TAPE 95-47, SIDE B Number 000 HB 104 - DISCLOSURE OF JUVENILE RECORDS ROD MOURANT, Administrative Assistant to Representative Pete Kott, bill sponsor, introduced CSSSHB 104. Juvenile crime is pervasive in modern society. House bill 104 would (indisc.) communities and teachers (indisc.). This legislation allows the arresting entity to release the identity of an individual juvenile if the offense they were charged with would have been a felony, had it been committed by an adult. The information released would also include the date, and place of the offense, and the description and nature of the offense. When juveniles know that their identity will be revealed to their teachers, friends, and neighbors, when they commit a serious crime, it should act as a deterrent toward their actions. This is a small effort to help reverse a growing trend. LIEUTENANT TED BACHMAN, Alaska State Troopers, Department of Public Safety, just wanted to make himself available for questions. His only concern with this legislation is the inability in some cases to come back where a mistake has been made and readdress the issue if the wrong person was identified. That is the only point of contention the State Troopers would have with this issue. REPRESENTATIVE FINKELSTEIN asked how long it takes before these cases are turned over to DFYS. LT. BACHMAN answered that in an arrest situation, it is practically immediate, by the next day or so. REPRESENTATIVE FINKELSTEIN pointed out that the information would only be available for that day or so, as when it gets to DFYS, that same information becomes unavailable. LT. BACHMAN understood that to be correct. MARGOT KNUTH, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Law, confirmed that no information can be disclosed once DFYS has taken the case, and if there is a dismissal, that is not to be disclosed anymore than if there were an adjudication. The only disclosure you could have is if there were a waiver to adult court, at which point it becomes public. But as long as whatever happens is a juvenile proceeding, then those federal funds are at risk if there is publication of the information. That means we are treating juveniles differently than we are treating adults where when we arrest adults, what happens to them ultimately, is public information, and it will not be for juveniles. You will not find out if the juvenile were or were not convicted, acquitted, if it was a lesser offense, mistaken identity, or if other charges were added to it that were more serious. There are provisions for disclosure on a need to know basis. What we are talking about here is general disclosure to the public. If there is a victim who is interested in what is going on in the case, AS 47.10.093 authorizes the disclosure to victims, probably to some extent. Number 250 CHAIRMAN PORTER noted that in viewing the bill, he and his committee Aide agreed that it was a bit inappropriate and somewhat misleading to leave the bill in Title 9, when all of the other information about what you can and cannot release on a juvenile is in Title 47. Someone would look in Title 47 for that information and not see that there was this exception. Consequently, with the permission of the sponsor, we drafted this CS that does the same thing, but places it where all of the other information is on juveniles, which is Title 47. This way, someone interested in this subject can go to one place and find all of the answers. REPRESENTATIVE CON BUNDE made a motion to adopt the CS for SSHB 104, Version O, as the working draft. Hearing no objection, it was so ordered. CHAIRMAN PORTER asked Ms. Knuth if this was clear that this allows a permissive release by law enforcement agencies, and not a mandatory release. MS. KNUTH agreed that was correct, and the other disclosures that are authorized by this section are clearly permissive and in the discretion of the agency, and a much stronger argument can be made with the placement in "093" than can be made in Title 9, because to say that you may, in Title 9 is to say it is public information, and if it is public information, it is to be disclosed; so this is an improvement. REPRESENTATIVE FINKELSTEIN asked why we want to publish these youth's names in the paper. CHAIRMAN PORTER said his general philosophy about that is we have tried for a number of years the approach that in all cases, in all circumstances, children should be treated totally differently from adult offenders because they are younger, more salvageable. If you publicize what they did, there is more likely to be a stigma that you are what everybody is telling you are, and consequently, you may become an adult criminal, when you may otherwise not have. That has not worked. There are increasingly more and more children who use that protection as a manipulative device as opposed to what it was designed for. With that in mind, he would like more kids to realize that they and their parents' names will become public if they mess up in the first degree. This bill would take away that protection to hide behind. REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE felt that people's behaviors are more exemplary when they are open to scrutiny. True honesty is what we do when no one else is looking. According to the notion that it takes a whole village to raise a child, the village has to know what that child is doing, both to protect itself and to perhaps be able to rehabilitate the child. Parents may be inclined to be more "hands on" if they know their child's behaviors are open to the public. REPRESENTATIVE FINKELSTEIN did see some logic in the community protection side of that, to let people know who is a danger to society. He was not convinced on the deterrent factor. He remembered being in grade school and junior high school, and he was the hero when he was called to the principal's office, because he had gotten attention. Part of being a trouble maker is being an acknowledged trouble maker. It is a great thing when a kid gets his name in the paper for an election to the school board, but it is sort of the same thing when the kid gets his name in the paper for robbing the store. Vandals usually brag about it. That is how they catch them. It is not enough to just break all the windows in the school. You have to tell everybody it was you who did it, because you get credit out of it. All of this is to lead up to an amendment. He felt the number one focus ought to be on crimes which were committed against people, not property. Amendment Number 1: Page 1, line 10, after "offense": Insert "set out in AS 11.41" CHAIRMAN PORTER objected for discussion. He did not think this provision would be used in a 14-year-old's first burglary, but it could be an appropriate release mechanism for cases where a community had had a long series of house burglaries, or vandalism or some other property offense that had really reached a level of intense concern. A roll call vote was taken. Representative Finkelstein voted yes. Representatives Bunde, Toohey, Green, and Porter voted no. Representative Vezey had stepped out. Amendment number one failed, four to one. REPRESENTATIVE FINKELSTEIN wondered why we worked on a whole bill on the disclosure to schools, when we give complete release of the same information with this bill. Why were we so particular about what information could be given to the schools, if it has already been released to the media? CHAIRMAN PORTER answered that all of the information has not been released to the media. The only thing this bill allows is the release by law enforcement of the fact that a certain minor was arrested for a certain offense at a certain place. What happened after that, from adjudication to treatment, is of interest to schools, but are not public information. That is why the other bill had to be carefully crafted. This bill gets more at the public's right to know if dangerous juveniles are out there. Number 600 REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE made a motion to move CSSSHB 104(JUD) out of committee with individual recommendations and zero fiscal notes. There was an objection and a roll call vote was taken. Representatives Toohey, Bunde, Green, and Porter voted yes. Representative Finkelstein voted no. Representative Vezey had stepped out. CSSSHB 104(JUD) passed out of committee with a four to one vote.