Juvenile facilities: visitation.

Plain English Breakdown

Checked against official source text during the last sync.

Hugs Act: Visitation Rights in Juvenile Facilities

This act requires juvenile facilities to allow youth to have nonsexual physical contact during visits, with limitations only for significant safety and security concerns.

What This Bill Does

• Creates the right for youth in juvenile facilities to engage in certain types of nonsexual physical contact during visitation times.
• Requires that any restrictions on this contact must be due to significant safety and security concerns.
• Necessitates documentation of all safety issues leading to contact limitations.
• Mandates that juvenile facilities create rules and procedures to follow these requirements.

Who It Names or Affects

• Youth in juvenile facilities
• Visitors to youth in juvenile facilities
• Juvenile facility staff

Terms To Know

state-mandated local program

A program that the state requires local agencies or school districts to implement.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify what types of nonsexual physical contact are allowed.
• Local facilities may need additional funding if they cannot meet these requirements without extra resources.

Official Summary Text

AB 1646, as amended, Bryan.
Juvenile facilities: visitation.
Existing law establishes the Youth Bill of Rights for all youth confined in a juvenile facility, which includes the right to maintain frequent and continuing contact with parents, guardians, siblings, children, and extended family members, through in-person visits, among others. Existing law regulates the provision of these rights.
This bill, the
Hug
Hugs
Act, would require that all youth confined in a juvenile facility have the right to engage in certain types of nonsexual physical contact during in-person visits, as provided.
The bill would require that limitations to
this physical contact only be implemented when a significant safety and security concern is present, as described, and would require that all significant safety and security concerns and subsequent contact limitations be documented, as described.
The bill would require all juvenile facilities to establish regulations and procedures consistent with
this requirement.
these provisions.
To the extent that this bill would impose a higher level of service on local facilities, it would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF