to encourage that. The funding was then not allocated for a resubmittal of programs.

So we lost that funding. And we're trying to keep continue that partnership, that model that we established with the school districts, with tribal police, with tribal court and wraparound services for our youth and with our cultural programs as well. Because it's so important, it's the foundation. So we are trying to sustain that.

But yes, without the funding, it has been a challenge.

Thank you. And all of you talked about success in these programs while the funding was there, the success of the programs. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

We also have mentors for our students. We also did case management for our ones that were on the edge, pivoting to pull them in to be part of their community, to have that trauma informed program and services and resources around them directly from the tribe.

Because the tribe has the foundation with the culture and educating to have this and a partnership with the tribal police and tribal court. It is their system. And we can do a diversion before it has to lead into future like court and juvenile justice.

It'll be within the tribes and with the consortium of our nine tribes in Southern California.

Thank you for that.

And also, I can add, one of the successes has also been addressing the missing and murdered indigenous people crisis and how these issues overlap as youth in the system are at higher risk of trafficking and violence and ultimately becoming part of the missing and missing and murdered indigenous people crisis.

We're able to do early intervention and create a safety net for our youth and our children to know that they can come to the tribe or people in the community to ask for help if there's something that may be suspicious in their school or in their life.

And then creating this network in the community and taking it from a village mindset that we're here to help each other and throughout your life, not just as a child.

Thank you for tying those components together. That's there. Chairman James, can you describe the membership of your tribe, how large the membership is and any other comments you might have?

Yeah. Thank you. We're located in Humboldt and Del Norte county. We've got about 6,500 tribal citizens. We're the largest populated tribe in California. A land base. I just wanted to add a comment. About 10 years ago, we had a suicide crash crisis with our youth.

I think it was about three to Four that took their lives over a year period. We've implemented a youth wellness we're getting ready to build that hopefully break down next year. We have a strong working relationship with our law enforcement in Humboldt and Del Norte County. We're all to come together. We rang that bell.

We needed help and assistance even for the agencies here in the State of California during that time. It was a very dark moment. When we talk about youth diversion and talk about it all comes together at the school system, at the home, at the community, at the culture.

And again, coming together as a tribe and a community from, as Terry Lynn mentioned, from a village mindset to help our people because we care for them and we love them and we want the best for them. And again, we wanted to say we are here to provide help and assistance.

But thank you, thank you so much for that. Catherine Lucero, you talked about the work that's being done specifically within Title 2 programs, federal funding, Coyote Valley, but also state funding. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

And you did also mention that it came to light that you needed more representation from the tribal communities in developing these programs. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? Also.

We OICR had an allocation that it came with, as you know, chair. We were evolved from SB823, where we closed the youth prison system, the statewide, and had the realignment back to the counties.

And we had 20 million allocated in our first iteration that was for us to kind of get some grounding and also to look at grant funding and opportunities to help the community. So with some of that money, we built a community capacity building initiative.

And specifically that initiative has resulted in some of those monies going to tribal specifically for tribal youth. My information is that 2.4 million through our contract with Sierra Health, which is I think 15 million. I have my Deputy Director in the audience, but I believe it was a $15 million allocation. Yes. And she's saying yes. And then.

So the 2.4 specifically went to the tribal community based organization services. I have also outreached to tribal leaders. I have met with Judge Abbey a couple of times. I've known her actually. I was a state court judge for 22 years and I've known her for a very long time.

I've also visited the Placer Tribal Court and also the one in San Diego and would agree that tribal state court relationships are critical. And also the school, to the extent we could have charter schools for youth who don't do well in the other schools, restoring our youth to be their best selves is so critical.

We have continued to build relationships. I have a trip planned up to Humboldt to get that involvement and participation. And then with the California Tribal Families Coalition, we again are. There's multiple ways that we're outreaching, that we're getting the input.

We also have a brief on our website about how to serve Native youth in the juvenile justice system. Judge Espana from San Diego has State of the art best practices for early identification of tribal youth. Juvenile justice is different than child welfare. The ICWA is very different in the juvenile justice arena.

But we believe that every juvenile justice youth should be identified, that their community should be brought into the court proceedings. That where possible, diversion should involve a rap team from the tribal community, a release to the tribal community. But those ultimately are judicial decisions. And so that's why judicial education is important.

I am meeting at the state level with judges. I do, I'm offered to speak at their institutes, that kind of thing. And we are helping to author the most current judicial scripts that judges use when they do detention hearings to include that early identification of tribal youth.

So it's really a lot of different layers in order to address the needs of our tribal youth and to make sure that they get back to the healing medicine of their communities as soon as possible.

And do you think that there's a misclassification.

Thank you for that. And do you think that there's misclassifications in identification of Native Americans within the State of California and the programs that.

Are served with regard to that early identification with juvenile justice? Yes, I think so. I think there's a. There's the. If we're not looking to the youth to give their own identity, that that's an issue.

If we're looking at people in the field filling out the different reports that ultimately let us know who the person is that's coming into the systems. And then I also think that youth are not always willing to talk about their identification for whatever reason. I think we're finding that sometimes that doesn't come till later in the process.

And as a judge, I saw that I would see youth who didn't early tell us about their tribal relationships. And then later in the case, we saw that we needed to circle back. So I think there's different ways that there's misidentification.

Okay, well, thank you. Thank you so much for that. Aliyo. The programs administered in 20192020 they were administered through which part of the state?

The Board of State and Community Corrections was the Department that received the funds and was responsible for administering the grants.

And that's the grants that went out to Yurok and San Pasqual, I believe.

Yes, Yurok and San Pasqual were grantees as well as various other tribes.

And hearing from the testimony here, I think picking up that if the funding was there and ongoing, that there would be far more successes, that things ran out when different things were working in the tribal communities and then the funding fell short. Is that safe to say?

We do know that the grantees reported significant interruptions in programming related to COVID 19. At least that's what BSCC's report or kind of summary of the first cohort said.

And we haven't received the BSE summary summary of the second cohort yet, but it sounds like there was quite a bit of disruption from COVID 19 and in one case from wildfires. In terms of your question is what? Could you restate your question?

It's about ongoing.

To the extent that these are ongoing activities that can't be continued without resources, then presumably they would not be able to continue without these funds unless other funds can be leveraged.

