processes so that when probations are booked, both the sheriff department and adult probation department is notified immediately. for the justice reporting portal, i want to show you sample reports. as you can see from little icons, if red, locked one, only justice department can see these reports. for public reports such as domestic violence it would be open to the public. >> just to clarify again, for folks who are watching, justis is an acronym for the justice tracking information system. >> thank you commissioner. >> thank you. >> if i can show you the domestic violence dashboard, these are four reporter markup, dv cases, arrested and bailed; dv cases arrested and bailed by zip code; dv cases sentenced vs. dismissed; and dv cases convicted whether felony or misdemeanor. for the first report, if you look at the chart, this report will show by fiscal year the number of cases. when you zoom in on the year you can see by month but the number of dv cases are, and my by days if you further zoom in. this is nonproduction sample data. this is mocking up for presentation purposes. if you look at this, this is for the period jan. 1, 2012, through dec. 4, 2012. by zip code you can see where the high incidence are. you can see 94103, 224 cases, and so on. this portal will also allow you to change the dates that you are looking at. if you are interested in fiscal year versus calendar year, if you're interested in a particular month you can change the date and see the same data. for dv cases sentenced and dismissed what we wanted to show is this one is by fiscal year, what are the number of actual cases dismissed versus sentence and then we wanted to show the percentage count. in the last report, the convicted dv cases, what numbers were felonies versus misdemeanors? what are the critical reports they want to see? as a departments are hooking up and sharing their information with us we will then populate the fields. so we will assign mous with the various departments to be clear about what data is being shared, and what data is being shared publicly for the next. the next step, we want to connect the district attorneys system bidirectionally, and the modules for discovery, an investigation and operate a case management system to a web-based version. we also want to connect the adult probation case management. and connect the course case management system; we note that they recently had budgetary challenges. we will be working with them next fiscal year to do that an expanding the interdepartmental notifications. phase 2, we want to help the juvenile probation case management system hook up as well as the department of emergency management calls for service. so quickly to acknowledge that none of this would be done without the work of the justis and the justis council. they worked around the clock when the servers were down. the justis governance council participants -- they attend every one of our council meetings and provide valuable guidance and recommendations from the police department i will acknowledge susan -- andrew and rodrigo castillo. at this time if you have any questions? >> thank you very much, this is an important part of the puzzle with the justis ringing together information of the law-enforcement, district attorney's office and the support network understand and have an idea what the statistics are. this is incredible. thank you so much for your efforts. >> thank you. >> commissioner turman: the fiscal year data on the mock-up goes back to 2010. does your data go back further than that? >> it goes back further than that. there is data going further back. >> within your portal? >> the data does exist; we just did not show it in this report. >> commissioner turman asked the question but i want to be clear that the data goes back further than what is indicated on the report. i also want to command and thank the team that is putting this together, the governance council, but certainly this is something to be very clear that has been in the making for over a decade. this really started with the task force, which is now in oversight panel as we have mentioned previously. there is a teamwork and resources to make sure we have coordinated data that is appropriate for each department so that we can again have not only a birdseye view but it a ground view. we have come a long way. i waited a long time. as a member of this commission but also many of the folks introduced earlier who have been working on something similar to occur for a long time. we have been somewhat puzzled by the fact -- as we often hear in these chambers and other matters, by the fact that certainly san francisco sits in the seat of such technological developments that are really evolving and reshaping the world on so many fronts, biotech, biomedical, engineering feats. will could not understand why we could not board and eight with the technology available, state-of-the-art information system. for our citizens. thank you very much. i am very excited. it seems as though we are exponentially improving. i don't expect that we will wait another 10 years for similar reports. i am expecting that certainly within the next year we will be 10 steps further ahead. a few years ago it would've taken longer. i am very excited about this and excited that we can share this discussion with the police department commission. as far as the development of justice. thank you very much to all of that been involved. very critical. >> commissioner kingsley? >> ms. young, thank you very much for your report. it is very interesting. some of the questions i had have been addressed by commissioner schwatz's comments. i wanted more clarity around the timing and history of this. is 2012 the first compilation of the statistics? is the system established for data collection, is that a permanent part of our system of data collection going forward that we will improve upon? i wanted it a sense of the permanency of this, the development of it, and not just the project that is done every 10 years or something of that nature. >> this is a very historic thing for me. and sitting down with doctor -- we talked about what is the definition of domestic violence and we really do need to go down the list of statutes and say is this in or not. the district attorneys office is tracking domestic violence cases, the police department also. we are using the management system but as the systems hoping we will be able to show different sets of information to you. this is just the first touch of prototype reports. >> wonderful, thank you. >> not to over state, i think it is a critical question. it is not our intent that it be a project. this is something that would be a foundational, fundamental issue moving on. one of the challenges that we will face moving forward is one department only has a certain amount of resources to participate and to keep going, and another one isn't would could end up with something lopsided. an uneven patchwork of data. as we move forward, we want to make sure we have the adequate resources to have this as even and equal participation is possible so that it is not just something that is not sustainable for the long term. >> thank you commissioner. >> commissioner chan. >> commissioner chan: thank you for your presentation. i want to ask a couple of clarifying questions. it looks like the justis project replaces the cable system. my understanding is that it is a database for local background check, i want to get more of the big picture perspective and also want to find out - my understanding is that the cable system was not a system connected to any databases. i am wondering if the justis system will be different, connected to any federal database like the fbi or department of homeland security. >> i am the justis project manager. justis is designed to replace the aging cable mainframe system. each department is in the process or has completed the implementation of the wrong department specific case management system. though specific case management systems connect to justis is a way to exchange data between departments. since justis is at that how point, it gives us the ability to all information and roll it up to public data as well as criminal justice data. what was your other question? >> i am wondering if justis is any different. >> i know their systems in the city and county of seven san francisco to collect to colect, for background checks, as far as justis replacing the cable system, justis will assist individual departments in creating the roll up reports. we have not received whether to the technical steering committee or the justis council, and requirements to connect federally. >> i asked because of my background. i was curious because one thing that was helpful about the cable system is that you could do a check without reporting someone to immigration. i was curious about that. who analyzes the data? you should is the capabilities and the types of reports that we could pull. is their body that will pull the status of reports and doing an analysis on a regular basis? >> each department analyzes their data. the source of the data has to verify the data. they also have to be able to give permission for other departments to use that data. the analysis belongs at the departmental level. what we do is that once the police department says okay, share the aggregate data, that is when we connect the two so the system can show the reports of the department of women. we don't own the data. the data resides with the department that originated it. >> thank you. >> we appreciate your efforts putting that together so that groups can see trends and recognize issues that we able to deal with. our next line item is a report of the san francisco police department regarding language access. and some of the concerns that were expressed by the assistant district attorney jean roland about issues regarding interpretation. we have ms. sandra marion, from occ, to talk about language access. ms. marion? >> good evening. commissioners, director - members of the public and command staff and police officers. i'm excited to be here and have the opportunity to talk about the work that many organizations, departments and commissions in collaboration with the police department on language access. i work for the office of citizen complaints, in agency that provides civilian oversight of the police department. i will start our presentation giving a little history and identify some of the projects working on. there are other members of the group here, cheaf beal, officer chang, language liaison, -- a member of the working group. he will talk some of the challenges that lap, domestic violence victims face and lastly beverly -- will make concluding remarks. she is also another vital member of our organization or our working group. a little bit of the history. six years ago a number of representatives from 22 organizations can together to work with the police department to write language access policy. we came together with the desire to improve services for the domestic violence victims and witnesses and family situations. most certainly those concerns and specific cases were at the forefront of putting together this language access policy. within two years,the police commission adopted the language access protocol, department general order 5.20. it is one of the best in the country because it is comprehensive and it gives clear guidance. it requires a san francisco police department officers to provide language access or language services to limited english proficient individuals that they encounter in their law enforcement capability, and requires services if a lap person requires assistance. in san francisco on like many police departments there's over 150 bilingual officers and that is remarkable. if you look across the nation, san francisco is at the forefront at having such a source of bilingual officers. the department general order prohibits officers from relying on children, bystanders, family members to be interpreters unless there are exigent circumstances. once that is resolved, the police needs to have a bilingual officer or an interpreter from line with from language services language services to continue. those in the community, trying to resolve situations of language access, this language liaison officer appointed through this general order. our work wasn't done when it was implemented in 2007. part of what we wanted to do was put together training, and a brochure for the public so they would know what their rights are and responsibilities. we put together a brochure, translated it into five different languages. it is the way in which individuals can learn about and exert their right to language access. we continue to do work. there are people who were here, i want to give credit to commissioner chan, the district attorney office was involved, the department of the status on women, you were there at the beginning. and then the police department. there was a willingness in the leadership to move forward, to implement this department general order and to continue with the dialogue on how to best implement land with services that is what recently in the last year, a subset of this language access coalition has come together. we are working on a variety of projects. one of the first was to have another kind of department bulletin for officers who touch upon the common indicators, signs, in a more complicated situation where the person understands some english but because of the complexity of interaction, the rights involved in the need of accuracy, an interpreter is required. would put together good indicators for police officers. the other thing that we worked on, a work in progress, roll-call training scenario based. that is an ongoing project. we have been working with the department, scripting it out, we hope that it will be rolled out of the beginning of next year. under the project we are working on to enhance services, we devised a multilingual card so the police service aids, civilians, people that victims might think are officer, -- this is an important mechanism so that domestic violence victims coming to the station to file reports, there is immediate communication so that things can get moving in a rapid manner. on the technology side we are grappling with how to enhance dispatch. we are working closely with lisa hoffman to have a system that identifies the language skills of bilingual officers immediately and in real-time so that they can be more readily dispatched to the scene and it gives equally important information which is to know if there aren't bilingual officers, waiting on the scene, and can move onto the next