Domestic violence.

Existing law requires the Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health Division of the State Department of Public Health to administer a comprehensive shelter-based service grant program to battered women's shelters. Existing law also requires the Office of Emergency Services, now the California Emergency Management Agency, to conduct a comprehensive statewide domestic violence program to provide assistance to victims of domestic violence in unserved and underserved areas. Both of these programs define "domestic violence" to mean the infliction or threat of physical harm against past or present adult or adolescent female intimate partners, and shall include physical, sexual, and psychological abuse against the woman, and is a part of a pattern of assaultive, coercive, and controlling behaviors directed at achieving compliance from, or control over, that woman. This bill would change the definition of domestic violence under both of the above programs to mean the infliction or threat of physical harm against past or present adult or adolescent intimate partners, to include physical, sexual, and psychological abuse against the partner, that is a part of a pattern of assaultive, coercive, and controlling behaviors directed at achieving compliance from, or control over, that partner. The bill would also make the department's comprehensive shelter-based service grant program subject to specified antidiscrimination provisions. Existing law establishes the Office of Emergency Services Domestic Violence Advisory Council, as specified, which is repealed as of January 1, 2010. This bill would extend that repeal date until January 1, 2015. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 124250 of the Health and Safety Code proposed by AB 503 that would become operative only if AB 503 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective on or before January 1, 2010, and this bill is chaptered last.