Thank you for that. And I know that per capita wise Native Americans do serve within the justice system at a higher rate than others in the state. Can anybody elaborate a little bit more on that data to show the importance of intervention dollars at this at the tribal government.

There's a recent report out, chair. It's the 2025 California Racial Identity Profiling act that was issued by the advisory board. That's a state appointed advisory board. And it said among the troubling findings, first it says black youth are disproportionately stopped by law enforcement.

Youth ages 12 to 14 experience more use of force by law enforcement than older youth, with officers using force against black and native youth in this age range at rates more than twice as high as white youth.

And officers use force more than three times as often with black and native youth between the ages of 15 and 17. With white youth of the same age, I think I can safely say that Native American youth are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system.

Not sure about the adult justice system because I'm not an expert in that area. But it starts on the street and it starts with a lack of understanding of youth culture, of why certain types of youth from certain backgrounds may not think it's safe to stop. Maybe there's a fleeing that's occurring that's mistaken for bad behavior.

Apparently the post training, the officer training does not at this time have standards for law enforcement agencies to abide by ensuring that youth are treated in a developmentally appropriate manner.

So I think there's a real opportunity to look at that report that was just recently issued and I'm happy to give you the citation later to maybe, you know, I think that we've done a good job as government systems who touch the kids say probation, the DA and I say good job.

And I and I mean that genuinely, that I think there's an effort to look at adolescent brain development, to look at cultural differences, but that hasn't yet reached the law enforcement agencies.

Not because I don't think that there's any mal intent on that, but I think that we forgot that they're a huge piece of the continuum of care. So I would agree, Chair, that there is an overrepresentation.

Well, thank you so much for that. One of our last comments would be the money that was allocated for tribal youth intervention. And the dollars went out in 2019 and 2020 with over 109 fully recognized tribes. How many tribes were able to partake in those intervention dollars?

There were nine tribes, two tribes in the first cohort, nine tribes funded in the second cohort. One tribe was in both cohorts.

So hearing from the testimony here from the tribal community that with the funding that's there and the focus on the intervention for our tribal youth. When you tie the tribal courts and the school systems together, that there's a success rate of individuals that are able to move forward within the educational system, attain their records.

I think we heard a testimony that someone is now moving forward to another Cal Poly, I believe it was. And so if the funding is there, then we could see the results of that.

And I think that's something that this Committee is looking at as far as making sure those successes of those programs are there, that it's not being lost when we start talking about dollars in the system itself, early intervention, even establishing the youth court down at San Pasqua and those coalitions of cohorts of tribes that are there.

I think it's a worthwhile discussion. I think it's worthwhile to have resources put back into this area. Any questions from the DAIs, Mr. Chair?

No question. But I just want to say that from my professional experience, I have seen the power and the impact of youth diversion programs. And I applaud you as always, Mr.

Chair, for your focus on tribal youth and their overrepresentation in our justice system and the real value of putting every dollar that we can bring to bear to help divert youth and get them on the right path. So thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the panelists.

Well, thank you so much and thank you for your testimony. As now we move to issue one. Going to move to issue one. Overview of the Department and surge operations to support local jurisdictions to address crime, including organized retail theft. Robin Johnson, Assistant Commissioner, California Highway Patrol. Ty Meeks, Special Representative to the Legislature, California Highway Patrol.

Matthew MacSado, principal program budget analysis, Department of Finance. Kathy Mcleod, finance budget analyst, Department of Finance, Assistant Commissioner.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm Assistant Commissioner Robin Johnson from the California Highway Patrol, and with me is Captain Timeiks, our special representative to the Legislature for the California Highway Patrol.

I appreciate the opportunity to to appear before you today to provide a brief overview of the Department, some of its public safety operations, and discuss the importance of our budget change proposal, which is in line is a line item in the governor's proposed budget.

This proposal is crucial to our mission of providing the highest level of safety, service and security to some of California's most vulnerable population. First, I'd like to thank your Committee staff Members for their assistance in preparing for this hearing. And now, just a brief overview on our Department.

The California Highway Patrol is a Department of the California State Transportation Agency. The Department is commanded by Commissioner Sean Durie, who is appointed by The Governor and confirmed by the State Senate. The California Highway Patrol Headquarters in Sacramento oversees nine field divisions plus five headquarters support divisions.

The California Highway Patrol employs more than 11,000 personnel, approximately 7,500, which are sworn peace officers. The mission of the Highway Patrol is to provide the highest level of safety, service and security to all Californians. This includes not only patrolling the roadways as the state police, but protecting the state infrastructure.

The California Highway Patrol provides security for the Governor, state constitutional officers, state Supreme Court justices, appellate courts, and various dignitaries.

As the largest state police agency in the nation, the California Highway Patrol not only leads in public safety, but also partners with local, state and federal entities to ensure a seamless, collaborative approach to California's transportation and public safety challenges.

For example, the Organized Retail Theft Program was established by the California Highway Patrol in coordination with the Department of Justice.

Since the program's inception in 2019, the California Highway Patrol has been involved in more than 3,600 investigations leading to the arrest of more than 4,000 suspects and the recovery of over 1.3 million stolen goods valued at nearly $54 million.

Additionally, as the State Police, the California Highway Patrol works closely with other agencies and departments, taking on local crime suppression in the form of surge operations. Surge operations augment local law enforcement efforts by saturating specific areas with in view patrol.

These operations are different from retail theft operations, however, they do assist in lowering retail theft incidents as well as sideshows, vehicle thefts, and other crimes in specific areas.

During surge operations, the California Highway Patrol provides somewhere approximately 20 to 30 additional personnel on top of existing baseline personnel, accompanied by other CHP specialty units such as our K9 units, our investigative services Units, Mobile Road Enforcement, or our Commercial Vehicle units. Through collaboration and effective partnerships, the surge operations have recognized the following successes.

The CHP Oakland Crime Suppression Unit has 1,580 arrests, including 447 felony arrests. 2,883 stolen vehicles have been recovered, 159 illicit firearms seized since the operation's launch in February of 2024. Our Bakersfield Crime Suppression Unit has 2,518 arrests, including 550 felony arrests, 940 stolen vehicles recovered, and 73 illicit firearms seized since the operations launched. Excuse me.