level, the language line system. we are working on how do we get officers who want to be bilingual, who want to be certified as bilingual officers, how do they more rapidly get the certification process in place? officers can be certified in mandarin, cantonese, spanish, russian. we are hoping and working with other divisions within the city to get the process moving more quickly. on the street patrol officers, they're using their own cell phones to call language line. on a real level of equipment, officers need a better way to ask his language line. we are working with the department and think outside of the box. bilingual officers use digital recorders because of department requires them to tape interviews with victims, witnesses and suspects. the department was able to provide 50 digital recorders. we need more. let me turn this over to deputy chief beal, a vital member of our team. >> i don't know if i am a vital member of the group. i was assigned to represent the chief on this group. is and as i walked in the door that day and saw the members of the group i knew that i was in trouble. i knew the group was going to be extremely motivated, extremely directed, i immediately began getting homework assignments from these women. it's a great cause. i was glad to help. upon request i reissued department goals to have officers apply for certification for language skills. we have 400 officers that have line with language skills and only half of certified. i have spoken with director -- of hr and she assures me that in the first quarter of 2013, a test will be administered and we will get the numbers that we want. i hope this will be continuing thing with can do a regular basis. also we identified - i was told about issues that we have at psas, and at stations where they did not know how to use a landline. i contacted our academy, captain -- was very receptive. would put together a roll call immediately for all psas. we have a curriculum set up for jan. 2013, a 20-hr. biannual training for all psas. also, ms. marion told me of an idea she had, assisting our dispatchers in identifying what skills the officers have that are working on the street at a particular time, either language skills or crisis prevention training, whatever that may be so they can see at a glance what kind of officers they can
continue to do, and that she understood that. but the notification is compulsory. >> i did not read the article that you're referencing. i understand that the issue was at california says it's optional. the federal government says it is not. in the meantime, this is what i am addressing. >> commissioners i want to be really clear because this is on television. for anybody the lives in san francisco, we are a sanctuary city. your status living in the united states is not an issue. we will not report. please. trust your san francisco police department. call us. we are here to help. >> commissioner turman: thank you chief for pointing that out. we already had a constitutional law here, i'm not sure that it is hour is the best use. the attorney general did do a law-enforcement bulletin; the issue is whether the local jurisdiction is obligated to use state resources to do a federal detainer; it is specific to the sheriff's department. part of the notion is that it is not the job ofrom my law enforcement to enforce immigration policy; we are here to keep people safe. we appreciate the chief's passion. and ultimately where people come is not relevant and using this forum is important to underscore that commitment, and i'm glad the chief is clear and unequivocal about that. >> victims are not at risk for deportation. that is abundantly clear from what the chief has said. our next line item is regarding the san francisco police department special victims unit. >> i would like to introduce deputy director, lisa hoffman, waiting to tell you about the new system. >> sorry about that. >> good evening and thyo for letting me have a moment to speak. i will keep it brief. we have beein the rocess after procuring enough that you the current system we he is years old, antiquated. we are not able to currently tell whether an officer have special skills so we don't is best based on skill sets. we will have a processes to install, we upgrade to the new system in 2identify officer skill sets and identify and tabulate when on a call. we have no way to currently manage the data to tell us when a call speaking a different language. one of the primary objectives of the new product is to have a system that allows us to determine when we translate for somebody. we have a large member of staff who are language proficient and come from primary speaking language, fluent in their native language. we are looking to get more dispatchers qualified and certified a second language proficient. we are taking information from line from a victim who is hysterical. rather then transferring them to a second party we want to do the translation ourselves. we have been fortunate although -- realizes that we have problems in getting people to certified translation, it is an expensive process. we are willing to wait. we took money out of our own budget the certify 7 new staff members. something in the best benefit of our clients. we are interactive with this process. we do a lot of outreach and speaking engagements where we take our staff that speaks the native-language to those events to make sure the public knows we are not judging them, we don't care where they came from, we just care about getting services that they need. >> i would like for you to hear from -- in the trenches 24/7, working with people speaking many languages that have many different barriers. i would like to have -- come up and talk to you about this. >> thanks beverly. we are running really late. i will keep it brief. language access is a safety issue. we talked about officers securing the scene and worried about the safety of individuals and involved with their own safety when they come upon the scene trying to figure out what is happening. language access can be the difference between a dv homicide happening or not happening. for my organization, where we work every day on civil/legal remedies and integration remedies for dv survivors it is something we encounter on record basis. the dv survivor community that we work with, primarily immigrant, limited english proficient, they will not be a big events or have all the access to some of the information that comes out now. in addition, they are also not likely to be people who will complain. the people who hear those complaints are me and other attorneys who do the kind of work that we do and legal services and social services agencies. they're not likely to call occ to make a complaint. i think anything that relies purely on occ complaints or some other kind of data will be misleading. we are grateful to have this partnership. it is not often that legal services organizations get to regularly meet with law enforcement and learn about their experience. i really appreciate officer hall who is also in eric chang's position; our organization has been involved with this commission for six years. while we have made lots of progress distilled is appointed that on a regular basis, almost every day, i will talk to someone who said that they did not know that they could have an interpreter. they were not offered an interpreter. they did not even get to speak to the police officer on the scene because there was no interpreter or they have to wait an hour or something along those lines and when you think about for survivor, even if they know they will get to have an interpreter, if they have to wait whether an hour or 45 minutes and during that time the officer is talking probably to the abusive partner, it changes the dynamic. the police come in but they're not always 100 percent sure that calling the police in the situation is going to be the most successful route. and then you have is a situation where they're not able to communicate, that don't know what is going on and the city officer talking to the abusive party who a lot of times is a lot more proficient in english and it creates a dynamic of mistrust, we are grateful to the officers who are willing to use their personal cell phones to call language line. the reality is, in the resource environment that we are in, getting the bilingual officer to the scene is time-consuming and elongates the whole process. not having access to a cell phone for an officer forces him into position to use whatever is available or the personal cell phone. that should not be the case. one thing we do, i want to mention as a program, as a policy that we would like to see,we would like to see language line gets training on domestic violence awareness and maybe tur coetenc issues. they provide a huge serviceo the city. the city is o of their biggest clients. i think there a loto be n and of itself is not a anea; it is not monolithic. there is difference between saying a restraining and you even talk to the victim of trma is vital. we would like to see more involvent, rather than assuming that they are the experts which is i think how the police have looked at it in the past. language line is the expert on language, and they should teach us. we have a lot to teach interpreters as well about how to effectively communicate with them. one more thing quickly, for emergency protection orders, i am not sure how many people realize this but the judicial council has translated the emergency protection order into five languages. yet getting a copy of that along with the actual english version to the survivor is something that could easily be done by does not happen. i regularly meet with clients who for the first time understand what that emergency protection order means either because the member from the staff is interpreting it or i had given them a copy in their language and they should not have to wait that ng to means, which is why a lot of times they don't even a be eyon't knowhat they're being asked ab i wa to say thk you and appreciate your time. >> one thing that waslso brought up in the neigorhood etings with the immigrant communities is that they often want to keep the family unit intact. although the victim won't b deport, she is concerned about the father of the children being deported. that has a chilling effect. that is a consideration that we as a community have to take. >> i will chime in on behalf of the domestic violence community; it has been a high priority for us to change the role of california and other states, operating with secure communities for many reasons; one of the major ones is the chilling effect on victims come forward, concern for their own safety or the deportation of the father of the children or their partner. we work with angela chan and the statewide organization against domestic violence; angela did a webinar, a top priority. we will support tom -- introduced on monday to strengthen california's response to this. we are living in san francisco where things are not quite as bad. you can speak to anyone no matter where they are on the continuum of immigration reform about the chilling effect of domestic violence survivors and families, and why the federal initiative is dangerous. >> that is not what i was appear for; i wanted to talk about how honored i have been to be here for two years as part of the language workgroup; access to criminal justice, community day services, justice, safety. it is homicide prevention. as we know from many homicides that we work with families, we have done court watches over the years, and the tragedies that we have seen, language access makes a difference. the trust and logistics of those languages being available has been a real honor. i cannot thank chief -- and deputy chief -- and deputy chief beal, and the two language officers have been so helpful. language liaison henry hocht came out to a community domestic violence meeting. he came, handed out his phone number, everybody got to meet the liaison an officer chan will help us do that as well. it helps when officers can tell clients that they know the language liaison officer for sfpd and he can help them to get where they need to be in a they have an issue they can bring it to the table. it is tremendous. the hour is late. this work could not be done without -- and the team from occ, and the leadership of sfpd to meet with us on almost monthly basis where many of these issues are spelled out every day. it is a pleasure and an honor and a vital goal for all of us. we have to do this. we are doing it. thank you. >> we will call our last item on the agenda, report from the chief, and captain flaherty from the special victims unit, san francisco police department. >> i know that the hour is late. i'm greg suhr, chief of police for san francisco. it is important what commissioner marshall spoke to earlier, and echo about the tragedy in kansas city. we are talking about the 22-year-old mother who was killed and leaves a three-month-old baby. that is with these conversations are about. even though we are in a staffing crisis, the mayor and the people who sit on these chairs will address this but we are still down about 300 officers. thank you for your comments and the material beverly upton who keeps moving around back there. concerning our most vulnerable. in october we built a space in our most secure floor, behind locked doors, a place for children, and many of the folks behind me contributed to making it nice. everybody has been sitting together, we are altogether all the time anyway. in october, domestic violence, elder abuse, missing persons, juvenile violence, came together under one roof. a putting the human trafficking task force regional effort. even though we are in the middle of hiring 1000 officers over the next six years, a critical piece of that and i will read this draft, officers convicted of domestic violence shall not be considered. it will be policy. we have about 5000 applicants so far in the first 10 days. i want the message to be clear that there is no place in the san francisco police department for those folks. that is my shtick. the captaincy work hard to bring you up to speed about the domestic violence unit, now part of svu and what they do in san francisco. we are committed to keep san francisco safe regardless of the place of origin or language efforts. the things that we can do easily we will go quickly. the things that will take a little bit of work or money we will figure out. captain? >> thank you chief. i'm sorry. i am the last one up. i have been asked to speak on a few items. i will try to get through it as quickly as possible. bear