After spending much of the year pushing back on regressive bills, ballot measures, and recalls, a budget trailer and several legislative initiatives signed by Governor Newsom last month give me hope that California may finally be embracing a public safety approach that is based on prevention, healing, and opportunity—instead of on incarceration.
The persistent commitment and advocacy of our members, staff leaders, and partners directly impacted by crime and violence and the criminal justice system helped us to defeat 11 bills this legislative session that would have taken us back toward old, ineffective tough-on-crime policies. Instead, their dedicated work brought us the shared safety successes highlighted below.
AB 160, the public safety trailer bill signed on September 29, will significantly improve victims’ access to healing support from the state. It removes many longstanding obstacles, such as eligibility restrictions for people on probation or parole, and expands the resources that are available—for example, by raising the caps on reimbursements for things like burial and funeral costs. Combined with the $50 million direct cash assistance for crime victims authorized by the passage of AB 200 earlier this year—which will help victims access support they need when they need it—this legislative session has made a historic commitment to seeing victims recover from the harm they have experienced and, as a result, to ending cycles of crime and violence.
As the Legislative Roundup below, documents, we have much to celebrate. I am particularly gratified by the passage of SB731, a bill introduced by Senator Maria Elena Durazo to make almost all old conviction records eligible to be permanently sealed. For too long, California has perpetuated cycles of crime and violence by allowing old records to stop people from attaining essentials like jobs and housing. In signing SB731, the governor took a historic step toward ending those cycles. Well over a million Californians will now have the possibility of supporting themselves and their families and participating as full members of society. Every one of us will be safer as a result—which is why SB731 is instantly the model for the rest of the nation.
Over the past year, Californians for Safety and Justice and our partners across the state have worked hard to push back on efforts to reassert the old, incarceration-first strategies—including cynical ballot initiatives, recalls, and more bad bills than I care to count. But we succeeded. And now we have succeeded in passing forward-thinking legislation that promises so much. Our work is not done, of course. To begin with, we must ensure proper implementation allows these legislative and budgetary victories to fulfill their promise. But I am hopeful. Finally, we may be on our way toward a future where shared safety is not just our vision, but an emerging reality.
Legislative Roundup: Celebrating in Sacramento!
The 2022 legislative session was our most ambitious ever—and the outcome is cause for celebration. Californians for Safety and Justice introduced ten new bills and carried three over from last year. By the end of September, Governor Newsom had signed nine of those bills into law, directly and indirectly benefiting millions of Californians.
SB 731 (Durazo & Bradford) Sunsets – Will create a comprehensive process to electronically seal old records after a person has completed their sentence and gone four years without further justice system contact. By clearing the path for more than a million people with old records to find jobs and housing and to participate as full members of society, it will help reduce recidivism and make all communities safer.
AB 200 Public Safety Omnibus: Established the $50 million Flexible Assistance for Survivors of Violence Grant Program to provide grants to community-based organizations to distribute in direct cash assistance to survivors.
AB 160 Public Safety Trailer Bill:
- Removes compensation eligibility restrictions for people on probation or parole
- Increases caps on expenses—overall cap would increase to $100,000, and the bill eliminates the caps on counseling costs, raises funeral/burial to $20,000, and raises relocation to $7,500
- Makes major changes to loss of income/support coverage, including allowing loss of income/support even if the victim was unemployed at the time
- CalVCB will no longer deny compensation based on a victim’s interactions with officers at the scene
- Expedites the appeals process and grants more time to request reconsideration of an appeal
- More expansive victim rights and services information card
- Adds successful participation by incarcerated individuals in an institutional firehouse program to the current policy that makes eligible incarcerated individuals who successfully participate in California Conservation camp programs as hand crew members to petition the court to have their pleadings dismissed.
SB 1268 (Caballero) Victims of crime: family access to information (a.k.a. Curtis’s Law) – Ensures that the immediate family of a deceased minor whose death is investigated by a law enforcement agency receives information about the investigation, including contact information of the investigators, the case number and information about any property of the victim that is being held.