In April 2024. Lastly, San Bernardino Crime Suppression Unit has 454 arrests, including 77 felony arrests, 40 stolen vehicles recovered, and 18 illicit firearms seized since the operations launch in October of 2024. Ultimately, the Department exists to protect life and property.

At this time, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have regarding our operations prior to going on to our bcp.

Thank you. We'll move forward. Ty Meeks, do you have any comments? No, Chair, thank you. Thank you. Matthew Mikado, Department of Finance. No, Department of Finance.

I don't. I have this Kathy Mcleod and I don't have anything to add at this time.

Thank you so much for that. And some of the operations moving forward and working with local jurisdictions, have you found that relationship beneficial? Especially when you see the different arrests here in San Bernardino? 454 arrests, 40 stolen vehicles. And the other data you supplied, do you see it beneficial?

Very beneficial, yes. We respond out and go to assist based on a mutual aid request. And so they're asking for our assistance. And with that, with those types of numbers, it seems to be beneficial and appreciative from the different agencies.

Well, thank you for that. Any questions, comments? Thank you. Mr. Chair, just one question. It is a two parter, but it's about the surge operations. Could you. Part A is, could you just talk about the increase that you saw this past year compared to any prior years? That'd be the first question.

And then the second is the mutual aid requests that have been coming in. Have you been able to meet each and every request or does the Department find itself having to say no to some requests because of a lack of resources?

So going back to the first question, I have a clarifying question for you. So you asked if I've seen an increase over the last year. Is that.

Yeah, to clarify. So from what I've read, it appears that in the past year there have been a number of really notable surge operations. I'm assuming that there have been prior mutual aid requests before this past year, other instances where there has been a request for a surge operation.

I'm just wondering if you've noticed an uptick in the number of mutual requests.

So, yes, there has been an uptick over the last. Probably since the Oakland operation began, there's been an increase in the number of requests, but that could go hand in hand with the crime increase and things that are happening within the state.

Perfect. And then I guess the last question is, has, to your knowledge, has the Department been able to meet each and every request or have you, you know, had to say no at times because of limited resources?

So through the mutual aid process, if it comes to us all the way through the mutual aid process, then we accept that request as long as we can accommodate it with our personnel and it's not taken away from our resources. So to answer your question, if it's gone through the proper channels, we've been able to accept them.

Thank you so much, Senator Schultz. And I'm getting to that. As far as the surge operations and the effect on the overall capacity of the California Highway Patrol, we've been able to meet those mutual aid requests without interfering with any other ongoing responsibilities.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for your testimony. As now we move to issue two, and I believe it's the same panel, Child sexual abuse investigations. We'll start with Assistant Commissioner.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The California Highway Patrol requests a permanent budget augmentation of $5 million and 12 positions from the General Fund. These positions will be assigned to the California Highway Patrol's Computer Crimes Investigation Unit to assist in combating child sexual abuse, material and human trafficking throughout California.

You're probably asking why the California Highway Patrol and why now? As the State police, the California Highway Patrol's Computer Crimes Investigation Investigation Unit identified a significant gap in enforcement regarding the distribution of child sexual abuse material.

Given the high volume of distribution across California, the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit started investigating these offenses as a secondary priority when resource is allowed. In reality, given the vulnerable nature of this population, the California Highway Patrol strongly believes this needs to be moved from our secondary mission to a primary mission.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Cyber tip line reported an increase from 29.4 million cases in 2021 to 36.2 million in 2023, a rise of over 20% in suspected online child exploitation cases.

In recent years, the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit has significantly heightened its focus on the alarming rise in child sexual abuse material distribution, a disturbing trend that often intersects with human trafficking networks. The Computer Crimes Investigation Unit actively monitors Internet traffic to identify the most prolific child sexual abuse material distributors in California.

Focusing on offenders engaged in large scale trafficking, the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit utilizes advanced digital forensics, cyber intelligence gathering and expertise in encryption and anonymization tools to uncover and prosecute these crimes.

These efforts are supported by the strategic issuance and execution of search warrants, which are crucial in gathering evidence and dismantling networks involved in child sexual abuse material and human trafficking. These warrants allow for the thorough investigation of both digital and physical premises.

The offenders frequently exhibit behaviors that escalate to hands on offenses, making it imperative for the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit to intervene swiftly and decisively. The California Highway Patrol's Computer Crimes Investigation Unit Proactive investigative measures typically result in a 90% admission and conviction rate among offenders.

The linkage between child sexual abuse material and human trafficking is Undeniable as exploitation often extends beyond digital abuse to physical and psychological harm. Exploiting vulnerable populations. By strengthening the Computer Crimes Unit with additional personnel, resources and capabilities, the unit will enhance its ability to combat these intertwined threats, safeguarding the community from both cyber and physical exploitation.

This proposed expansion is not just an investment in capacity, but a necessary response to the growing sophistication and pervasiveness of cyber threats impacting the State of California.

The current staffing level of the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit is inadequate to maintain established levels of service to state and allied agencies given the rapid rate of increase in cybercrime related incidents.

By securing the requested resources which are outlined in the governor's 2025 and 2026 budget, the California Highway Patrol will be positioned to comply with all statutory requirements, respond to criminal cyber related investigations throughout the state, satisfy the request for services from local, state and federal allied agencies, and provide safety and service to one of of California's most vulnerable populations.

I'd like to highlight a case. I brought several cases to highlight, but I'm just going to touch on one that I think made a big difference for us. It was from in Elk Grove in January of 2024 and it was an AI generated CSAM case.

So In January of 2024, CCIU, our Computer Crimes investigation unit identified a high volume child sex abuse material or CSAM distributor operating out of Elk Grove. Using advanced investigative techniques, the unit traced the activity to a residential address and executed a search warrant.

On March 62024 investigators discovered over 100,000 images and videos of child exploitation with victims ranging from 3 to 13 years old. The case also exposed a new and troubling trend. AI generated CSAM which was legal to possess in California at that time. The suspect was identified, interviewed and later charged with possession of csam.

He surrendered to law enforcement and was booked into Sacramento County Jail. This case revealed a critical loophole in California law allowing AI generated CSAM to circulate without consequence. CCIU played a key role in supporting Assembly Bill 1831 which criminalized AI generated CSAM, closing this gap in 2025.