with me. when i get to the presentation, once i am completed i will be happy to answer any questions you may have for me. >> good evening everybody, i am denise flaherty, the captain for the special victims unit. our journey starts in 1995, the formation of the domestic violence response unit going back to the time when the department had separate investigative unit. for years domestic violence, sex crimes, youth crimes all work independently. the investigative bureau was fragmented and never work together closely. through the years we have improved, evolved. under chief surh, in october, 2011, the special unit was created. the mythic violence is no longer an individual area of investigation. in order to serve those who are most vulnerable we must not only examine the crime that has occurred but also identify the services and support that we can provide in order to prevent future victimization. we have 40 members that investigate domestic violence, sexual assault, internet crimes against children, human trafficking, elderly abuse. we have 20 very talented investigators who focus on domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. we recognize the benefit of formalized training offered by post, then we have been diligent and assigning individuals for training as it becomes available. formal training of the members is essential so we don't forget the value mentorship and hands-on training. we have investigators with fast experience and knowledge. our investigators at svu have over 300 years of experience and are able to investigate high-profile crimes efficiently and effectively. a good example of the recent investigation and conviction of the 24th st. quarter rapist. we have purposefully partnered with the most senior investigations with the new generation of investigators. we have great success with these partnerships passing the knowledge, investigative techniques, and expensive cannot be found in the classroom. another example was a series of cases where suspects preyed on elderly members of the asian committee. investigators have done an excellent job. cases such as these are demanding requiring patience and understanding and compassion for the victims. financial crime members are also responsible for elderly abuse both physical and financial. while the majority of the cases are financial in fiscal year 2011-2012, we served 54 cases of elderly care abuse, in most cases the family member was identified as a perpetrator. these were difficult cases to prove due to the close relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, along with mental issues. determination has remained consistent in domestic violence investigation; there was a time when law enforcement only focused on investigation. chief suhr recognize importance of having advocacy groups located directly in the special victims unit. family can meet with investigators and have access to services in the system as they move forward. with the efforts of kathy black and -- svu has a children's room available which offers a safe environment for children exposed to family violence. child abuse is one of the toughest crimes for investigators. children are among the most vulnerable victims. thankfully there are those like kathy baxter who are constantly fighting for the prevention of child abuse. i believe partnership with outside agencies have allowed us to find justice during this complex investigation. another important component of svu is the -- unit. those members solely on internet crimes against children. the cases are complex and require persistent and dedication to identify and locate perpetrators who possess and distribute child pornography. we are only one of many law enforcement agencies across the region who actively participate in the silicon valley internet crimes against children task force. the investigation resulted in the arrest of four predators who possessed hundreds of images. as you can see we have many moving parts under the svu model, and it is important to recognize the specialist team appointed to investigate crimes in human trafficking. human trafficking is a 32 billion dollar industry. after drug trafficking, human trafficking is the second most profitable crime. it has attracted participation by organized criminal gangs. innovation and technology has made it possible for the traffickers to recruit their victims. internet has transformed the landscape of human trafficking. the san francisco police department has adopted a victim centered philosophy which prevents victims from being treated like perpetrators. we work closely with advocacy groups such as asian-pacific legal outreach in numerous volunteer specifically trained in helping the victims. partnership with these advocates ensures that the victims have the resources and assistance to rebuild their lives. a -- is a law enforcement tool that allows victims report crimes without fear of deportation. a u visa is a temporary four-year visa. -- has been designated to issue the visa is by reviewing the applicant's background. the final determination is made by the united ss
i want to ask a couple of clarifying questions. it looks like the justis project replaces the cable system. my understanding is that it is a database for local background check, i want to get more of the big picture perspective and also want to find out - my understanding is that the cable system was not a system connected to any databases. i am wondering if the justis system will be different, connected to any federal database like the fbi or department of homeland security. >> i am the justis project manager. justis is designed to replace the aging cable mainframe system. each department is in the process or has completed the implementation of the wrong department specific case management system. though specific case management systems connect to justis is a way to exchange data between departments. since justis is at that how point, it gives us the ability to all information and roll it up to public data as well as criminal justice data. what was your other question? >> i am wondering if justis is any different. >> i know their systems in the city and county of seven san francisco to collect to colect, for background checks, as far as justis replacing the cable system, justis will assist individual departments in creating the roll up reports. we have not received whether to the technical steering committee or the justis council, and requirements to connect federally. >> i asked because of my background. i was curious because one thing that was helpful about the cable system is that you could do a check without reporting someone to immigration. i was curious about that. who analyzes the data? you should is the capabilities and the types of reports that we could pull. is their body that will pull the status of reports and doing an analysis on a regular basis? >> each department analyzes their data. the source of the data has to verify the data. they also have to be able to give permission for other departments to use that data. the analysis belongs at the departmental level. what we do is that once the police department says okay, share the aggregate data, that is when we connect the two so the system can show the reports of the department of women. we don't own the data. the data resides with the department that originated it. >> thank you. >> we appreciate your efforts putting that together so that groups can see trends and recognize issues that we able to deal with. our next line item is a report of the san francisco police department regarding language access. and some of the concerns that were expressed by the assistant district attorney jean roland about issues regarding interpretation. we have ms. sandra marion, from occ, to talk about language access. ms. marion? >> good evening. commissioners, director - members of the public and command staff and police officers. i'm excited to be here and have the opportunity to talk about the work that many organizations, departments and commissions in collaboration with the police department on language access. i work for the office of citizen complaints, in agency that provides civilian oversight of the police department. i will start our presentation giving a little history and identify some of the projects working on. there are other members of the group here, cheaf beal, officer chang, language liaison, -- a member of the working group. he will talk some of the challenges that lap, domestic violence victims face and lastly beverly -- will make concluding remarks. she is also another vital member of our organization or our working group. a little bit of the history. six years ago a number of representatives from 22 organizations can together to work with the police department to write language access policy. we came together with the desire to improve services for the domestic violence victims and witnesses and family situations. most certainly those concerns and specific cases were at the forefront of putting together this language access policy. within two years,the police commission adopted the language access protocol, department general order 5.20. it is one of the best in the country because it is comprehensive and it gives clear guidance. it requires a san francisco police department officers to provide language access or language services to limited english proficient individuals that they encounter in their law enforcement capability, and requires services if a lap person requires assistance. in san francisco on like many police departments there's over 150 bilingual officers and that is remarkable. if you look across the nation, san francisco is at the forefront at having such a source of bilingual officers. the department general order prohibits officers from relying on children, bystanders, family members to be interpreters unless there are exigent circumstances. once that is resolved, the police needs to have a bilingual officer or an interpreter from line with from language services language services to continue. those in the community, trying to resolve situations of language access, this language liaison officer appointed through this general order. our work wasn't done when it was implemented in 2007. part of what we wanted to do was put together training, and a brochure for the public so they would know what their rights are and responsibilities. we put together a brochure, translated it into five different languages. it is the way in which individuals can learn about and exert their right to language access. we continue to do work. there are people who were here, i want to give credit to commissioner chan, the district attorney office was involved, the department of the status on women, you were there at the beginning. and then the police department. there was a willingness in the leadership to move forward, to implement this department general order and to continue with the dialogue on how to best implement land with services that is what recently in the last year, a subset of this language access coalition has come together. we are working on a variety of projects. one of the first was to have another kind of department bulletin for officers who touch upon the common indicators, signs, in a more complicated situation where the person understands some english but because of the complexity of interaction, the rights involved in the need of accuracy, an interpreter is required. would put together good indicators for police officers. the other thing that we worked on, a work in progress, roll-call training scenario based. that is an ongoing project. we have been working with the department, scripting it out, we hope that it will be rolled out of the beginning of next year. under the project we are working on to enhance services, we devised a multilingual card so the police service aids, civilians, people that victims might think are officer, -- this is an important mechanism so that domestic violence victims coming to the station to file reports, there is immediate communication so that things can get moving in a rapid manner. on the technology side we are grappling with how to enhance dispatch. we are working closely with lisa hoffman to have a system that identifies the language skills of bilingual officers immediately and in real-time so that they can be more readily dispatched to the scene and it gives equally important information which is to know if there aren't bilingual officers, waiting on the scene, and can move onto the next level, the language line system. we are working on how do we get officers who want to be bilingual, who want to be certified as bilingual officers, how do they more rapidly get the certification process in place? officers can be certified in mandarin, cantonese, spanish, russian. we are hoping and working with other divisions within the city to get the process moving more quickly. on the street patrol officers, they're using their own cell phones to call language line. on a real level of equipment, officers need a better way to ask his language line. we are working with the department and think outside of the box. bilingual officers use digital recorders because of department requires them to tape interviews with victims, witnesses and suspects. the department was able to provide 50 digital recorders. we need more. let me turn this over to deputy chief beal, a vital member of our team. >> i don't know if i am a vital member of the group. i was assigned to represent the chief on this group. is and as i walked in the door that day and saw the members of the group i knew that i was in trouble. i knew the group was going to be extremely motivated, extremely directed, i immediately began getting homework assignments from these women. it's a great cause. i was glad to help. upon request i reissued department goals to have officers apply for certification for language skills. we have 400 officers that have line with language skills and only half of certified. i have spoken with director -- of hr and she assures me that in the first quarter of 2013, a test will be administered and we will get the numbers that we want. i hope this will be continuing thing with can do a regular basis. also we identified - i was told about issues that we have at psas, and at stations where they did not know how to use a landline. i contacted our academy, captain -- was very receptive. would put together a roll call immediately for all psas. we have a curriculum set up for jan. 2013, a 20-hr. biannual training for all psas. also, ms. marion told me of an idea she had, assisting our dispatchers in identifying what skills the officers have that are working on the street at a particular time, either language skills or crisis prevention training, whatever that may be so they can see at a glance what kind of officers they can dispatch to any type of situation. director griffin assured me that in january of 2013 we will have the ability to have all dispatchers to see what skills we have out there who they should send to assist our first responders. on that, being the newest member i would like to introduce our language access liaison officer, officer chan, who will give you numbers that he has compiled, he has been with a group a lot longer. >> good evening. my name is eric chan, i've been in this position approximately 3 months. they took away a lot of my thunder because a lot of what they say was what i was going to go over. we are making a lot of headway in the short time that i have been involved. that is a good thing. it is important to know that from what i have seen our department does really reflect our community. we have approximately 400 officers that speak some type of foreign-language. of that 400 or so, most of them, we have 173 that speak spanish, 81 are certified; 91 cantonese speakers, 60 certified; 20 mandarin, 9 certified, 7 russian, 6 certified, 39 tagalog and 5 vietnamese. there is no lag time to getting information on any type of crime occurring. we do use landline with an interpreter is not available, that is the card. most of the language services, including interpretation, we had 1800 calls that required interpretation of language services, most of that was spanis, with about 1060, second was cantonese, with about 400 calls. sometimes, you may be underreported, it can be a lot higher if not put into the database. as required by the city ordinances, we completed with the lao city ordinances, with city immigration affairs, that was completed on the chief desk for review to be signed. we are making good headway. that is more to be done and i look forward to working with the commission and do more, thank you. >> i understand that there is a line item in the mayor's budget for 500,000 for language access, can you tell me how that was utilized? >> i can bring you a breakdown. most of it was for the pay an officer uses for bilingual pay, paid $30 some odd dollars per pay period, that total comes up to if i'm not mistaken around $30,000 for just pay. and then translation services, language line, that is the bulk of it. telephonic services, around $32,000. and the budget for the officers, 258,000. >> than that is for -- >> bilingual pay. >> i thought you said 30,000. >> 30,000 for telephonic translation services. >> and then you have any kind of auditing or benchmark with the program to see how things are progressing, if improvements need to be made or things are going right? >> what was the question again? >> do you have particular benchmarks or goals or auditing processes to see have language access program is working? >> regarding lap, limited language proficiency, less than 2% of total calls that they receive regarding limited english proficiency. that is a benchmark, when occ receives a complaint, the victim cannot get across to the police what happened because of the limits barrier. that is a benchmark. did i answer that? >> i have to say that back in 1998 i work with supervisor -- drafting the equal access to services ordinance and what was surprising to me was animal control department had the most language access. they monitor potential violence in the home because of there's an abused animal there is likely to be abuse in the family. >> in oakland, san jose, what they indicated to me was well, they don't have a formal policy such as what we have. that many feel good but they are scrambling around trying to figure it out. some of the questions i posted, hopefully that will spark interest in developing an lao project. >> i want to be a strong advocate for a cross agency training; i had the benefit, dr. rossi put this together -- training on domestic violence, cantonese and spanish. officer kathy wong was in my class along social service workers, 911 tech people. the cross training of people, cross disciplinary if possible. >> one of my goals is a streamlined the process; if we have a pool of authors that want to take the test and be certified, and increase the certification not only in chinese, spanish, russian but perhaps vietnamese, maybe we can get a test going in more regular basis to make it easier for the officers to take tests and be certified. >> commissioner turman. >> commissioner turman: perhaps you can give us sort of a quick description of how the certification process works for anyone who might be interested. >> the certification process is handled by the department of human services. they did the testing. once the announcement goes out, officers have a deadline. they can apply and personnel submits a list of officers to the department of human resources. they also test for the civilian side in other departments. what they're trying to do with what you cuts is say we are going to test on a certain date we have to wait for more people rather than testing four people now and two later. that slows the process down. as deputy chief beal says, we have 14 in line to take the test, in spanish, and 14 in chinese, 1 in russian. that helps. but waiting on the street waiting for an interpreter, it is great to have someone who is coming. if we can stream that it's a great call. i am not sure how the civilian part is; for officers it is scenario-based. >> commissioner chan. >> commissioner chan: i am reminded of what assistant district attorney jean rolan said, the importance of maintaining trust. from the moment an officer and an inspector encounters the victim. i think the transformation that the department has had, president chu, i want to commend you for your work that started in 1998, none of this happened by accident. the moment that someone who does not speak english - it is important for us to keep the safety net going for victims in the city. i want to thank everyone for their leadership to get to this point in my question is, we talked about this a few weeks ago before the police commission. i think you are doing a great outreach to the community. obviously part of my concern that talk about over the last few weeks is in light of recent events in the city. the concern is that women who don't speak english or are living in poverty will have concerns about reaching out of the police department. we want to reassure and reach out. can you talk about your efforts to reach out to communities through various newspapers in different languages and how the department is getting the message out that we do have access to other languages and can serve diverse populations? >> anytime there is a community meeting, and it is based on a certain ethnicity group, we try to have interpretation service provided. we will post those signs in that language, so if it is held in chinatown or wherever, for that outreach. it is important when thct
explains the process. the card will be printed in five different languages. they can pick the language they speak; point to it, then we know what they need. the officer will get them the service. i want to say that the chief and i especially the chief, he is out there all the time, i work with public affairs and recently we did an interview on the chinese speaking channel on the chinese talkshow. two days ago, i saw the chief being interviewed on a korean show; he is always trying to reach out to all of the communities that we are approachable, we are here to help, we are trying to provide a service to anyone who needs it. all of us are here to help anyone in need. >> i was also going to recommend that perhaps you also engage -- america media, and san francisco-based pacific news service. you can put something in english and each media outlet reports on their language with no copyright violations. >> great idea. i want to get that information from you after the meeting. >> commissioner kingsley? >> thank you for your report. >> commissioner kingsley: my questions may be a little premature. do we have any information, percentages? >> approximately 1800 clients accessed either language line or an interpretation service from either an officer or a professional. >> of the 1800, is it broken down in terms of what percentage are officers and what is the language line? >> yeah. 1739 times language line was used. 90 percent is language line. >> what is the reaction to the use of language line? is it reliable? they have a sense that getting quality interpretation? >> by the very nature of using the phone and passing the phone three ways it slows the process. there is no doubt about it. when we dig down into the nuances, language line is what we have, they are professional. we trust them. they can testify as well in court. there is three-ways to say something. by the very nature of trying to hand the phone back and forth. >> how long does it take once a call is initiated? >> immediate. >> and the users reaction? i know that you have developed cards, and that would help a lot in terms of their reactions. is it off-putting? >> they understand. they are giving their story and it is relayed back to the officer, and the officer asked another question, back and forth, until we get the whole story. it works. sometimes it is cumbersome the way to set up. >> commissioner kingsley: do we know if there are any high-quality computer interpretation applications yet? >> personally, i have an app on my phone, and i have used it a number of times. not something important. i use it to get the nuances. but as far as anything else i am not aware of. >> commissioner kingsley: curious as to whether or not we were following the technology. >> you mean speaking into something and have it automatic to dictate into english? >> well yes but on a more professional level, a particular software application developed. (off mic) >> the best thing is to have an interpreter. >> commissioner kingsley: a real person, absolutely. thank you very much. >> commissioner chan? >> commissioner chan: in terms of the reference to psas, says we are televised, we can educate the public on how to make it was reported you are involved in domestic violence. can you describe what the issues were, and how we can collaboratively address the issue? here is how it works. when there's a problem you go to the department or the commission and we address it. >> one thing that sandra had spoken about in our workshop is that there was an issue where psa may not have known severity of the walk-in who had some type of an issue. prior to me get in there. if you have an issue, and you don't speak, don't leave. the last thing we want to do is have the person leave. if this is impractical emergency, point to this. if it is something else stand by and we will either get an interpreter or line with service, that is what is going on with psa; they were being retrained on that a couple of months ago. beginning in january there are going to have a continuous professional training just like we have for advanced officers who do that every two years. >> i think i know what you exactly want. we learn that a victim came to the station and try to report -- this is domestic violence -- unfortunately the police service aid who do not speak the language and who could not get someone to assist told the victim to go home. an officer will be going to their home to make a report. the officer was never dispatched; they can came back the next day along with their teenage son and report was made through their teenage son being an interpreter, absolutely unacceptable. we learn about this with the meanings. you brought it to light. we address it immediately as a group. we try to think of ways to fix this problem. one is supervision and training and came up with that card. not only role-cal training but our biennial training, and video to make sure we never dropped the ball again. even one victim having to suffer through that is an acceptable. >> i brought that case to light for the group. and the glitches where police service aids and civilians are not the place to take a domestic violence report. and encountering a language barrier. >> actually that is what i was going to bring up. we recently met at cameron house with some of our asian partners, and that was a concern not the specific incident, speaking cantonese or another language in the person realizing they cannot make the report and the person at the other end realizing that she was not making a report. i don't know the logistics. can the police service aid take a report? >> any type of sexual offense or domestic violence they're not authorized. we're coming up with the card to explain to the victim that the psa, is unable to do so, but stay there, we will get an officer to take the report and explain the process to them so they don't have the anxiety and feel they are not being helped. >> to take up on this comment, at the neighborhood meetings that we have had in the past month, i'm glad that you are wrapping up more certified bilingual officers. it makes the victim not want to come back and make a report. certain refugee groups, particular the cambodian, laotian, and now iraqi women are distrusting of government. i would like to suggest that maybe we can have partnership with our technology partners to have particular tablets and face time, and split screen. often times when we are speaking it is not just that we say or hear, but the body language as well. for these women from war-torn countries they are distrusting and if they cannot see the person they will hang up. >> that is an excellent idea. it is another homework assignment. will get it done. i will see what we can do. we are coming up with computers and tablets and handhelds. if we can put that technology there we will work towards that goal. >> my question goes back to the ongoing issues. i would gather that this topic has been raised already with the police commissioner or discuss discussed at the commission level. the concern with immigrant communities is that interaction with the police could lead to either party, both parties, being deported and how that is being - whether there is training that sensitizes the least of this, or how is it handled? >> commissioner, it's been the policy of the san francisco police department since the sanctuary city ordinance was passed over 30 years ago, before i became a police officer, it isn't just something we need to train to. it's always know. i can assure anyone watching on tv at this commission, san francisco is a sanctuary city. we are here to help regardless of your country of origin or language. we are working hard as you can tell to figure out the language. chief beal spoke about me doing those interviews. i don't speak korean and chinese. we do spanish radio once a month, speak with marcos gutierrez about whatever they want to talk about; sanctuary city has come up more than once. it is not a training issue for us. it is department policy. it is city law. it is what we have been raised on. >> does the department have the authority to control that information within its own database so it is and shared with the federal authorities? >> what information is that? >> my understanding is there is no opt in and out. maybe commissioner chan can say something. >> secure communities is a post-arrest situation, a sheriff situation. those questions are not asked at the police department level. >> the chief has been extremely supportive of efforts by community groups. chief beal recently met with community groups about the same issue, that is something they have been receptive, trying to address. -- has resulted in over 638 deportations as of august this year. it has an impact on the victims of domestic violence. it is a continual problem. >> but not from the san francisco police department. >> there is a reason case, longer story. not because of the specific police officers fall; this program has a direct connection to the immigration database. it is problematic. >> commissioner cahn is passionate about. >> appropriately so. while it is a policy in the training within the police department, it is a sanctuary city however there is a reality of the federal program that does affect people's lives. that is a conflict that could bear some understanding, i think. >> commissioner kingsley. >> commissioner kingsley: not that this is necessarily the forum but i thought that in today's paper the attorney general indicated that it was optional whether or not a jurisdiction wanted to turn over this data, and that we aren't under an obligation to forward data when low-level crimes. >> i spoke to the attorney general myself. i told her that we would continue to do, and that she understood that. but the notification is compulsory. >> i did not read the article that you're referencing. i understand that the issue was at california says it's optional. the federal government says it is not. in the meantime, this is what i am addressing. >> commissioners i want to be really clear because this is on television. for anybody the lives in san francisco, we are a sanctuary city. your status living in the united states is not an issue. we will not report. please. trust your san francisco police department. call us. we are here to help. >> commissioner turman: thank you chief for pointing that out. we already had a constitutional law here, i'm not sure that it is hour is the best use. the attorney general did do a law-enforcement bulletin; the issue is whether the local jurisdiction is obligated to use state resources to do a federal detainer; it is specific to the sheriff's department. part of the notion is that it is not the job of from my law enforcement to enforce immigration policy; we are here to keep people safe. we appreciate the chief's passion. and ultimately where people come is not relevant and using this forum is important to underscore that commitment, and i'm glad the chief is clear and unequivocal about that. >> victims are not at risk for deportation. that is abundantly clear from what the chief has said. our next line item is regarding the san francisco police department special victims unit. >> i would like to introduce deputy director, lisa hoffman, waiting to tell you about the new system. >> sorry about that. >> good evening and thank you for letting me have a moment to speak. i will keep it brief. we have been in the process after procuring enough that you are 911 system. the current system we have is 12 years old, antiquated. we are not able to currently tell whether an officer have special skills so we don't is best based on skill sets. we will have a processes to install, we upgrade to the new system in 2014 will have the capability to identify officer skill sets and identify and tabulate when we translate on a call. we have no way to currently manage the data to tell us when a call speaking a different language. one of the primary objectives of the new product is to have a system that allows us to determine when we translate for somebody. we have a large member of staff who are language proficient and come from primary speaking language, fluent in their native language. we are looking to get more dispatchers qualified and certified a second language proficient. we are taking information from line from a victim who is hysterical. rather then transferring them to a second party we want to do the translation ourselves. we have been fortunate although -- realizes that we have problems in getting people to certified translation, it is an expensive process. we are willing to wait. we took money out of our own budget the certify 7 new staff members. something in the best benefit of our clients. we are interactive with this process. we do a lot of outreach and speaking engagements where we take our staff that speaks the native-language to those events to make sure the public knows we are not judging them, we don't care where they came from, we just care about getting services that they need. >> i would like for you to hear from -- in the trenches 24/7, working with people speaking many languages that have many different barriers. i would like to have -- come up and talk to you about this. >> thanks beverly. we are running really late. i will keep it brief. language access is a safety issue. we talked about officers securing the scene and worried about the safety of individuals and involved with their own safety when they come upon the scene trying to figure out what is happening. language access can be the difference between a dv homicide happening or not happening. for my organization, where we work every day on civil/legal remedies and integration remedies for dv survivors it is something we encounter on record basis. the dv survivor community that we work with, primarily immigrant, limited english proficient, they will not be a big events or have all the access to some of the information that comes out now. in addition, they are also not likely to be people who will complain. the people who hear those complaints are me and other attorneys who do the kind of work that we do and legal services and social services agencies. they're not likely to call occ to make a complaint. i think anything that relies purely on occ complaints or some other kind of data will be misleading. we are grateful to have this partnership. it is not often that legal services organizations get to regularly meet with law enforcement and learn about their experience. i really appreciate officer hall who is also in eric chang's position; our organization has been involved with this commission for six years. while we have made lots of progress distilled is appointed that on a regular basis, almost every day, i will talk to someone who said that they did not know that they could have an interpreter. they were not offered an interpreter. they did not even get to speak to the police officer on the scene because there was no interpreter or they have to wait an hour or something along those lines and when you think about for survivor, even if they know they will get to have an interpreter, if they have to wait whether an hour or 45 minutes and during that time the officer is talking probably to the abusive partner, it changes the dynamic. the police come in but they're not always 100 percent sure that calling the police in the situation is going to be the most successful route. and then you have is a situation where they're not able to communicate, that don't know what is going on and the city officer talking to the abusive party who a lot of times is a lot more proficient in english and it creates a dynamic of mistrust, we are grateful to the officers who are willing to use their personal cell phones to call language line. the reality is, in the resource environment that we are in, getting the bilingual officer to the scene is time-consuming and elongates the whole process. not having access to a cell phone for an officer forces him into position to use whatever is available or the personal cell phone. that should not be the case. one thing we do, i want to mention as a program, as a policy that we would like to see,we would like to see language line gets training on domestic violence awareness and maybe cultural competency issues. they provide a huge service to the city. the city is one of their biggest clients. i think there is a lot to be said for the idea that language in and of itself is not a panacea; it is not monolithic. there is a difference between saying a restraining order and saying something else, and how you even talk to the victim of trauma is vital. we would like to see more involvement, rather than assuming that they are the experts which is i think how the police have looked at it in the past. language line is the expert on language, and they should teach us. we have a lot to teach interpreters as well about how to effectively communicate with them. one more thing
a few years ago it would've taken longer. i am very excited about this and excited that we can share this discussion with the police department commission. as far as the development of justice. thank you very much to all of that been involved. very critical. >> commissioner kingsley? >> ms. young, thank you very much for your report. it is very interesting. some of the questions i had have been addressed by commissioner schwatz's comments. i wanted more clarity around the timing and history of this. is 2012 the first compilation of the statistics? is the system established for data collection, is that a permanent part of our system of data collection going forward that we will improve upon? i wanted it a sense of the permanency of this, the development of it, and not just the project that is done every 10 years or something of that nature. >> this is a very historic thing for me. and sitting down with doctor -- we talked about what is the definition of domestic violence and we really do need to go down the list of statutes and say is this in or not. the district attorneys office is tracking domestic violence cases, the police department also. we are using the management system but as the systems hoping we will be able to show different sets of information to you. this is just the first touch of prototype reports. >> wonderful, thank you. >> not to over state, i think it is a critical question. it is not our intent that it be a project. this is something that would be a foundational, fundamental issue moving on. one of the challenges that we will face moving forward is one department only has a certain amount of resources to participate and to keep going, and another one isn't would could end up with something lopsided. an uneven patchwork of data. as we move forward, we want to make sure we have the adequate resources to have this as even and equal participation is possible so that it is not just something that is not sustainable for the long term. >> thank you commissioner. >> commissioner chan. >> commissioner chan: thank you for your presentation. i want to ask a couple of clarifying questions. it looks like the justis project replaces the cable system. my understanding is that it is a database for local background check, i want to get more of the big picture perspective and also want to find out - my understanding is that the cable system was not a system connected to any databases. i am wondering if the justis system will be different, connected to any federal database like the fbi or department of homeland security. >> i am the justis project manager. justis is designed to replace the aging cable mainframe system. each department is in the process or has completed the implementation of the wrong department specific case management system. though specific case management systems connect to justis is a way to exchange data between departments. since justis is at that how point, it gives us the ability to all information and roll it up to public data as well as criminal justice data. what was your other question? >> i am wondering if justis is any different. >> i know their systems in the city and county of seven san francisco to collect to colect, for background checks, as far as justis replacing the cable system, justis will assist individual departments in creating the roll up reports. we have not received whether to the technical steering committee or the justis council, and requirements to connect federally. >> i asked because of my background. i was curious because one thing that was helpful about the cable system is that you could do a check without reporting someone to immigration. i was curious about that. who analyzes the data? you should is the capabilities and the types of reports that we could pull. is their body that will pull the status of reports and doing an analysis on a regular basis? >> each department analyzes their data. the source of the data has to verify the data. they also have to be able to give permission for other departments to use that data. the analysis belongs at the departmental level. what we do is that once the police department says okay, share the aggregate data, that is when we connect the two so the system can show the reports of the department of women. we don't own the data. the data resides with the department that originated it. >> thank you. >> we appreciate your efforts putting that together so that groups can see trends and recognize issues that we able to deal with. our next line item is a report of the san francisco police department regarding language access. and some of the concerns that were expressed by the assistant district attorney jean roland about issues regarding interpretation. we have ms. sandra marion, from occ, to talk about language access. ms. marion? >> good evening. commissioners, director - members of the public and command staff and police officers. i'm excited to be here and have the opportunity to talk about the work that many organizations, departments and commissions in collaboration with the police department on language access. i work for the office of citizen complaints, in agency that provides civilian oversight of the police department. i will start our presentation giving a little history and identify some of the projects working on. there are other members of the group here, cheaf beal, officer chang, language liaison, -- a member of the working group. he will talk some of the