Bill > A873

Introduced Session

This bill concerns the training and oversight of domestic crisis teams established or participated in by law enforcement agencies. Domestic crisis teams may include social workers, clergy, or other persons trained in counseling, crisis intervention, or treating domestic violence victims, or elderly or disabled victims of neglect or abuse. The bill would require that procedures for activating domestic violence crisis teams would be included in the training course and curriculum on handling, investigating, and responding to reports of domestic violence and abuse and neglect of the elderly and disabled, that was previously prepared, and is revised from time to time as needed, by the State's Division of Criminal Justice in the Department of Law and Public Safety. With respect to the new response procedures to be developed, the bill as amended would establish greater uniformity for future domestic crisis team responses. Currently, there are inconsistencies in how and when the services of domestic crisis teams are made available to victims. The bill provides that the training course and curriculum would include procedures to be followed in activating the services of domestic violence crisis teams. Under the bill, the domestic violence crisis team would be activated in response to any incident related to domestic violence unless any of the following circumstances apply, in which case activation of the domestic violence crisis team would be in the discretion of the law enforcement agency: (a) any dispute concerning child custody or parenting time that does not result in an act of domestic violence; (b) if the victim is intoxicated, under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance, or otherwise incoherent; (c) if both parties are arrested for an offense related to domestic violence; (d) if the victim exhibits behavior that is violent, combative, or abusive and may put the responder at risk; (e) if a party is a victim of sexual assault that requires the activation of the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Program (SANE) or Sexual Assault Response Team (SART) at an approved SANE or SART location; or (f) if the victim will not be returning to law enforcement headquarters or another designated area. The bill would also strengthen oversight over domestic violence crisis teams by providing that law enforcement agency actions to (1) establish or participate in a domestic violence crisis team, and (2) train all individual officers participating in a team, would be done under the supervision of the State's Division of Criminal Justice. The bill provides that, in the discretion of the law enforcement agency, domestic violence crisis teams may be made available to victims whenever law enforcement responds to reports of domestic violence and to reports of abuse and neglect of the elderly and disabled related to domestic violence. The bill also correct several technical references to the teams, changing the term "domestic crisis team" to the more precise "domestic violence crisis team." This bill embodies recommendation 9 of the Report of the Supreme Court Ad Hoc Committee on Domestic Violence issued June 2016.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Lou Greenwald (D)*,  Gabriela Mosquera (D)*,  Nancy Muñoz (R)*,  Ronald Dancer (R),  Carol Murphy (D),  Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D), 

Introduced, Referred to Assembly Judiciary Committee (on 01/09/2018)