At the end of the day, the real decision we all need to make is how many kids do we want to save? That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Department of Finance Nothing.

Dad, thank you bringing it back to the dais. Assemblymember yes, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. First of all, thank you very much for your presentation and thank you for the work that you're doing to protect children. It is incredibly important I do have a couple questions just to flush out this year's budget proposal.

Kind of group them in three categories. The first is really about the request itself. My understanding is that the positions that are being requested would be for the CCIU unit. Is that based in Sacramento or would they be positioned statewide?

That is based here in Sacramento.

Okay. And if you happen to know, great. If you don't know, I maybe can get the information from you later. But how are cases that arise in other parts of the state investigated? Are they all funneled through cciu? Just if you could describe that process.

So for the Highway Patrol currently, the way that we're operating is we have, currently right now we have one person on the ICAC task force, which is everybody sitting back behind me here. We have one person on that, we have three people that are assigned to another task force that isn't dealing with it's cyber security.

And then we have two people on a federal task force. So it actually leaves us down right now currently with six investigators within our unit. And then so asking for these 12 additional. What our investigators do. To answer your actual question, what our investigators do is we do peer to peer search on the Internet.

So we don't use the cyber tip hotline or tip line. So they, the investigators here currently, they'll go through and they'll find their cases based off of just a search on the Internet.

And then from there they will do some deconfliction by reaching out to the five different ICACs throughout the state to see if they're working these particular cases once they identify it. And then in addition, they'll reach out to the local agency from that particular area to make sure that there's no overlap in the cases.

And then once that's complete, as long as there's agreement amongst the locals and the local icac, then we'll move forward with the investigation.

Great. Thank you. And actually that was a great answer. You also touched on my third question which had to do with deconfliction. I guess if I had to close it would be if this funding requests were approved by the Legislature and approved by the Governor. To the.

My understanding is there are task forces that don't currently have CHP representation as part of them. Would the new positions now be staffing those task forces? That's. I guess that's the first question.

So that hasn't been a discussion in regards to the fundings, the funding and the positions. Like I said, we only have one person on one of the, on our local task force here in Sacramento we are always open to work with our allied agencies.

And so if that was something that came up in discussion, we would always be willing to work together. But the intent of it was. That was not the intent. The intent was to upstand our unit here in Sacramento.

Okay, thank you. And then my final question is just on a very high level, I know you've touched on it a little bit, but when an investigation is opened, how are you currently working collaboratively with the task forces to further investigate the criminal conduct? Just on a very high level.

So my understanding, and again, this isn't my expertise, but my understanding is that the ICACs, being the experts or the subject matter experts in the field, that we rely on them for a lot of information, training and relationships that have been built with the different District Attorney offices.

And so the relationship that has been built from my understanding is very positive and we continue to reach out to them, to collaborate and assist both ways with the expertise that they have to help us through the process and training as well.

Thank you. Senator Schultz. In getting back to some of the testimony that we were talking about CHP through Assistant Commissioner, you mentioned you want to move this to a top priority. Top priority as far as the computer crimes and making sure that the sexual exploitation moves forward with that.

But also Currently CHP uses 15 to 20% of existing CCIU resources now, making it a top priority. Do you envision more the percentage of those dollars moving forward into that area?

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're asking if we're going to switch our focus and that be our main focus as opposed to the other things that, that we currently investigate. Correct.

At least bringing it up the tier. And then when you bring it up to the tier of a top priority, how does that affect the budget constraints?

So in regard to bringing it up, it's to make it more of a main focus. That's the point of building, asking for the additional positions. So then it doesn't affect what our primary mission is of cciu, it would just make it a secondary main focus. So we have a separate unit set up for that.

Thank you. Thank you for that. And you mentioned in your testimony one of the cases involved as young as a 3 year old and 15 year olds in one of the ongoing cases that were there. So it shows that there's a need, a need specifically to protect the children here in the State of California. Moving forward.

You also mentioned that there was someone that had CSAM ware there that you found out through the AI generated computer access of IT can you elaborate a little bit more on CSAM and how that transpired.

The child sexual abuse material investigation and how the AI was generated through those? Yeah, so. So I would have to get back to you on that. I, again, I'm not an expert in that field, so I would have to. I would have to talk to the investigators and see how that actually worked.

Okay. No, thank you for that because it's showing. Apologize the great need for resources to continue to move forward. When we talk about, if I understood it right, three year olds that are out there getting into the computer, sexual exploitation that moves from the computer aspect to a physical component, then there's a great need that's there.

So I want to thank you for moving that up in the priorities that are there. Within the Department of the Highway Patrol. There was a question through Mr. Lackey, through the chair. Was the Outgrove investigation done in coordination with icac? That's coming from Assemblymember Lackey, who's tied up in another Committee.

Correct. So I don't know if it started with them together. Again, it was probably the way that we get our cases is through the peer to peer Internet search. And so we would have gotten it through the peer to peer Internet search and then collaborated with them to see if they were working that case.

I don't know if they worked it. And they would actually be able to answer that better than I if they were on the case with us when the search warrant was served.

Well, thank you. Yeah. And it goes to the coordination I believe that Assembly Member Lackey is looking for. If coordination is actually moving forward through all the different tiers of, within this area, sexual exploitation, that's there. And if the coordination was done, great.

If not, how can we look at that to ensure that it does happen in the future?

And that is our expectation that it is occurring. And that's the way it is explained to me that it is occurring, that there is that collaboration.

And again, with us having someone on the local Sacramento ICAC that the relationship there has been built and my folks understand the importance of working together and that collaboration so that we're not overlapping in our efforts.

I just want to thank you for your testimony here today and bringing forward an area that I believe still needs a lot of resources to make sure we're protecting our youth here in the State of California. So thank you for that and thank you for continuing to be here and moving forward with testimony.

Thank you so much. And if I could just add one more thing, there are tens of thousands of these peer to Peer cases that appear on the computer on a daily basis.

And if you looked at what we were, you know, the number of cases that we are doing, we started with four cases in 2022 and, and we went up to 25 cases in 2024. So our, our efforts are a very small. It's not even making a dent in.

Can you repeat that data?

So in 2022, we had four cases and we had convictions on three of those. And in 2025, we increased up to 25 cases with a 23 conviction rate. And in I could go back to 2023, we had 10 cases than with nine convictions.

