LSPC ‘s policy advocacy and tracking project actively seeks out legislative solutions to the problems we address. While we know that it will take a long time and a lot of hard work and collaboration to truly create a state where social services and education are the priority and incarceration is secondary, we also recognize that there are short-term solutions to some of the smaller problems our state faces. In 2011, we monitored and responded to over 100 bills. We are currently in the process of reviewing 2012 bills, and some important ones have already emerged:
- AB 593 (Support), sponsored by the Habeas Project, will allow some people incarcerated as a result of intimate partner battery to file for a new trial if there was only limited testimony regarding the effect of this type of abuse.
- AB 1270 (Support) will lift the ban on the media from interviewing specific people in California’s prisons.
- AB 324 (Oppose) will send non-violent juveniles with sex offenses to California Department of Juvenile Justice rather than county facilities. It will also require these youth to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.
- SB 983 (Oppose) authorizes boards of supervisors of a county to transfer a person being held in the county jail to another state without the consent of that person.