SB 1106 (Wiener) Criminal resentencing: restitution – Ensures that expungement petitions are not denied simply due to outstanding restitution debt.
SB 1017 (Eggman) Leases: termination of tenancy: abuse or violence – Will strengthen eviction protections by ensuring that no survivor can be evicted because of acts of abuse or violence committed against them.
AB 1720 (Holden) Community care facilities: criminal background checks – Will streamline the licensure process for people who have been convicted of a crime, ensuring that an unrelated prior conviction does not prohibit qualified, rehabilitated Californians from securing employment.
AB 1924 (Gipson) Criminal law: certificate of rehabilitation – Reduces barriers to employment for people who were on probation by streamlining the process for obtaining a certificate of rehabilitation.
AB 1949 (Low) Employees: bereavement leave – Allows workers to take unpaid bereavement leave upon the death of a spouse, child, sibling, parent, grandparent, or domestic partner.
A final note: Unfortunately, SB 299 (Leyva) Victim compensation: use of force by a law enforcement officer, did not make it out of the legislature this session. California’s Victim Compensation program is an important pathway for survivors to access healing supports that can interrupt cycles of crime and violence. SB 299 would have extended these services to people who have been harmed by police violence, including immediate family members of individuals killed by police. The legislature’s failure to advance this critically important measure—and a handful of others— is evidence of the work that still needs to be done to change entrenched ways of thinking to make Californians safer.
Celebrating Support for Community-Based Organizations
When Governor Newsom signed the Break the Cycle of Violence Act in 2019, he authorized the California Violence Intervention and Prevention program (CalVIP) to advance public health and safety by supporting evidence-based violence reduction initiatives in communities disproportionately impacted by violence. We are delighted to see so many of our partners among the list of community-based organizations that have recently gained state support under this initiative.
For too long, community-based groups did not feel welcome applying for resources such as these—despite their exceptional ability to effectively reach communities where these services are most urgently needed.
We salute state officials for their decision to include the groups listed below, and we look forward to watching their continued success as they bring their exceptional services to scale.
Partner Profile: Iris Cruet-Rubio, LMFT
Founder, MIRACLES Counseling Center
In 2016, after nearly two decades working with crime victims recovering from trauma, Iris Cruet-Rubio left her job as an administrator for a hospital-based Trauma Recovery Center to follow a dream. In partnership with another veteran counselor, Alfonso Rubio, MA, she launched Miracles Counseling Center, an independent, community-based Trauma Recovery Center located in South Los Angeles.
Implementing the TRC model in a community-based setting made it comparatively easy to reach people who need the services—which in addition to trauma-informed care and counseling include wrap-around support designed to help victims recover emotionally, physically, spiritually, and practically. But operating without the resources and infrastructure of a large institution (most TRCs are part of a hospital or university) has its own challenges.
“For the first four years it was all volunteer run, so we were doing a lot of different events — fundraisers, food drives, supportive services, etc.,” she recalls. Those years also gave Miracles a successful track record, however. In 2020, Iris leveraged that track record when she responded to an RFP for state funding—and got it.
On the positive side, being small allows Miracles more flexibility. “If a family in crisis needs to be moved, I don’t have to wait for the bureaucracy to get back to me. We move this family immediately,” she says. “Because in a time of distress and a time of trauma, the last thing you want to hear is a ‘No’ or ‘We have to wait.’”
State funding has given Miracles more stability—staff can count on getting paid, and they reach double their case obligation, for example. But it hasn’t solved all her challenges.
Among the changes Iris would like to see is an extension of the grant periods. “It takes almost three years to get a program to run like a well oil machine. I’m just barely getting this program off the ground after two years when I have to apply to a new RFP. If you have great outcomes, why shouldn’t you be rewarded with a contract extension—so you’re not spending your energy wondering whether you will even be here in another two years.”