BP BHEAD INT S

AN ACT Relating to juvenile serious habitual offenders; adding a new chapter to Title 13 RCW; creating a new section; prescribing penalties; and providing an effective date.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that a substantial and disproportionate amount of serious crime is committed by a relatively small number of chronic juvenile offenders commonly known as serious habitual offenders. In enacting this chapter the legislature intends to support increased efforts by the juvenile justice system comprised of law enforcement, prosecuting attorneys, juvenile probation and detention, and schools, to identify these offenders early in their careers, and to work cooperatively to investigate and record their activities, prosecute them aggressively, and to supervise them intensively in institutions and in the community. The legislature further supports increased interagency efforts to gather comprehensive data and actively disseminate it to the agencies in the juvenile justice system, to produce more informed decisions by all agencies in that system through organizational and operational techniques that have already proven their effectiveness in this and other states.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. (1) There is established within the department of community, trade, and economic development a program of financial assistance for law enforcement, prosecuting attorneys, and probation departments designated the "serious habitual offender program." All funds appropriated to the department of community, trade, and economic development for the purposes of this chapter shall be administered and disbursed by the department, and shall, to the greatest extent feasible, be coordinated or consolidated with federal funds that may be made available for these purposes. Funding for this program shall include the cost to the department of community, trade, and economic development for administering the grants.

(2) Allocation and award of funds for the purposes of this chapter shall be made upon application by a prosecuting attorney, a local law enforcement agency, or a probation department.

A policy board shall be established consisting of one representative each from prosecuting attorneys, law enforcement agencies, and juvenile probation and detention agencies, one being from the division of juvenile rehabilitation. The policy board shall assist the department of community, trade, and economic development in an advisory capacity in the selection of applicants to receive grants and oversee the serious habitual offender program. The department may allocate and award funds to the coordinating applicant agency that has obtained written and signed agreements from the administrator of the jurisdiction's prosecutor's office, juvenile probation and detention agency, and a participating law enforcement agency which commit to establishing policies and criteria in substantial compliance with the requirements set forth in this chapter for the establishment of a serious habitual offender program.

The coordinating applicant agency shall use the funds to create an information gathering and analysis unit responsible for the identification of serious habitual offenders and for the dissemination of information about the activities of those offenders to the criminal justice system. This unit shall participate in the planning, support, and assistance of activities required in section 4 of this act. Funds disbursed under this chapter shall not supplant local funds that would, in absence of the program established by this chapter, be made available to support the juvenile justice system.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. (1) For an offender to qualify for this program, the offender must have been convicted or entered diversion for a crime and have met criteria established by the participating agencies' council of representatives for placement in the program. The established criteria must be devised so as to identify those individuals, within the jurisdiction, who comprise the six to eight percent, or less, of the jurisdiction's serious habitual offenders. The criteria must be based on the criminal activity of the offenders. The criteria may be similar to but not limited to:

(a) Accumulated five or more total arrests; with at least three arrests for crimes chargeable as felonies and at least three of those five arrests having occurred within the preceding twelve months;

(b) Accumulated ten or more total arrests; with at least two arrests for crimes chargeable as felonies and at least three arrests having occurred within the preceding twelve months;

(c) Been arrested at least once for three or more burglaries, robberies, or sexual assaults within the preceding twelve months; or

(d) Accumulated ten or more total arrests; with at least eight arrests for misdemeanor crimes of theft, assault, battery, narcotics or controlled substance possession, substance abuse, or use or possession of weapons, and at least three of those arrests having occurred within the preceding twelve months.

(2) Arrests for infractions or conduct described as status offenses shall not be utilized in determining whether an individual is described in subsection (1) of this section. All arrests used in determining eligibility for selection for program participation that did not result in a filing of charges by the prosecutor's office shall be certified by the prosecutor as having been substantiated by probable cause.

(3) In applying the selection criteria of this section, a program may elect to limit its efforts to persons described in the categories listed in subsection (1) of this section, or specified felonies, if crime statistics demonstrate that the persons so identified present a particularly serious problem in the county, or that the incidence of the felonies so specified present a particularly serious problem in the county. The above definitions are minimum standards for identifying serious habitual offenders and do not preclude program agencies from establishing stricter criteria in identifying serious habitual offenders.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. (1) The jurisdiction's coordinating agency shall be a law enforcement, juvenile probation, or prosecutor's office, and shall do all of the following:

(a) Coordinate with the jurisdiction's council of participating agency representatives and identify serious habitual offenders in accordance with the established selection criteria.

(b) Compile and maintain active serious habitual offender lists and circulate data on serious habitual offenders to participating agencies on a routine basis.

(d) Track the serious habitual offenders through all stages of the justice system to ensure that the offenders' cases do not become displaced within the justice system and that offenders are held accountable to all orders of the court.

(2) Each participating law enforcement agency shall do all of the following:

(a) Gather data on identified serious habitual offenders.

(b) Compile data into a format usable state-wide by law enforcement, prosecutors, probation officers, schools, and courts pursuant to interagency agreement.

(d) Establish local policies in cooperation with the prosecutor, the probation officer, schools, the department of social and health services, and the juvenile court regarding data collection, arrest, and detention of serious habitual offenders.

(e) Provide support and assistance to other agencies engaged in the program.

(f) Institute procedures that do all of the following:

(i) Ensure that all field contacts with identified serious habitual offenders are documented and reports are routed to the coordinating agency's program coordinator.