So from 2022 to 2025, we saw a significant increase, and I say significant increase in the number of cases that we worked. But it's 25 in tens of thousands of cases in the daily in California, but throughout the nation, there's millions and millions of these cases. Cases.

So what we were talking as a group, there's not even enough law enforcement in the nation to work these cases. There's so many of them.

Thank you so much for that. And showing that the cases that the need needs that are there. But we also do want to shed light on the victims, the victims in all these different crimes that are taking place, sexual exploitation, making sure that they're getting the resources they need also to continue to move forward in life.

So we want to make sure we start to address that component of it also. Absolutely. Give it a minute, real quick.

I guess I'm up. Yeah. Yeah. So we did ask one of the questions in advance about the outgrowth investigation and stress coordination, which continues to be moving forward.

Okay. So for my own edification, was there any coordination with icac?

So I. The way I explained it was. I don't have exact details on it, but the way that the cases are worked, there is collaboration with all of our cases that we start investigating. So I was unsure and I said, they're here.

They may know that answer if they were actually on the case with us and served the search warrant with us. I don't know that, but I could get that information for you.

That would be helpful. You'll look long and hard to find somebody that's more supportive of the Highway Patrol than me, but in the same. Right. It seems like they have great expertise, and for us to do something independently.

When I say us, the Highway Patrol, do something independently, it seems like that's not the best use of resources to me when you've already had established expertise that maybe there might be some blending opportunity there. Maybe I'm all wet, but that's what it seems like to me.

Well, there's definitely collaboration and working together and being trained by the experts. Before you came in, I did say that they, being the icac, are the subject matter experts in this. Absolutely.

And we rely on their resources and their training and education that they provide, along with a lot of other agencies and resources that provide training as well.

Okay, that's all I got, man. That's good enough.

Well, thank you so much, and thank you again for your testimony and bringing to light a lot of the statistical data that move forward, especially starting off with cases in 2022, CHP, four cases, and now in 2025, up to 25 cases shows the severity of this issue of sexual exploitation that's going on in the State of California.

So thank you so much for your testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As now we move to issue three, Internet Crimes Against Children Task force. We have Tess Shcherkenbach, finance budget analysis. Lieutenant Juan Hildago, Sacramento Valley ICAC Task Force Commander, Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. Detective Sean Smith, Sacramento Valley Task Force. Detective Sergeant Monica Robinson, San Diego Task Force Commander, San Diego Police Department.

Sergeant Michael O'Grady, Silicon Valley Task Force Commander, San Jose Police Department. Sheriff's Lieutenant Joe Smith, Persons Crimes Unit, Fresno County Sheriff's Office. And joining us is Bernie Orozco. All right, we'll start with Department of Finance.

Excellent. Thank you. Good afternoon. This is Tess Schickenbach with the Department of Finance. I will be brief so that we can hear from our experts here with the task force. I'm just going to provide a quick overview of the proposal for Cal OES and the 202526 Governor's Budget.

The proposal would provide 5 million in General Fund on an ongoing basis with a two year encumbrance period to continue the work of the Internet Crimes Against Children program that is under the jurisdiction of the Office of Emergency Services. I'll be available for any questions, but that's kind of the summary of the proposal.

I'll turn it over to our task force representatives. But if you need me, I'm here for questions.

Thank you so much for that. Lieutenant Juan Hildago.

First of all, thank you very much Chairman Ramos and Assembly Members. My name is Lieutenant Juan Hidalgo, work for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office and I'm here to discuss the Internet Crimes Against Children task force. The task forces were established back in 1998. There's 61 task forces throughout the nation.

There's over 5,400 affiliate agencies that are associated with these task forces. Here locally in California we have five task forces. Out of those five, Sacramento covers, Stanislaus all the way up to the Oregon border. Nevada out to Vallejo is the area that we cover. We have 124 affiliate agencies.

That's 124 affiliate agencies that we provide training, we provide equipment and education for a lot of these affiliates. We talked about increases in cases and you know, an increase from 4 to 30 cases is a lot. But in ICAC world in 2019 we received 3500 cases. Tips tip from the National Center for Missing Exploited Children.

Those are tips of people that are suspected of downloading or uploading child pornography. A lot of that is children under the age of 10 years old that are being raped by adults. That's what we're speaking about here today. Today we have approximately over 15,000 tips that in Sacramento we are receiving currently.

That's 15,000 tips that are disposable distributed amongst the 124 affiliate agencies that we have here currently. So the need for more training, the need for more money for training and equipment is huge. We just, with all these agencies there isn't enough money for us to be able to help out everyone. Right?

So we do as much as we can to assist with the different agencies. It's stuff. So we talked about CHP, talked about the Elk Grove case. Well, CHP comes to us for the training for us for assistance. Our current investigator is the one that assisted them with locating that target in Elk Grove.

And that's how we do things. We assist the local agencies, we show them how to do these type of investigations and then we let them go out and do their investigations. We have an Internet ICAC database for, for deconfliction.

And then with all our affiliates and us being able to communicate with our agencies, we can contact that local agency, let them know that we have a target in that area and deconflict any issues. So there will be no issues with us hitting a target within those areas.

As far as cyber tips, currently chps work one cybertip out of all those that we got, so they focus primarily on peer to peer investigations. And I'll let, I'll let Shawn continue with the description of the task force.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Honorable Chair Ramos, Assemblymember Schultz, Assembly Members Lackey and staff. My name is Sean Smith. I'm a detective with the Sacramento Sheriff's Office and I've been with the HITECH task force and the ICAC task force since 22006. So I think it bears a little explanation on how the system is set up. As Lt.

Hidalgo said, it's been in existence since 1998 and it's a coordinated effort that's been successful over time because of how it's developed. These tips, as you referenced, these cyber tips, they come from social media, they come from parents. Any online provider must create a tip that goes to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

If they see any child exploitative material come across their servers. Those tips are worked up by national center. They're then distributed based upon where they believe the location of the suspect and or victim live to one of the 61 ICAC task forces. And sometimes it's to multiple.

If suspect and victim live in different locations, those tips then at the task force because of all their affiliate agencies that they have signed on with them, will, excuse me, will distribute and assign those tips out to the appropriate affiliate agency based upon the jurisdiction. So big tip comes into us as a clearinghouse in Sacramento.

