SB 1331: Domestic Violence - Lethality Assessments

When does SB 1331 become law?

• The Governor signed SB 1331 on July 18, 2018. The bill became effective January 1, 2019.

What does SB 1331 require of law enforcement agencies and POST?

• The only addition to PC13519 is: (6) The assessment of lethality or signs of lethal violence in domestic violence situations.
• It does NOT require local law enforcement agencies to a Lethality Assessment Program (LAP), but would, “provide peace officers with some of the information and tools that form the basis for the Maryland LAP” (Source: Assembly Committee on Public Safety, June 12, 2018)
• It does amend PC 13519 (relating to the training of peace officers in the handling of domestic violence complaints).
  • This affects LD 25 (Domestic Violence) in the RBC
  • This affects all peace officers below the rank of supervisor who would normally respond to domestic violence complaints (subsection g).
• The bill “requires the course (DV, DV update, LD25) to include the assessment of lethality or signs of lethal violence in situations” (Source: Senate Committee on Public Safety, April 17, 2018)
• The bill only effects agencies who currently have a POST-certified domestic violence or domestic violence update course. If you do have a POST-certified domestic violence course, POST will provide course content necessary to meet SB 1331 in the near future.

NOTE: The ICI Domestic Violence Investigators’ course has been addressing lethality factors for many years. It can be found in Section 7.4, and a Danger Assessment Checklist in Section 6.1. They also offer assessment “tools” (forms) to guide the investigator to ask the appropriate questions during a victim interview. The number of annual ICI attendees equates to less than 5% of the total number of peace officers in California. Therefore, there is a need to amend existing in-service domestic violence, domestic violence update, and RBC LD25 courses (Requal and Modulars).

Existing POST Certified Domestic Violence Courses (Do they contain LAP?)

	Course Number	Course Title	Y/N
1	32345	Domestic Violence/1st Responder	N
2	32436	Officer Involved Domestic Violence	N
3	32349	Negotiations for Domestic Violence	N
5	32343	Domestic Violence Update	N
6	32415	Domestic Violence (ICI)	Y
9	23750	Domestic Violence	N
10	27170	Telecourse – Domestic Violence	N
11	32348	Domestic Violence Documentation	N
12	32418	Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault	N
13	30926	Dispatcher Domestic Violence	N
14	30919	Dispatch/Domestic Violence-Sexual Assault	N
15	32419	Domestic Violence Update/101 for Law Enforcement	N
16	32420	Domestic Violence/Best Practices	N
17	32421	Domestic Violence Update/Victimology & Trauma	N
18	32422	Domestic Violence Update/Investigation & Orders	N
19	22499	COP/Ending Domestic Violence	N
20	32345	Domestic Violence/1st Responder	N
21	10510	Domestic Violence/Telecomm Manager	N
22	24480	Telecon – Domestic Violence	N

Resources

• The Governor signed SB 1331 on July 18, 2018. The bill became effective January 1, 2019.
• POST Bulletin 2019-04, Domestic Violence Lethality Assessment
• POST Bulletin 2019-10, Changes to the Domestic Violence Update Courses on the Learning Portal
• U.S. Department of Justice, National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS), authored “Police Departments’ Use of Lethality Assessment Program (pdf),” 2014. (This document contains all of the necessary amendment content for a Bulletin)
• Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence, maintains the website, Lethality Assessment Program
• Assembly and Senate Committees on Public Safety bill analysis, 2018

Recommendations

POST issued Bulletin 2019-04, providing information, resources, and a copy-paste version of the required course content that presenters can insert into their existing course curricula. POST also provided a sample lethality assessment tool that agencies can use as a template when developing their assessment tool. Download the assessment tool. These solutions will comply with the intent of the law and add about 20-30 minutes to the existing curricula.