challenges that lap, domestic violence victims face and lastly beverly -- will make concluding remarks. she is also another vital member of our organization or our working group. a little bit of the history. six years ago a number of representatives from 22 organizations can together to work with the police department to write language access policy. we came together with the desire to improve services for the domestic violence victims and witnesses and family situations. most certainly those concerns and specific cases were at the forefront of putting together this language access policy. within two years,the police commission adopted the language access protocol, department general order 5.20. it is one of the best in the country because it is comprehensive and it gives clear guidance. it requires a san francisco police department officers to provide language access or language services to limited english proficient individuals that they encounter in their law enforcement capability, and requires services if a lap person requires assistance. in san francisco on like many police departments there's over 150 bilingual officers and that is remarkable. if you look across the nation, san francisco is at the forefront at having such a source of bilingual officers. the department general order prohibits officers from relying on children, bystanders, family members to be interpreters unless there are exigent circumstances. once that is resolved, the police needs to have a bilingual officer or an interpreter from line with from language services language services to continue. those in the community, trying to resolve situations of language access, this language liaison officer appointed through this general order. our work wasn't done when it was implemented in 2007. part of what we wanted to do was put together training, and a brochure for the public so they would know what their rights are and responsibilities. we put together a brochure, translated it into five different languages. it is the way in which individuals can learn about and exert their right to language access. we continue to do work. there are people who were here, i want to give credit to commissioner chan, the district attorney office was involved, the department of the status on women, you were there at the beginning. and then the police department. there was a willingness in the leadership to move forward, to implement this department general order and to continue with the dialogue on how to best implement land with services that is what recently in the last year, a subset of this language access coalition has come together. we are working on a variety of projects. one of the first was to have another kind of department bulletin for officers who touch upon the common indicators, signs, in a more complicated situation where the person understands some english but because of the complexity of interaction, the rights involved in the need of accuracy, an interpreter is required. would put together good indicators for police officers. the other thing that we worked on, a work in progress, roll-call training scenario based. that is an ongoing project. we have been working with the department, scripting it out, we hope that it will be rolled out of the beginning of next year. under the project we are working on to enhance services, we devised a multilingual card so the police service aids, civilians, people that victims might think are officer, -- this is an important mechanism so that domestic violence victims coming to the station to file reports, there is immediate communication so that things can get moving in a rapid manner. on the technology side we are grappling with how to enhance dispatch. we are working closely with lisa hoffman to have a system that identifies the language skills of bilingual officers immediately and in real-time so that they can be more readily dispatched to the scene and it gives equally important information which is to know if there aren't bilingual officers, waiting on the scene, and can move onto the next level, the language line system. we are working on how do we get officers who want to be bilingual, who want to be certified as bilingual officers, how do they more rapidly get the certification process in place? officers can be certified in mandarin, cantonese, spanish, russian. we are hoping and working with other divisions within the city to get the process moving more quickly. on the street patrol officers, they're using their own cell phones to call language line. on a real level of equipment, officers need a better way to ask his language line. we are working with the department and think outside of the box. bilingual officers use digital recorders because of department requires them to tape interviews with victims, witnesses and suspects. the department was able to provide 50 digital recorders. we need more. let me turn this over to deputy chief beal, a vital member of our team. >> i don't know if i am a vital member of the group. i was assigned to represent the chief on this group. is and as i walked in the door that day and saw the members of the group i knew that i was in trouble. i knew the group was going to be extremely motivated, extremely directed, i immediately began getting homework assignments from these women. it's a great cause. i was glad to help. upon request i reissued department goals to have officers apply for certification for language skills. we have 400 officers that have line with language skills and only half of certified. i have spoken with director -- of hr and she assures me that in the first quarter of 2013, a test will be administered and we will get the numbers that we want. i hope this will be continuing thing with can do a regular basis. also we identified - i was told about issues that we have at psas, and at stations where they did not know how to use a landline. i contacted our academy, captain -- was very receptive. would put together a roll call immediately for all psas. we have a curriculum set up for jan. 2013, a 20-hr. biannual training for all psas. also, ms. marion told me of an idea she had, assisting our dispatchers in identifying what skills the officers have that are working on the street at a particular time, either language skills or crisis prevention training, whatever that may be so they can see at a glance what kind of officers they can dispatch to any type of situation. director griffin assured me that in january of 2013 we will have the ability to have all dispatchers to see what skills we have out there who ho they should send to assist our first responders. on that, being the newest member i would like to introduce our language access liaison officer, officer chan, who will give you numbers that he has compiled, he has been with a group a lot longer. >> good evening. my name is eric chan, i've been in this position approximately 3 months. they took away a lot of my thunder because a lot of what they say was what i was going to go over. we are making a lot of headway in the short time that i have been involved. that is a good thing. it is important to know that from what i have seen our department does really reflect our community. we have approximately 400 officers that speak some type of foreign-language. of that 400 or so, most of them, we have 173 that speak spanish, 81 are certified; 91 cantonese speakers, 60 certified; 20 mandarin, 9 certified, 7 russian, 6 certified, 39 tagalog and 5 vietnamese. there is no lag time to getting information on any type of crime occurring. we do use landline with an interpreter is not available, that is the card. most of the language services, including interpretation, we had 1800 calls that required interpretation of language services, most of that was spanis, with about 1060, second was cantonese, with about 400 calls. sometimes, you may be underreported, it can be a lot higher if not put into the database. as required by the city ordinances, we completed with the lao city ordinances, with city immigration affairs, that was completed on the chief desk for review to be signed. we are making good headway. that is more to be done and i look forward to working with the commission and do more, thank you. >> i understand that there is a line item in the mayor's budget for 500,000 for language access, can you tell me how that was utilized? >> i can bring you a breakdown. most of it was for the pay an officer uses for bilingual pay, paid $30 some odd dollars per pay period, that total comes up to if i'm not mistaken around $30,000 for just pay. and then translation services, language line, that is the bulk of it. telephonic services, around $32,000. and the budget for the officers, 258,000. >> than that is for -- >> bilingual pay. >> i thought you said 30,000. >> 30,000 for telephonic translation services. >> and then you have any kind of auditing or benchmark with the program to see how things are progressing, if improvements need to be made or things are going right? >> what was the question again? >> do you have particular benchmarks or goals or auditing processes to see have language access program is working? >> regarding lap, limited language proficiency, less than 2% of total calls that they receive regarding limited english proficiency. that is a benchmark, when occ receives a complaint, the victim cannot get across to the police what happened because of the limits barrier. that is a benchmark. did i answer that? >> i have to say that back in 1998 i work with supervisor -- drafting the equal access to services ordinance and what was surprising to me was animal control department had the most language access. they monitor potential violence in the home because of there's an abused animal there is likely to be abuse in the family. >> in oakland, san jose, what they indicated to me was well, they don't have a formal policy such as what we have. that many feel good but they are scrambling around trying to figure it out. some of the questions i posted, hopefully that will spark interest in developing an lao project. >> i want to be a strong advocate for a cross agency training; i had the benefit, dr. rossi put this together -- training on domestic violence, cantonese and spanish. officer kathy wong was in my class along social service workers, 911 tech people. the cross training of people, cross disciplinary if possible. >> one of my goals is a streamlined the process; if we have a pool of authors that want to take the test and be certified, and increase the certification not only in chinese, spanish, russian but perhaps vietnamese, maybe we can get a test going in more regular basis to make it easier for the officers to take tests and be certified. >> commissioner turman. >> commissioner turman: perhaps you can give us sort of a quick description of how the certification process works for anyone who might be interested. >> the certification process is handled by the department of human services. they did the testing. once the announcement goes out, officers have a deadline. they can
if we can stream that it's a great call. i am not sure how the civilian part is; for officers it is scenario-based. >> commissioner chan. >> commissioner chan: i am reminded of what assistant district attorney jean rolan said, the importance of maintaining trust. from the moment an officer and an inspector encounters the victim. i think the transformation that the department has had, president chu, i want to commend you for your work that started in 1998, none of this happened by accident. the moment that someone who does not speak english - it is important for us to keep the safety net going for victims in the city. i want to thank everyone for their leadership to get to this point in my question is, we talked about this a few weeks ago before the police commission. i think you are doing a great outreach to the community. obviously part of my concern that talk about over the last few weeks is in light of recent events in the city. the concern is that women who don't speak english or are living in poverty will have concerns about reaching out of the police department. we want to reassure and reach out. can you talk about your efforts to reach out to communities through various newspapers in different languages and how the department is getting the message out that we do have access to other languages and can serve diverse populations? >> anytime there is a community meeting, and it is based on a certain ethnicity group, we try to have interpretation service provided. we will post those signs in that language, so if it is held in chinatown or wherever, for that outreach. it is important when the victim makes the police report; it helps if a native speaker is there, eases some of the angst the victim may have when reporting a crime. in terms of outreaching and publications, i don't know everything that we have this is internally where we are trying to streamline and have more officers certified. >> i know you have been on the job three months, it's wonderful progress. >> i want to add that we are in the process of creating a card that we can all of the stations have, all psas, where the victim comes in, the card explains the process. the card will be printed in five different languages. they can pick the language they speak; point to it, then we know what they need. the officer will get them the service. i want to say that the chief and i especially the chief, he is out there all the time, i work with public affairs and recently we did an interview on the chinese speaking channel on the chinese talkshow. two days ago, i saw the chief being interviewed on a korean show; he is always trying to reach out to all of the communities that we are approachable, we are here to help, we are trying to provide a service to anyone who needs it. all of us are here to help anyone in need. >> i was also going to recommend that perhaps you also engage -- america media, and san francisco-based pacific news service. you can put something in english and each media outlet reports on their language with no copyright violations. >> great idea. i want to get that information from you after the meeting. >> commissioner kingsley? >> thank you for your report. >> commissioner kingsley: my questions may be a little premature. do we have any information, percentages? >> approximately 1800 clients accessed either language line or an interpretation service from either an officer or a professional. >> of the 1800, is it broken down in terms of what percentage are officers and what is the language line? >> yeah. 1739 times language line was used. 90 percent is language line. >> what is the reaction to the use of language line? is it reliable? they