Commission approves two legislative drafts: subpoena/disclosure authority and revisions to mentoring program for children of incarcerated parents
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Subscribe
Summary
The commission voted to send two bills to the legislature: one would add limited subpoena authority and narrowly allow disclosure of a complainant's identity when an explicit threat is communicated; the other would broaden the children-of-incarcerated-parents mentoring program, remove a statutory per-child cap and relax nonprofit applicant requirements.
Marsha Johnson presented two bills on the commission's legislative agenda and the commission debated and approved both drafts for consideration.
Bill 1 would authorize the Office of Juvenile System Oversight to subpoena records from facilities in the children-and-youth services system and to disclose the identity of a complainant when the complainant has communicated an explicit threat to kill or inflict serious bodily injury on a reasonably identified person or entity. Commissioners discussed whether notification should be to law enforcement only or also to the threatened individual or entity; after debate they modified the language to require notifying the appropriate law-enforcement agency in the vicinity and permitting communication to the reasonably identified person or entity as needed for safety. A roll-call vote on the amended language passed.
Bill 2 would revise the children-of-incarcerated-parents mentoring program: cleanup language to reflect operational reality; expansion beyond strictly one-to-one mentoring to permit group or peer mentoring to improve efficiency; removal of the statutory per-child billing cap of $1,500 so the program can adapt to different mentoring models; and relaxed applicant requirements so regional nonprofits and organizations with three (rather than five) years of experience can qualify. Commissioners noted some cleanup timing (date references) would be reviewed; the commission moved and approved that draft as well.
Commissioners emphasized that the drafts will be delivered to legislative staff and that statutory language may be further modified in the Legislature. The commission did not itself enact statutory changes at the meeting but approved the drafts to be included with the commission's legislative package.