Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 826 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to clarify that the Department of Public Safety deputy sheriffs and narcotics enforcement officers and Department of the Attorney General investigators, in addition to police officers, shall report child abuse cases and be conferred with the authority to take the child victim into protective custody.

Your Committee received testimony in support of the measure from the Department of Human Services and the Department of Public Safety.

Your Committee finds that the Department of Public Safety deputy sheriffs and narcotics enforcement officers and Department of the Attorney General investigators have occasion to witness child abuse in the course of their work. Under current law, these law enforcement officers are not specifically named as mandated reporters, and lack authority to assume protective custody of the child. Thus, your Committee finds that the safety and welfare of the child would be protected if these enforcement officers and investigators were conferred with the same statutory authority as exists for county police officers in child abuse cases.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 826 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.