have a sense that getting quality interpretation? >> by the very nature of using the phone and passing the phone three ways it slows the process. there is no doubt about it. when we dig down into the nuances, language line is what we have, they are professional. we trust them. they can testify as well in court. there is three-ways to say something. by the very nature of trying to hand the phone back and forth. >> how long does it take once a call is initiated? >> immediate. >> and the users reaction? i know that you have developed cards, and that would help a lot in terms of their reactions. is it off-putting? >> they understand. they are giving their story and it is relayed back to the officer, and the officer asked another question, back and forth, until we get the whole story. it works. sometimes it is cumbersome the way to set up. >> commissioner kingsley: do we know if there are any high-quality computer interpretation applications yet? >> personally, i have an app on my phone, and i have used it a number of times. not something important. i use it to get the nuances. but as far as anything else i am not aware of. >> commissioner kingsley: curious as to whether or not we were following the technology. >> you mean speaking into something and have it automatic to dictate into english? >> well yes but on a more professional level, a particular software application developed. (off mic) >> the best thing is to have an interpreter. >> commissioner kingsley: a real person, absolutely. thank you very much. >> commissioner chan? >> commissioner chan: in terms of the reference to psas, says we are televised, we can educate the public on how to make it was reported you are involved in domestic violence. can you describe what the issues were, and how we can collaboratively address the issue? here is how it works. when there's a problem you go to the department or the commission and we address it. >> one thing that sandra had spoken about in our workshop is that there was an issue where psa may not have known severity of the walk-in who had some type of an issue. prior to me get in there. if you have an issue, and you don't speak, don't leave. the last thing we want to do is have the person leave. if this is impractical emergency, point to this. if it is something else stand by and we will either get an interpreter or line with service, that is what is going on with psa; they were being retrained on that a couple of months ago. beginning in january there are going to have a continuous professional training just like we have for advanced officers who do that every two years. >> i think i know what you exactly want. we learn that a victim came to the station and try to report -- this is domestic violence -- unfortunately the police service aid who do not speak the language and who could not get someone to assist told the victim to go home. an officer will be going to their home to make a report. the officer was never dispatched; they can came back the next day along with their teenage son and report was made through their teenage son being an interpreter, absolutely unacceptable. we learn about this with the meanings. you brought it to light. we address it immediately as a group. we try to think of ways to fix this problem. one is supervision and training and came up with that card. not only role-cal training but our biennial training, and video to make sure we never dropped the ball again. even one victim having to suffer through that is an acceptable. >> i brought that case to light for the group. and the glitches where police service aids and civilians are not the place to take a domestic violence report. and encountering a language barrier. >> actually that is what i was going to bring up. we recently met at cameron house with some of our asian partners, and that was a concern not the specific incident, speaking cantonese or another language in the person realizing they cannot make the report and the person at the other end realizing that she was not making a report. i don't know the logistics. can the police service aid take a report? >> any type of sexual offense or domestic violence they're not authorized. we're coming up with the card to explain to the victim that the psa, is unable to do so, but stay there, we will get an officer to take the report and explain the process to them so they don't have the anxiety and feel they are not being helped. >> to take up on this comment, at the neighborhood meetings that we have had in the past month, i'm glad that you are wrapping up more certified bilingual officers. it makes the victim not want to come back and make a report. certain refugee groups, particular the cambodian, laotian, and now iraqi women are distrusting of government. i would like to suggest that maybe we can have partnership with our technology partners to have particular tablets and face time, and split screen. often times when we are speaking it is not just that we say or hear, but the body language as well. for these women from war-torn countries they are distrusting and if they cannot see the person they will hang up. >> that is an excellent idea. it is another homework assignment. will get it done. i will see what we can do. we are coming up with computers and tablets and handhelds. if we can put that technology there we will work towards that goal. >> my question goes back to the ongoing issues. i would gather that this topic has been raised already with the police commissioner or discuss discussed at the commission level. the concern with immigrant communities is that interaction with the police could lead to either party, both parties, being deported and how that is being - whether there is training that sensitizes the least of this, or how is it handled? >> commissioner, it's been the policy of the san francisco police department since the sanctuary city ordinance was passed over 30 years ago, before i became a police officer, it isn't just something we need to train to. it's always know. i can assure anyone watching on tv at this commission, san francisco is a sanctuary city. we are here to help regardless of your country of origin or language. we are working hard as you can tell to figure out the language. chief beal spoke about me doing those interviews. i don't speak korean and chinese. we do spanish radio once a month, speak with marcos gutierrez about whatever they want to talk about; sanctuary city has come up more than once. it is not a training issue for us. it is department policy. it is city law. it is what we have been raised on. >> does the department have the authority to control that information within its own database so it is and shared with the federal authorities? >> what information is that? >> my understanding is there is no opt in and out. maybe commissioner chan can say something. >> secure communities is a post-arrest situation, a sheriff situation. those questions are not asked at the police department level. >> the chief has been extremely supportive of efforts by community groups. chief beal recently met with community groups about the same issue, that is something they have been receptive, trying to address. -- has resulted in over 638 deportations as of august this year. it has an impact on the victims of domestic violence. it is a continual problem. >> but not from the san francisco police department. >> there is a reason case, longer story. not because of the specific police officers fall; this program has a direct connection to the immigration database. it is problematic. >> commissioner cahn is passionate about. >> appropriately so. while it is a policy in the training within the police department, it is a sanctuary city however there is a reality of the federal program that does affect people's lives. that is a conflict that could bear some understanding, i think. >> commissioner kingsley. >> commissioner kingsley: not that this is necessarily the forum but i thought that in today's paper the attorney general indicated that it was optional whether or not a jurisdiction wanted to turn over this data, and that we aren't under an obligation to forward data when low-level crimes. >> i spoke to the attorney general myself. i told her that we would continue to do, and that she understood that. but the notification is compulsory. >> i did not read the article that you're referencing. i understand that the issue was at california says it's optional. the federal government says it is not. in the meantime, this is what i am addressing. >> commissioners i want to be really clear because this is on television. for anybody the lives in san francisco, we are a sanctuary city. your status living in the united states is not an issue. we will not report. please. trust your san francisco police department. call us. we are here to help. >> commissioner turman: thank you chief for pointing that out. we already had a constitutional law here, i'm not sure that it is hour is the best use. the attorney general did do a law-enforcement bulletin; the issue is whether the local jurisdiction is obligated to use state resources to do a federal detainer; it is specific to the sheriff's department. part of the notion is that it is not the job of from my law enforcement to enforce immigration policy; we are here to keep people safe. we appreciate the chief's passion. and ultimately where people come is not relevant and using this forum is important to underscore that commitment, and i'm glad the chief is clear and unequivocal about that. >> victims are not at risk for deportation. that is abundantly clear from what the chief has said. our next line item is regarding the san francisco police department special victims unit. >> i would like to introduce deputy director, lisa hoffman, waiting to tell you about the new system. >> sorry about that. >> good evening and thank you for letting me have a moment to speak. i will keep it brief. we have been in the process after procuring enough that you are 911 system. the current system we have is 12 years old, antiquated. we are not able to currently tell whether an officer have special skills so we don't is best based on skill sets. we will have a processes to install, we upgrade to the new system in 2014 will have the capability to identify officer skill sets and identify and tabulate when we translate on a call. we have no way to currently manage the data to tell us when a call speaking a different language. one of the primary objectives of the new product is to have a system that allows us to determine when we translate for somebody. we have a large member of staff who are language proficient and come from primary speaking language, fluent in their native language. we are looking to get more dispatchers qualified and certified a second language proficient. we are taking information from line from a victim who is hysterical. rather then transferring them to a second party we want to do the translation ourselves. we have been fortunate although -- realizes that we have problems in getting people to certified translation, it is an expensive process. we are willing to wait. we took money out of our own budget the certify 7 new staff members. something in the best benefit of our clients. we are interactive with this process. we do a lot of outreach and speaking engagements where we take our staff that speaks the native-language to those events to make sure the public knows we are not judging them, we don't care where they came from, we just care about getting services that they need. >> i would like for you to hear from -- in the trenches 24/7, working with people speaking many languages that have many different barriers. i would like to have -- come up and talk to you about this. >> thanks beverly. we are running really late. i will keep it brief. language access is a safety issue. we talked about officers securing the scene and worried about the safety of individuals and involved with their own safety when they come upon the scene trying to figure out what is happening. language access can be the difference between a dv homicide happening or not happening. for my organization, where we work every day on civil/legal remedies and integration remedies for dv survivors it is something we encounter on record basis. the dv survivor community that we work with, primarily immigrant, limited english proficient, they will not be a big events or have all the access to some of the information that comes out now. in addition, they are also not likely to be people who will complain. the people who hear those complaints are me and other attorneys who do the kind of work that we do and legal services and social services agencies. they're not likely to call occ to make a complaint. i think anything that relies purely on