If we find that that tip resolves to Elk Grove, it's going to go to Elk Grove Police Department to investigate. We're there with three primary. All task forces are there for three primary kind of mandates. One is investigating and assisting with investigations in these types of cases. Cases.

The second is training and providing equipment to all of the law enforcement affiliates that are within each task force assigned to each task force.

So currently I believe we have 124 for Sacramento collectively during the state or throughout the state there's nearly 450 affiliate local agencies that are associated with an ICAC task force covering each and every, every corner of the state. So that training and equipment.

And then in addition to that, we also provide public education, community outreach because there's just too many tips coming in year over year. In California alone, we typically lead the nation 2023 numbers. There was 110,000 cybertips alone in California, split between the five task forces.

So when we talk about, Lieutenant Hidalgo spoke about deconfliction, each task force, when those cyber tips come in, the only deconfliction that is set up is the portal that only the ICAC task force commander and the task force itself and their affiliates have access to.

So that's the only way to truly deconflict, to find out, hey, if you're working a potential suspect, whether somebody else may be working them at the same time. When it comes to, as was mentioned in earlier testimony, about the definite tie between some of these who come in on tips that are people downloading this material. Right.

And that case in Elk Grove was from 3 to 15. I can't tell you how many cases come through our office where the victims are an infant, right. The most vulnerable. Vulnerable because there's somebody that can't disclose. Right.

And each and every image and video, each and every image and video is a child who's been sexually abused, Right. Not just something that's created with, you know, CGI or AI.

So when it comes to the, the definite tie to hands on, there is, and we've seen a huge, I think collectively all the task forces have seen a huge increase over the last number of years in the, the downloaders and the predators that are out there wanting to create new material, right.

So they're offending family, friends, neighbors to be able to create that new material which is just treated like a commodity online.

Now the way the reason the task forces work so effectively with local agencies is because primarily most of the ICAC detectives assigned out to each of the affiliates are probably going to be already a child abuse detective.

So when we have a case that leads to and more and more do, leads to somebody downloading the material and then it turns out to be a hands on offense. Well, whatever that affiliate agency is, they have somebody who is already trained properly and how to conduct a hands on child molest investigation, right.

And then we offer our assistance with whatever expertise they need. So the funding, currently the problem is the trend is going in the wrong direction. The trend is going up and up with the number of cases Year over year.

And then the other negative trend for us is that the equipment and the cost is going up and up as well because not only do we help with investigations, we help with the forensic examination of the digital devices that we seize, either by having it sent to us in house or providing the equipment to the agencies.

And that cost, year over year, continues to rise, I'm sure you'll hear today. So we all collectively speak out in support and are very grateful for the monies that we've received, the $950,000 per year which have been in effect, I think since 2018 and remain stagnant since that time.

But I believe, and I think that the group believes that further funding and we speak about collaboration, we're all about collaboration and opening up to any law enforcement official who wants to come and work with us.

But I think that the best bang for your buck comes through the ICAC task forces to working with affiliate agencies who are best suited to investigate those cases because they know, they know the support services. If it's a child victim in their area, they know how to properly investigate them.

They have the relationships in each and every individual area of the state with their District Attorney's offices. And if, you know, if not for the task forces, a lot of these rural areas would not be able to investigate. You know, we also do proactive work as well.

Whether it's the peer to peer or as an example we served, we've done online chat operations on an operation recently. Just to give an example of what we could do. We went up to the north of Siskiyou County, I believe Siskiyou county on a downloader case. Go up there.

That case turned into the admission of the suspect that he had been molesting and grooming his three year old and two year old daughters.

That case, if not for the task force working with the affiliates, training them and helping them out, would never have come to light, most likely and those kids would continue being victimized for the rest of their lives.

So this is the work that we do collectively and it's, you know, it's a great honor to be able to do that and try and save the children out there. And so I appreciate your time and welcome your continuing support.

Thank you so much for that testimony. Now we'll move to Detective Sergeant Monica Robinson, San Diego Task Force Commander.

Good afternoon, I'm Sergeant Monica Robinson from the San Diego Police Department and I'm the commander of the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Our task force covers San Diego, Riverside and Imperial Counties Our jurisdiction is unique because of the large military presence and our location next to the Mexican border.

And because of these unique circumstances, we have excellent working relationships with our federal partners from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and Homeland Security Investigations. Both of those agencies have special agents assigned to our office full time. Every law enforcement agency in the nation is low on staffing. Without the ICAC grant funds to reimburse our affiliates.

Certainly they will pull their personnel back to their offices, leaving the task force empty. With no one to investigate the 11,000 cyber tips that we received in 2024. The detectives that were assigned to the San Diego ICAC office serve multiple search warrants each month. Each warrant requires weeks of preparation in order to serve them safely and legally.

Without the proper staffing of a full team, residential search warrants could not be served. Evidence on electronic devices could never be recovered. Suspects could not be arrested, and victims could not be identified. Without access to these critical funds, essential training for investigators cannot be planned or attended.

A vital component of the ICAC program is to provide necessary resources to permit ICAC staff to maintain the highest possible level of education and training as this field is dynamic and rapidly evolving. This year, our task force had an unusually high rate of turnover in our office.

As new investigators come on board, they must be provided the opportunity to attend ICAC related trainings. The San Diego ICAC Task Force saw an 18% increase in reported cybertips from 2022 to 2023 and another 18% increase from 2023 to 2024.

Please remember that each one of these cyber tips represent a minor victim, and therefore we've seen an 18% annual increase in victims affected by these crimes. Additionally, we've also seen an increase in the number of suspects who were arrested due to our investigations. However, we cannot arrest our way out of this problem alone.

Education and prevention are essential to our program. Last year, our Internet safety presentations reached 29,000 students, parents and educators. Additional funds would allow us to reach even more students in San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties and would educate them on how to protect themselves on the Internet and prevent them from becoming victims in the first place.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony. Now we'll move to Sergeant Michael O'Grady, Silicon Valley ICAC Task Force Commander, San Jose Police Department.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Honorable Assembly Members and staffers, thank you for your service. My name is Sergeant Michael Grady with the San Jose Police Department, assigned as the commander to The Silicon Valley ICAC Task Force, which encompasses over 110 law enforcement agencies, over 350 law enforcement personnel spanning from Monterey up to Sonoma County.

