Metal theft and related recycling crimes.

Existing law provides that any person who feloniously steals, takes, or carries away the personal property of another, or who fraudulently appropriates property that has been entrusted to him or her, is guilty of theft. Existing law also provides that a person who, being a dealer in or collector of junk, metals, or secondhand materials, buys or receives any wire, cable, copper, lead, solder, mercury, iron, or brass that he or she knows or reasonably should know is ordinarily used by, or ordinarily belongs to, a railroad or other transportation, telephone, telegraph, gas, water, or electric light company or county, city, or city and county without using due diligence to ascertain that the person selling or delivering the same has a legal right to do so, is guilty of criminally receiving that property. Existing law establishes the Department of Justice, which is headed by the Attorney General and tasked with, among other things, representing California in criminal cases. This bill, on and after January 1, 2015, would require the Department of Justice to establish a Metal Theft Task Force Program to provide grants to applicant regional task forces for the purpose of providing local law enforcement and district attorneys with the tools necessary to successfully interdict the commission of metal theft and related metal recycling crimes. The bill, on and after January 1, 2015, would establish the Metal Theft Task Force Fund, to be administered by the department, and, upon appropriation by the Legislature, would make moneys in the fund available for the purposes of the program. The bill would require the department to regularly review the program and report to the Governor and the Legislature, and would specify that the program not be implemented until the Department of Finance determines that sufficient funding has been deposited in the Metal Theft Task Force Fund to implement the program and funds have been made available upon appropriation by the Legislature. This bill would also state findings and declarations of the Legislature relative to metal theft and the intent of the Legislature to provide local law enforcement with the tools to interdict metal theft and related metal recycling crimes.