AB 2015 Helps Families Stay Strong

The time of arrest of a parent is a critical juncture where the physical and emotional well-being of the arrestee's children and the parent-child relationship is at risk. AB 2015 ensures that custodial parents, regardless of immigration status or language, can arrange for the care of their children at the time of arrest and retain some contact with their child's caregiver.

Why Families Need AB 2015

Existing law provides an arrested person with certain rights regarding the opportunity to make telephone calls to arrange for the care of any minor children in her or his custody. Current law is not being consistently or effectively applied by law enforcement agencies in California.

Children can unnecessarily end up in child protective services custody, be placed with strangers in foster care systems, and ultimately permanently and legally separated from a parent. Once separated, the barriers to reunification increase, and an already traumatizing situation for a child becomes all the more devastating as well as one that is expensive to state and local government.

One of the newest and growing populations in foster care is children who have a parent who is being detained or deported. While the measure benefits all families, this bill also helps to curtail a population that is expected to grow threefold over the next five years (nationally) if our systems and policies fail to change. In Los Angeles County alone, 6.2% of children in foster care have detained/deported parents.

How AB 2015 Helps Families

Requires law enforcement to notify a parent of the right to make two phone calls at the time of arrest to arrange the care of their children, strengthening existing provisions outlined in Penal Code sec 851.5. Also requires posting of this right on signs in the jail, in multiple languages.

Background

Applied Research Center's Shattered Families Report, November 2011: At least 5,100 children in the foster care system (nationally) because their parent is in immigration detention or has been deported.

California Research Bureau's report, Children of Arrested Parents: Strategies to Improve their Safety, 2003: An estimated 52,300 arrests involved single parents of minor children, or 13 percent of all 2001 adult felony arrests in California.

Sponsors  

California Latinas for Reproductive Justice

For more information, please contact: Laura Jimenez, laura@clrj.org, 213-626-0716 (CLRJ), Matt Holland, matthew.holland@asm.ca.gov, 916-319-2047 (Assembly Member Mitchell's office)