I want to tell you guys about a case that we received. On February 27th of this year. I received a call from an affiliate ICAC agency. They were out of resources, resources our task force is already stretched in on.

They had a case where a suspect was believed to be producing his own child sexual abuse material involving him and a six year old little girl. Within one hour, I had 13 officers from four different agencies in my office attorney attempting to locate this girl.

Within three hours, we identified the suspect, obtained an arrest warrant and started surveillance trying to locate him. By 1:00. Just four hours after launching a multi agency effort, we confirmed the child's location in the greater Sacramento area. Thank you to Commander Hidalgo and his affiliate agencies.

We were able to ensure that the little girl was safe at her school and our suspect was 150 miles away and we were following him.

In eight hours, our task force brought together over eight different law enforcement agencies, mobilized over 30 officers, rescued a child from ongoing sexual abuse, apprehended the suspect, conducted forensics on his devices, obtained a confession and put him in jail. This is a small but huge example of what our task force does.

Of the $5 million the state provides for all of our ICAC task forces, our agency only received just under $1 million. That helps, but it's not enough.

Additional funding can help bring in more forensic examiners and detectives and to help the 110 law enforcement agencies in my task force to identify, locate and rescue more children in the Bay Area. Last year, my task force alone rescued 68 children in the Bay Area from ongoing child sexual abuse. And unfortunately, we're on pace to surpass that.

Right now my task force is expected to handle over 13,000 cyber tips and over 3,000 self initiated, peer to peer or undercovered chat cases each year. In addition, we're a year and a half behind on forensics.

This unfortunately allows more children to be unidentified and worse, allows them to remain in an environment where they're subject to ongoing sexual abuse. If we can't work them all, more funding will impact more children and more agencies across the entire state rather than just Sacramento area. We have a coordinated multi agency task force in place.

One that rescues children, arrests offenders, conducts thousands of forensic examinations, conducts large scale undercover operations, collaborates statewide and nationwide, educates parents, students, and we work directly with tech companies. Diverting funds to us means funding for every agency involved, including chp, not just in Sacramento, but across all of California. These children cannot afford delays.

They cannot afford to Be another number in a backlog. With your support, we can rescue more children, prevent more from being harmed, and bring more offenders to justice. On behalf of the Silicon Valley Task Force and the San Jose Police Department, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you for your testimony. Now we'll move to Sheriff's Lt. Joe Smith, person Crimes Unit, Fresno County Sheriff's Office.

Thank you. Chairman Ramos, Assemblymember Lackey. I will be brief. My peers have covered most of what we wanted to come across with today.

I think what I'd like to mention is that Assistant Commissioner Johnson, when she was here earlier speaking about the 5 million funding that they're asking for, she did mention a couple times that our ICAC task force are the subject matter experts. And I would agree with that statement.

The five panel Members that you see right here, we all cut our teeth many years ago on patrol working assault and batteries, burglaries, robberies, homicides, domestic violence, child abuse investigations. We've all interviewed hundreds of victims, witnesses and suspects. And we all promoted into some sort of detective role at our agencies.

And we could say the same for all the Members of our task force. My sergeant that's seated here in the audience, Scott Schwam, he was a detective with ICAC for seven years. So the level of expertise shared amongst the panel Members here and the men and women that work for us is unparalleled.

Now, with respect to CHP and Assemblymember Lackey, you know this better than all of us, as does Assistant Commissioner Johnson. No one can touch CHP when it comes to traffic enforcement. That is their expertise. None of us are going to pretend to know what it's like to understand the vehicle code backwards and forwards.

When it comes to investigations, when it comes to authoring search warrants, when it comes to interviewing suspects in controlled environments, that takes years of experience. Experience. And I think I speak for all of us up here, that that's what we gained with our respective agencies. We appreciate the money that we're getting, but as Sergeant O'Grady mentioned, 950.

950,000 for each of the five task force in California. It's just not enough. Assistant Commissioner Johnson mentioned 25 cases that CHP worked with CSAM in 2024. Now, Fresno is the smallest of the five ICAC commanders in California. And last year we worked 1,902 cases with $950,000. That's all I have to say. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you so much for your testimony. As now we bring it back to the dais Senator Lackey, obviously I have.

A fair amount to, to talk to. I mean, this is the first that I've learned of this money, I don't know, conflict, for lack of a better word. Because I think what needs to happen is that this, the amount of money that's being allotted here, we can argue is not enough at all.

This problem, we have no idea how bad it is. It is so, so, so permissive and such a disheartening reality that what we need to do is grow our force multipliers by and Highway Patrol training and General law enforcement training are different.

There are many things that are very similar, but one of the processes of expertise has to be within each field division. There are seven field divisions throughout the state and they have what is called an investigated services unit. And within that unit they have specialized training. Auto theft and a number of cargo theft.

There are a number of unique training that's it would be similar to being a detective. And I would just say that they're not near enough detectives in this state to address this problem. Not even close. So let's admit that. So what we need are force multipliers.

And what I'm saying is a reality is the Highway Patrol has a unique traffic exposure. And those 25 cases are without trying. That's why there's so few cases. We don't have the training that you folks do. We don't have the expertise. But we want to be part of the team is what I'm trying to express.

And I think this money needs to go through this unit, but I think it needs to expand to Highway Patrol partnership. And I'm not saying to all field officers, I'm saying the specialized training that comes to these divisions, each, each division has this training and they could become active force multipliers within your expertise.

Because I understand that Sacramento has that to some degree, but it needs to be statewide and that costs money. And I would suggest it seems like the best pathway would be to Fund it through this organization. But it needs to be more inclusive of Highway Patrol partnership because I think that's underutilized, especially in the district I represent.

It's very rural and it's expansive. It's huge. And the amount of this problem existing and where I live, I think we have no idea how bad it is. It's disgusting. And I don't think we're utilizing the resources we have to the best of our ability if we're not including every law enforcement expert possible.

So if the field officers within my Department could have some kind of overall and then they would call in our division people, which would be part of you. And that's a huge expansion, a huge expansion to the. I think it would be to the hundreds of people that we would be able to find.

