State summary criminal history information: state hospitals.

Existing law requires the Department of Justice to maintain state summary criminal history information, including the identification and criminal history of any person, such as his or her name, date of birth, physical description, fingerprints, photographs, dates of arrest, arresting agencies and booking numbers, charges, dispositions, and similar data about the person. Existing law requires the department to furnish this information in response to a request from certain authorized agencies, organizations, or individuals for specified purposes. Existing law authorizes state criminal summary history information to be given to the director of a state hospital or other treatment facility in specified circumstances, including when the person is being committed for being dangerous to others. Existing law makes it a misdemeanor to knowingly furnish a state summary criminal history record or information obtained from a record to a person who is not authorized by law to receive that record or information. This bill would require the director of a state hospital or a clinician, as defined, to obtain the state summary criminal history information for a patient committed to the State Department of State Hospitals. The bill would state the purposes for which the information may be used, including to assess the violence risk and the appropriate placement of the patient, and would require the information to be removed from the patient's file and destroyed within 30 days of the patient being discharged. This bill would also require law enforcement personnel to provide the criminal history information to the director or clinician upon request through the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System for this purpose. Because the furnishing of this information by the director or clinician to an unauthorized person would be a misdemeanor pursuant to the provisions described above, this bill would expand the scope of an existing crime, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.