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ARIZONA STATE SENATE
Fifty-Sixth Legislature, First Regular Session
AMENDED
appropriations; crime victim notification fund.
Purpose
Requires the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission (ACJC) to use appropriated monies in the Law Enforcement Crime Victim Notification Fund (Fund) for expanding the automated crime victim notification system and to pay for the costs for law enforcement agencies to use the automated crime victim notification system. Establishes the Sexual Assault Kit Study Committee (Study Committee) to examine the feasibility of providing crime victims with a tracking system for sexual assault forensic examination kits.
Background
The Fund is administered by the State Treasurer and consists of legislative appropriations. Monies in the fund are subject to legislative appropriation and may be used by law enforcement agencies in Arizona to fund software that enables the county-and-or-city-based deployment of an automated crime victim notification system to a user base consisting of law enforcement agencies. The automated crime victim notification system must meet certain requirements as outlined and a vendor of any software that meets the requirements must have previously deployed a solution for a city police department, sheriff's office and prosecutor's office. The previously deployed solutions could have been deployed in Arizona, in a different state or a combination of both. Law enforcement agencies that implement software meeting the outlined requirements may submit a request for reimbursement of the software costs to the State Treasurer. The State Treasurer must reimburse valid claims for reimbursement on a first-come, first-served basis (A.R.S. § 41-180).
There is no anticipated fiscal impact to the state General Fund associated with this legislation.
Provisions
1. Requires ACJC to use monies in the Fund to expand ACJC's automated crime victim notification system and to pay for the costs for law enforcement agencies that choose to use the automated crime victim notification system.
2. Requires ACJC to include a partnership between at least two vendors, in FYs 2024, 2025 and 2026, to expand ACJC's automated crime victim notification system.
3. Repeals the vendor partnership on January 1, 2027.
4. Adds that software used by ACJC to deploy the automated crime victim notification system must meet the following requirements:
a) comply with victims' rights as prescribed;
b) enable ACJC to deploy an automated crime victim notification system;
c) provide for multiagency notification to enable an agency to automatically share the status of an incident or investigation with an identified partner agency;
d) provide the capability to allow victims to leverage conversational artificial intelligence for bidirectional real-time communication with law enforcement agencies through voice, text messages and email and provide a virtual agent that responds and asks questions based on the victim's questions and responses;
e) provide a mechanism to track whether there is a data outage at a law enforcement agency and inform the law enforcement agency and ACJC of the data outage;
f) have a backup process for law enforcement agencies to ensure that notifications are made in a timely manner in the event of a data outage;
g) comply with the technical guidelines and standards for the operation of a statewide automated crime victim notification system as recommended by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance; and
h) provide a designated statewide toll-free number that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and that:
i. is operated by trained operators;
ii. is available in multiple languages; and
iii. allows victims, surviving immediate family members, witnesses and other concerned citizens to search for information about an offender, inmate or case and to register for notifications.
5. Requires approval from the law enforcement agency before the automated crime victim notification system may notify the victim of the law enforcement crime report, investigation and case as prescribed.
6. Requires the automated crime victim notification system to:
i) provide the ability for victims to find their case status on the vendor's website, rather than the law enforcement agency's website, with links that are available on the law enforcement agency's website; and
j) include the law enforcement agency, rather than the county, city or town branding, email address and web domain.
7. Defines law enforcement agency as a state, city, town, county, tribal, university or prosecutorial agency.
8. Establishes the Study Committee consisting of the following members:
a) five members of the House of Representatives, no more than three of whom are from the same political party and one of which the Speaker of the House of Representatives must designate to serve as the Chairperson;
b) two county sheriffs or the sheriffs' appointees;
c) one police chief or the police chief's appointee;
d) one county attorney or the county attorney's appointee; and
e) one representative of a group that represents victims' rights.
9. Specifies that the Study Committee members:
a) are appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives;
b) serve at the pleasure of the Speaker of the House of Representatives; and
c) are not eligible to receive compensation.
10. Requires the Study Committee to:
a) meet as often as the Chairperson deems necessary;
b) examine the feasibility of providing crime victims with a tracking system for sexual assault forensic examination kits; and
c) submit a report of the committee to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate, and to provide a copy to the Secretary of State by December 1, 2023.
11. Repeals the Study Committee on October 1, 2024.
12. Stipulates that monies in the Fund are continuously appropriated, rather than subject to legislative appropriation.
13. Becomes effective on the general effective date.
Amendments Adopted by the Judiciary Committee
1. Increases the appropriation of $7,600,000 to $10,500,000.
2. Appropriates the $10,500,000 and the $400,000 to ACJC, rather than the State Treasurer, to administer the fund.
3. Allows ACJC to use monies in the fund to expand ACJC's automated crime victim notification system.
4. Requires ACJC to use monies in the fund to pay for the costs for law enforcement agencies that choose to use the automated crime victim notification system.
5. Requires ACJC to include a partnership between at least two vendors to expand ACJC's automated crime victim notification system.
6. Adds additional requirements that the automated crime victim notification system and the software to implement the system must meet.
7. Modifies the Study Committee membership.
8. Repeals the Study Committee on October 1, 2024, rather than January 2, 2024.
9. Makes technical and conforming changes.
Amendments Adopted by the Appropriations Committee
1. Increases the appropriation of $7,600,000 to $10,500,000.
2. Appropriates the $10,500,000 and the $400,000 to ACJC, rather than the State Treasurer, to administer the fund.
3. Requires ACJC to use monies in the fund to expand ACJC's automated crime victim notification system and to pay for the costs for law enforcement agencies that choose to use the automated crime victim notification system.
4. Requires ACJC to include a partnership between at least two vendors to expand ACJC's automated crime victim notification system until January 1, 2027.
5. Adds additional requirements that the automated crime victim notification system and the software to implement the system must meet.
6. Modifies the Study Committee membership.
7. Repeals the Study Committee on October 1, 2024, rather than January 2, 2024.
8. Repeals the vendor partnership on January 1, 2027.
9. Makes technical and conforming changes.
Amendments Adopted by Committee of the Whole
1. Removes the appropriations and accompanying provisions.
2. Stipulates that monies in the Fund are continuously appropriated, rather than subject to legislative appropriation.
House Action Senate Action
MAPS 1/30/23 DPA 8-2-5-0 JUD 3/30/23 DPA 7-0-0
APPROP 2/20/23 DPA 14-1-0-0 APPROP 4/4/23 DPA 8-2-0
3rd Read 3/7/23 60-0-0
Prepared by Senate Research
May 9, 2023
ZD/KS/sr