And every one of those people deserve that help. I don't think anybody shares a different view on that aspect. So what I'm hoping is that we might reconsider you folks in the Hyatt Patrol getting together and figuring out, merge the money. Merge the money, man and Fund it through this organization.

But make sure the Hyatt Patrol has a greater role and can be great partners. Because I'm telling you, we want to be. We have a different kind of training, but we have the same goal. And we have very capable people, as do you. And I think if we're underutilizing our people, shame on us.

And that's what my hope would be, that we would get greater communication, greater collaboration on how to merge Highway Patrol as a partnership in your organization that you've already established. And that's all I have.

Thank you so much. Assemblymember Lackey in testimony 1998 ICAT was created. So a lot of the expertise goes back into those times. Talked about 3500 tips. Does that equate to also complaints or investigations?

Unfortunately, no. That's only cyber tips. That doesn't include citizen reports to the local agencies. That doesn't include reports, just any report that was done directly to any of the local agencies and affiliates. Now, when those reports get done to those affiliates and they can't do. They're not understanding the investigation, then they contact the local task force.

And I totally agree with you, sir. The money spent on the task forces gets distributed to all the affiliates. Right. So I have some agencies that have two people in our task force that are working these cases because they do see that significant impact on the community and on our most vulnerable people, these children. Right.

Thank you for that. And there was an earlier question on the coordination with the Outgrove case. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? Again, was there coordination?

Yeah, there was a coordination with us. As far as one of my detectives, I think you guys met him earlier, Dan Heaton. He was the one that helped train CHP and how to find targets and how to go out there and serve these warrants. And that's what we do as a task force.

That's what all of us do. We take on those agencies and we go out and we spend that money that was given to us then 150 with which again, isn't quite enough to, I mean, isn't significant to make a huge change.

But we take that money and we train agencies on how to do these type of investigations and how to do them correctly. Because like you mentioned, if we don't do them correctly, there's times when cases have been dropped and children have been returned back to parents because there is no case that was done on that person. Right.

So again, just it affects the most vulnerable people are children of this community.

Well, thank you for that and reaffirming there was coordination within that case. I think that was one of the earlier questions that was there. You also brought out from the panel as far as forensics that they're backed up and that relates to the laboratory, how you look at some of the evidence. Is that correct or no?

That'd be correct. In all these cases, you know, there's a digital evidence component. Right. Whether it's a phone or a computer or some other storage device. And so as devices hold more data and information and are more difficult to basically crack into to extract all that information for the case, the equipment costs more.

It takes longer and longer to get it done. And so the costs for that, for all of the digital forensics equipment is astronomical what it costs.

And so a big chunk of the money, the funding that goes is for either the ICAC task force itself housing that equipment to assist agencies, or being dispersed out to certain agencies who have high volume to be able to get them through the cases.

And as far as full force multiplier with assemblymember Lackey, I didn't mention earlier, but you talk about the training and the public outreach since 2022, with that 950,000 per Collectively, the five ICAC task forces have trained nearly 28,000 law enforcement affiliate agencies on these investigations.

And public outreach has reached nearly 200,000 community Members who have been taught online safety parents and children in schools. Because the vast majority of these tips, unfortunately it's a sad fact they're not investigated because there's just not enough people to do it. There's not enough law enforcement available to do do it.

And you never know what is hiding behind that tip that's not investigated. In a perfect world we could do it all, but we get 15,000 a year. It's a tiny percentage that we're able to actually act on and investigate till we find a suspect. So any help is obviously appreciated.

Thank you for that. Now let's get into the laboratory backlogs that we see on other cases of missing individuals missing and indigenous women We've seen that the backlog in crime laboratories bringing out evidence I was getting to. Is that the same type of laboratories and crime labs that we're talking about here, the forensic lab in the backlog.

We have digital forensic labs. I mean, you know, they different cases may come in regardless of what the case is, to the same forensic lab housed by the agencies. So they will do the forensics on whether it's an ICAC related case or whether it's a non case that is not ICAC related, as you mentioned there.

But the backlog continues to grow and grow and grow just because of the volume of devices coming in and the time it takes to go and forensically examine them, if that answers your question.

It does. It shows that the need that the backlog is there on all these different areas that could jeopardize swift action by law enforcement if we have to wait for that information to move forward. Thank you for that. And one thing too, when the CHP presentation, your presentation, both identified that caseloads are going up.

So we know that this is something that continues to move forward even with the resources that are there. So the training that does take place is really important, especially here in the State of California and the task force that you do. And I commend you for all these issues that you're bringing up to us today.

I mean for us hearing these things, emotional, those types of things, but you deal with that every day. So I just want to say thank you for that and putting yourselves out there. But I also want to bring up the victim component also. We're talking about prosecution and finding those individuals.

But is there still that need for the resources for those individuals, the victims, to continue to move forward in our society? And I want to make sure we don't lose that component of it in moving forward when we talk about resources from the State of California, if I.

Can touch on that. So I also sit on the online child exploitation prevention initiative through the ICAC Task force and I'm a representative of ICAC on that board. It's a national board and it is providing resources to not only children, not only providing resources for children here in California, but across the entire country.

And we meet on a pretty frequent basis about four times a year to figure out where we can, where the survivors need most resources and how we can reach those survivors for resources. So victim resources is a huge part of what we do also.

Well, thank you for that. And if you could share any of that information with the Committee, I'd be open to seeing that information.

Yes, absolutely.

Well, thank you for that. Thank you for your testimony. As now we'll move to public comment. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Good afternoon, Kim Lois, representing California Coalition for Youth.

And just since OES was being talked about and a lot about our young children who are being exploited and victimized, I want to talk about our homeless youth who are particularly vulnerable, those under 18, where we have a really a lack of safe spaces for them to turn to on the streets and a lot of unsafe places for them to go and law enforcement to take them to.

We have the Homeless Youth and Exploitation Program that's been funded at 1.1 million for 40 years and would love to see that expanded and be able to perpetuate that. We can expand these resources for young people at least to 20 different counties across the state so that these youth have some safe place to go and aren't victimized.

As well as the California Youth Crisis Line that has not received an increase for 10 years. That also is a safe line for young people to call and get connected to these resources. So just wanted to elevate this for the Committee, given what you guys were talking about today. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments. Any other public comment hearing? None. Public Safety Subcommitee is adjourned.