(ii) Officers of a participating agency shall make an arrest if an identified serious habitual offender has committed a violation of law and probable cause exists to arrest the offender. Law enforcement officers shall arrest the offender at the time of the offense unless the arrest, at that time, would adversely affect further investigation of the offense.

(iii) If the identified serious habitual offender has committed any bookable offense the law enforcement officer shall take the offender to the juvenile detention facility for booking.

(3) Each participating prosecuting attorney's office shall do all of the following:

(a) File charges based on the most serious provable offenses of each arrest of a serious habitual offender.

(b) Use all reasonable prosecutorial efforts to resist the release, where appropriate, of the serious habitual offender at all stages of the prosecution.

(c) Seek an admission of guilt on all offenses charged in the informations against the offender. The only cases in which the prosecutor may request the court to reduce or dismiss the charges are cases in which the prosecutor decides there is insufficient evidence to prove the state's case, the testimony of a material witness cannot be obtained, or a reduction or dismissal will not result in a substantial change in sentence, or prosecution will not serve the public interest. In those cases, the prosecutor shall inform the program agencies stating the specific factual and legal basis for such a disposition.

(d) Whenever possible, prosecute all cases involving serious habitual offenders by having the prosecutor who makes the initial filing decision or appearance on such a case perform all subsequent court appearances on that case through its conclusion, including the disposition phase.

(e) Make all reasonable prosecutorial efforts to persuade the court to impose the most appropriate sentence upon such an offender at the time of disposition.

(f) Make all reasonable prosecutorial efforts to reduce the time between arrest and disposition of the charge.

(g) Act as a liaison with the court and other criminal justice agencies to establish local policies regarding the program and to ensure interagency cooperation in the planning and implementation of the program.

(h) Provide support and assistance to other agencies engaged in the program.

(4) Each participating juvenile probation department shall do all of the following:

(a) Cooperate in gathering data for use by all participating agencies pursuant to interagency agreement.

(b) Give priority to detaining serious habitual offenders in custody who lack proper and effective parental care and control and who have no one willing to assume or capable of assuming the parental role and the serious habitual offender is serving a sentence, on bail, or in violation of a court order.

(c) Consider the data relating to serious habitual offenders when making all decisions regarding the identified individual and include relevant data in written reports to the court.

(d) File information and petitions for warrants or reviews on violations of probation with the court immediately.

(e) Establish local policies in cooperation with law enforcement and the prosecuting attorney, schools, and the juvenile court regarding the program and provide support and assistance to other agencies engaged in the program.

(5) School districts shall do all of the following:

(a) Cooperate in providing data on students identified by definition of this chapter as serious habitual offenders, for profiling by participating agencies pursuant to interagency agreement. Such data shall include but not be limited to past and current accounts of truancy, disruptive behavior, disciplinary actions, and suspension or expulsion history.

(b) Report all crimes that are committed on campus by serious habitual offenders to law enforcement.

(c) Report all violations of probation committed on campus by serious habitual offenders to the probation officer or program coordinator.

(d) Provide educational supervision and social or educational services appropriate to serious habitual offenders attending schools.

(e) Establish local policies in cooperation with law enforcement, the prosecuting attorney, the probation department, and the juvenile court regarding the program and provide support and assistance to other agencies engaged in the program.

(6) The department of social and health services shall do all of the following:

(a) Coordinate with participating agencies under this chapter per interagency agreement to identify serious habitual offenders.

(b) Cooperate in providing data on juveniles identified by this chapter as serious habitual offenders for profiling by participating agencies pursuant to interagency agreement. Such data shall include, but not be limited to, child protective services reports involving the serious habitual offender, contacts, state or county-funded intelligence and psychological evaluations, and group home placement behavior reports.

(7) The participating funded programs shall submit to the department of community, trade, and economic development an annual written report regarding achievement of program goals. The department of community, trade, and economic development shall then submit to the legislature a written summary of the reports. The reports, individually and collectively shall do all of the following:

(a) Document the amount of serious crime committed by a relatively small number of serious habitual offenders.

(b) Provide statistical documentation regarding the total number of juveniles in the program, the types of offenses committed, the manner in which cases are disposed, and a statistical profile of the average juvenile who qualifies for the program.

(d) Review new operational and organizational techniques used in gathering and disseminating information, and in prosecution and in monitoring and supervising serious habitual offenders.

(e) Compare this program and its effectiveness with the techniques and methods used prior to the implementation of the program.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. The participating law enforcement agency charged with the compilation of the data relating to serious habitual offenders may inspect juvenile court records, probation department records, division of juvenile rehabilitation records, prosecuting attorney records, school records, and law enforcement records and compile such records into the format used by all participating agencies.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. All participating agencies shall meet no less than once each month to plan, implement, and refine the operation of the program and to exchange information about individuals subject to the program or other related topics.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. Law enforcement agencies and prosecuting attorneys participating in programs pursuant to this chapter shall adopt procedures to require a check of juvenile criminal history of all adults whose cases are presented to the prosecuting attorney's office for filing. The juvenile criminal history shall be considered by the prosecuting attorney in the charging decision and establishing the prosecuting attorney's position on the appropriate plea and sentence.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. Sections 1 through 7 of this act shall constitute a new chapter in Title 13 RCW.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 9. If specific funding for the purposes of this act, referencing this act by bill number, is not provided by July 1, 1994, in the omnibus appropriations act, this act shall be null and void.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 10. This act shall take effect July 1, 1994.