Proposed Curtis’ Law would ensure families receive personal effects and all relevant information
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A bill requiring the immediate family of a child killed in a crime to be given full access to records detailing the investigation of the incident passed in California’s State Assembly late Wednesday and now returns to the Senate for concurrence.
Authored by Sen. Anna Caballero (D- Merced), and sponsored by Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice – the largest network of crime victims in California – SB 1268, also known as Curtis’ Law, requires that immediate family members of a deceased minor be allowed to inspect investigative information and records concerning the child’s death held by law enforcement agencies, as well as require any law enforcement agency holding such records to notify the child’s parent or other relative to the existence of the records, within a specified time period. The bill also requires criminal investigative information and criminal intelligence information be made available to the immediate family members of a child whose death is or has been investigated by a law enforcement agency.
The following can be attributed to Tinisch Hollins, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice: “We can no longer allow the majority of California’s survivors of crime and violence to be ignored and excluded from a system not built to help those who need it most. For far too long, survivors of crime from those communities most impacted by crime and violence every day haven’t even been considered real survivors, viewed instead with contempt under the false assumption that somehow we must be culpable for our own victimization, simply because of what we look like and where we come from. Families suffering the loss of a child should not face hurdles to obtain relevant case information – which only serves to compound the pain and trauma of the sudden loss of a loved one.”