HOUSE BILL REPORT

                  HB 2337

             As Reported By House Committee On:

               Criminal Justice & Corrections

Title:  An act relating to a state‑wide jail booking and reporting system.

Brief Description:  Ordering implementation of a state‑wide city and county jail booking and reporting system.

Sponsors:  Representatives Ballasiotes, O'Brien, Cairnes, Kagi, B. Chandler, Lovick, Delvin, Carlson and Conway.

Brief History:

  Committee Activity:

Criminal Justice & Corrections:  1/18/00, 1/19/00 [DPS].

           Brief Summary of Substitute Bill

$Requires the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to implement and operate a statewide electronic central booking and reporting system by December 31, 2001.

CRequires the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to pursue federal funding to pay for the costs of implementing the central jail booking system.

CRequires the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to appoint a statewide Jail Booking and Reporting System Standards Committee to develop and amend as needed operational standards for the statewide jail booking and reporting system.

CRequires the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to prepare a report on the booking system=s operational standards and the standards developed for allocating federal and state grants by January 1, 2001.

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE & CORRECTIONS

Majority Report:  The substitute bill be substituted therefor and the substitute bill do pass.  Signed by 8 members:  Representatives Ballasiotes, Republican Co-Chair; O'Brien, Democratic Co-Chair; Cairnes, Republican Vice Chair; Lovick, Democratic Vice Chair; B. Chandler; Constantine; Kagi and Koster.

Staff:  Yvonne Walker (786-7841).

Background:

The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) is considered a combination of units of local government.  It is responsible for, upon the request of a county, assisting that county in helping to develop and implement its local law and justice plan.  The association also maintains a central repository for the collection of all malicious harassment type crimes and, on occasion, is responsible for working with other state and local agencies in conducting crime-related studies.

Summary of Substitute Bill:

The WASPC must implement and operate a statewide central booking and reporting system by December 31, 2001.  At a minimum the system must contain:

Ceach offense an arrested individual is being charged with;

Cdescriptive information about each offender such as the offender's name, vital statistics, address, and mugshot;

Cany information about the offender while in jail, which could be used to protect criminal justice officials that have future contact with the offender, such as medical conditions and behavior problems;

Cstatistical data indicating the current capacity of each jail and the quantity and category of offenses charged; and

Cthe ability to communicate directly and immediately with the city and county jails and other criminal justice entities.

The system must be placed on the Washington Justice Information Network and be capable of communicating electronically with every city and county jail and with all state criminal justice agencies located in Washington.

After the WASPC has implemented the electronic jail booking system, if a city or county jail or law enforcement agency receives state or federal funding to cover the cost of implementing or reconfiguring an electronic jail booking system, the city or county jail or law enforcement agency must reconfigure its electronic jail booking system so that it is in compliance with the WASPC=s jail booking system.

City or county jails, or law enforcement agencies that operate electronic jail booking systems, but choose not to accept state or federal money to implement or reconfigure their electronic jail booking systems, must electronically forward their jail booking information to the WASPC.  The electronic format that is sent must be at the discretion of the city or county jail, or law enforcement agency, but must include at a minimum the name of the offender, any vital statistics, the date of arrest, the charge, and if available, the mug shot.

The WASPC must appoint and convene a statewide Jail Booking and Reporting System Standards Committee comprised of representatives from the WASPC, the information service board's justice information committee, at least two individuals who serve as jailers in a city or county jail, and any other individuals that the WASPC chooses to place on the committee.  The committee is authorized to develop and amend as needed, operational standards for the statewide jail booking and reporting system.  In addition, the committee must develop and amend as needed, standards for allocating grants to city and county jails or law enforcement agencies that will be implementing or reconfiguring their electronic jail booking system.

All operational standards and the standards developed for allocating grants to city and county jails and law enforcement agencies, for the purpose of implementing the central electronic jail booking system, must be placed in a report.  The report must be provided to all city and county jails, all criminal justice agencies, the chair of the Senate Human Services and Corrections Committee, and the chair of the House of Representatives Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee by January 1, 2001.

The WASPC is also responsible for pursuing federal funding to pay for the costs of implementing the central jail booking system.  All federal or state money collected to offset the costs associated with the jail booking and reporting system must be deposited and processed through a local jail booking system grant fund to be established and managed by the WASPC.  The statewide Jail Booking and Reporting System Standards Committee is responsible for distributing the grants in accordance with the standards it develops.

Substitute Bill Compared to Original Bill:

A technical amendment corrects two references to incorrect sections of the bill.

Appropriation:  None.

Fiscal Note:  Requested on January 12, 2000.

Effective Date of Substitute Bill:  Ninety days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For:  Washington=s 67 local jails book approximately 256,000 people per year.  The problem is that information is often lost between when someone is booked in jail and when they are actually adjudicated.  For example, when a person is picked up and released for an attempted murder charge in Yakima and stopped the next day in King County, an officer attempting to stop or arrest that person would not know that he should approach that person with caution.  The new central booking system will provide any law enforcement officer, court, or criminal justice agency, at any particular time, with the identity of the person being arrested, the charges he is being arrested for, and a review his criminal background.

In addition, for a number of years the WASPC has operated a jail reporting system with the goal of identifying the types of offenses that are in jail.  The Legislature, on the other hand, has consistently asked for a variety of other types of information such as jail capacity and arrests data in which the WASPC system is currently not able to provide.  This new electronic booking and reporting system will satisfy the number of requests from the Legislature over the last several years, that the WASPC has not been able to provide in the past.

The WASPC has applied for a National Institute of Justice grant for $500,000 and is hoping that another $3 to $5 million will come from a congressional earmark in the federal year 2000.  Senator Slade Gordon and Senator Adam Smith have taken the lead on this and have pledged to help the WASPC to obtain the funding needed.  This is good policy and a good opportunity to get federal dollars.

Testimony Against:  None.

Testified:  (In favor) Tim Schellberg, Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs; and Larry Erickson, Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.