STAND. COM. REP. NO. 135
Honolulu, Hawaii
S.D. 1
President of the Senate
Twenty-Ninth State Legislature
State of Hawaii
Sir:
Your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 517 entitled:
"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE,"
begs leave to report as follows:
The purpose and intent of this measure is to require state and county agencies to provide domestic abuse intervention training to their personnel whose job duties require or may require intervention in domestic abuse situations.
Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, County of Kauai; Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, County of Hawaii; Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women; American Association of University Women Hawaii; Domestic Violence Action Center; Hawaii Women's Coalition; Young Progressives Demanding Action; Hawaii State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and two individuals. Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney for the City and County of Honolulu. Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Public Safety.
Your Committee finds that domestic abuse poses a grave threat to the health, safety, and welfare of the public. As our understanding of domestic abuse and the ways in which domestic abuse situations should be handled continues to evolve, it is essential that personnel encountering domestic abuse have the proper training necessary to successfully handle those situations. Accordingly, this measure requires any state or county agency that employs personnel whose job duties require or may require intervention in a domestic abuse situation to provide those personnel with targeted training for domestic abuse intervention.
Your Committee has amended this measure by replacing the fifteen-hour minimum domestic abuse intervention training requirement with an unspecified minimum number of training hours.
Your Committee respectfully requests that your Committees on Judiciary and Labor and Ways and Means determine the appropriate minimum training hour requirement for state or county employees whose job duties require or may require them to intervene in a domestic abuse situation.
As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 517, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 517, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committees on Judiciary and Labor and Ways and Means.
Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs,
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________________________________ CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair |
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