tracking information system. >> thank you commissioner. >> thank you. >> if i can show you the domestic violence dashboard, these are four reporter markup, dv cases, arrested and bailed; dv cases arrested and bailed by zip code; dv cases sentenced vs. dismissed; and dv cases convicted whether felony or misdemeanor. for the first report, if you look at the chart, this report will show by fiscal year the number of cases. when you zoom in on the year you can see by month but the number of dv cases are, and my by days if you further zoom in. this is nonproduction sample data. this is mocking up for presentation purposes. if you look at this, this is for the period jan. 1, 2012, through dec. 4, 2012. by zip code you can see where the high incidence are. you can see 94103, 224 cases, and so on. this portal will also allow you to change the dates that you are looking at. if you are interested in fiscal year versus calendar year, if you're interested in a particular month you can change the date and see the same data. for dv cases sentenced and dismissed what we wanted to show is this one is by fiscal year, what are the number of actual cases dismissed versus sentence and then we wanted to show the percentage count. in the last report, the convicted dv cases, what numbers were felonies versus misdemeanors? what are the critical reports they want to see? as a departments are hooking up and sharing their information with us we will then populate the fields. so we will assign mous with the various departments to be clear about what data is being shared, and what data is being shared publicly for the next. the next step, we want to connect the district attorneys system bidirectionally, and the modules for discovery, an investigation and operate a case management system to a web-based version. we also want to connect the adult probation case management. and connect the course case management system; we note that they recently had budgetary challenges. we will be working with them next fiscal year to do that an expanding the interdepartmental notifications. phase 2, we want to help the juvenile probation case management system hook up as well as the department of emergency management calls for service. so quickly to acknowledge that none of this would be done without the work of the justis and the justis council. they worked around the clock when the servers were down. the justis governance council participants -- they attend every one of our council meetings and provide valuable guidance and recommendations from the police department i will acknowledge susan -- andrew and rodrigo castillo. at this time if you have any questions? >> thank you very much, this is an important part of the puzzle with the justis ringing together information of the law-enforcement, district attorney's office and the support network understand and have an idea what the statistics are. this is incredible. thank you so much for your efforts. >> thank you. >> commissioner turman: the fiscal year data on the mock-up goes back to 2010. does your data go back further than that? >> it goes back further than that. there is data going further back. >> within your portal? >> the data does exist; we just did not show it in this report. >> commissioner turman asked the question but i want to be clear that the data goes back further than what is indicated on the report. i also want to command and thank the team that is putting this together, the governance council, but certainly this is something to be very clear that has been in the making for over a decade. this really started with the task force, which is now in oversight panel as we have mentioned previously. there is a teamwork and resources to make sure we have coordinated data that is appropriate for each department so that we can again have not only a birdseye view but it a ground view. we have come a long way. i waited a long time. as a member of this commission but also many of the folks introduced earlier who have been working on something similar to occur for a long time. we have been somewhat puzzled by the fact -- as we often hear in these chambers and other matters, by the fact that certainly san francisco sits in the seat of such technological developments that are really evolving and reshaping the world on so many fronts, biotech, biomedical, engineering feats. will could not understand why we could not board and eight with the technology available, state-of-the-art information system. for our citizens. thank you very much. i am very excited. it seems as though we are exponentially improving. i don't expect that we will wait another 10 years for similar reports. i am expecting that certainly within the next year we will be 10 steps further ahead. a few years ago it would've taken longer. i am very excited about this and excited that we can share this discussion with the police department commission. as far as the development of justice. thank you very much to all of that been involved. very critical. >> commissioner kingsley? >> ms. young, thank you very much for your report. it is very interesting. some of the questions i had have been addressed by commissioner schwatz's comments. i wanted more clarity around the timing and history of this. is 2012 the first compilation of the statistics? is the system established for data collection, is that a permanent part of our system of data collection going forward that we will improve upon? i wanted it a sense of the permanency of this, the development of it, and not just the project that is done every 10 years or something of that nature. >> this is a very historic thing for me. and sitting down with doctor -- we talked about what is the definition of domestic violence and we really do need to go down the list of statutes and say is this in or not. the district attorneys office is tracking domestic violence cases, the police department also. we are using the management system but as the systems hoping we will be able to show different sets of information to you. this is just the first touch of prototype reports. >> wonderful, thank you. >> not to over state, i think it is a critical question. it is not our intent that it be a project. this is something that would be a foundational, fundamental issue moving on. one of the challenges that we will face moving forward is one department only has a certain amount of resources to participate and to keep going, and another one isn't would could end up with something lopsided. an uneven patchwork of data. as we move forward, we want to make sure we have the adequate resources to have this as even and equal participation is possible so that it is not just something that is not sustainable for the long term. >> thank you commissioner. >> commissioner chan. >> commissioner chan: thank you for your presentation. i want to ask a couple of clarifying questions. it looks like the justis project replaces the cable system. my understanding is that it is a database for local background check, i want to get more of the big picture perspective and also want to find out - my understanding is that the cable system was not a system connected to any databases. i am wondering if the justis system will be different, connected to any federal database like the fbi or department of homeland security. >> i am the justis project manager. justis is designed to replace the aging cable mainframe system. each department is in the process or has completed the implementation of the wrong department specific case management system. though specific case management systems connect to justis is a way to exchange data between departments. since justis is at that how point, it gives us the ability to all information and roll it up to public data as well as criminal justice data. what was your other question? >> i am wondering if justis is any different. >> i know their systems in the city and county of seven san francisco to collect to colect, for background checks, as far as justis replacing the cable system, justis will assist individual departments in creating the roll up reports. we have not received whether to the technical steering committee or the justis council, and requirements to connect federally. >> i asked because of my background. i was curious because one thing that was helpful about the cable system is that you could do a check without reporting someone to immigration. i was curious about that. who analyzes the data? you should is the capabilities and the types of reports that we could pull. is their body that will pull the status of reports and doing an analysis on a regular basis? >> each department analyzes their data. the source of the data has to verify the data. they also have to be able to give permission for other departments to use that data. the analysis belongs at the departmental level. what we do is that once the police department says okay, share the aggregate data, that is when we connect the two so the system can show the reports of the department of women. we don't own the data. the data resides with the department that originated it. >> thank you. >> we appreciate your efforts putting that together so that groups can see trends and recognize issues that we able to deal with. our next line item is a report of the san francisco police department regarding language access. and some of the concerns that were expressed by the assistant district attorney jean roland about issues regarding interpretation. we have ms. sandra marion, from occ, to talk about language access. ms. marion? >> good evening. commissioners, director - members of the public and command staff and police officers. i'm excited to be here and have the opportunity to talk about the work that many organizations, departments and commissions in collaboration with the police department on language access. i work for the office of citizen complaints, in agency that provides civilian oversight of the police department. i will start our presentation giving a little history and identify some of the projects working on. there are other members of the group here, cheaf beal, officer chang, language liaison, -- a member of the working group. he will talk some of the challenges that lap, domestic violence victims face and lastly beverly -- will make concluding remarks. she is also another vital member of our organization or our working group. a little bit of the history. six years ago a number of representatives from 22 organizations can together to work with the police department to write language access policy. we came together with the desire to improve services for the domestic violence victims and witnesses and family situations. most certainly those concerns and specific cases were at the forefront of putting together this language access policy. within two years,the police commission adopted the language access protocol, department general order 5.20. it is one of the best in the country because it is comprehensive and it gives clear guidance. it requires a san francisco police department officers to provide language access or language services to limited english proficient individuals that they encounter in their law enforcement capability, and requires services if a lap person requires assistance. in san francisco on like many police departments there's over 150 bilingual officers and that is remarkable. if you look across the nation, san francisco is at the forefront at having such a source of bilingual officers. the department general order prohibits officers from relying on children, bystanders, family members to be interpreters unless there are exigent circumstances. once that is resolved, the police needs to have a bilingual officer or an interpreter from line with from language services language services to continue. those in the community, trying to resolve situations of language access, this language liaison officer appointed through this general order. our work wasn't done when it was implemented in 2007. part of what we wanted to do was put together training, and a brochure for the public so they would know what their rights are and responsibilities. we put together a brochure, translated it into five different languages. it is the way in which individuals can learn about and exert their right to language access. we continue to do work. there are people who were here, i want to give credit to commissioner chan, the district attorney office was involved, the department of the status on women, you were there at the beginning. and then the police department. there was a willingness in the leadership to move forward, to implement this department general order and to continue with the dialogue on how to best implement land with services that is what recently in the last year, a subset of this language access coalition has come together. we are working on a variety of projects. one of the first was to have another kind of department bulletin for officers who touch upon the common indicators, signs, in a more complicated situation where the person understands some english but because of the complexity of interaction, the rights involved in the need of accuracy, an interpreter is required. would put together good indicators for police officers. the other thing that we worked on, a work in progress, roll-call training scenario based. that is an ongoing project. we have been working with the department, scripting it out, we hope that it will be rolled out of the beginning of next year. under the project we are working on to enhance services, we devised a multilingual card so the police service aids, civilians, people that victims might think are officer, -- this is an important mechanism so that domestic violence victims coming to the station to file reports, there is immediate communication so that things can get moving in a rapid manner. on the technology side we are grappling with how to enhance dispatch. we are working closely with lisa hoffman to have a system that identifies the language skills of bilingual officers immediately and in real-time so that they can be more readily dispatched to the scene and it gives equally important information which is to know if there aren't bilingual officers, waiting on the scene, and can move onto the next level, the language line system. we are working on how do we get officers who want to be bilingual, who want to be certified as bilingual officers, how do they more rapidly get the certification process in place? officers can be certified in mandarin, cantonese, spanish, russian. we are hoping and working with other divisions within the city to get the process moving more quickly. on the street patrol officers, they're using their own cell phones to call language line. on a real level of equipment, officers need a better way to ask his language line. we are working with the department and think outside of the box. bilingual officers use digital recorders because of department requires them to tape interviews with victims, witnesses and suspects. the department was able to provide 50 digital recorders. we need more. let me turn this over to deputy chief beal, a vital member of our team. >> i don't know if i am a vital member of the group. i was assigned to represent the chief on this group. is and as i walked in the door that day and saw the members of the group i knew that i was in trouble. i knew the group was going to be extremely motivated, extremely directed, i immediately began getting homework assignments from these women. it's a great cause. i was glad to help. upon request i reissued department goals to have officers apply for certification for language skills. we have 400 officers that have line with language skills and only half of certified. i have spoken with director -- of hr and she assures me that in the first quarter of 2013, a test will be administered and we will get the numbers that we want. i hope this will be continuing thing with can do a regular basis. also we identified - i was told about issues that we have at psas, and at stations where they did not know how to use a landline. i contacted our academy, captain -- was very receptive. would put together a roll call immediately for all psas. we have a curriculum set up for jan. 2013, a 20-hr. biannual training for all psas. also, ms. marion told me of an idea she had, assisting our dispatchers in identifying what skills the officers have that are working on the street at a particular time, either language skills or crisis prevention training, whatever that may be so they can see at a glance what kind of officers they can dispatch to any type of situation. director griffin assured me that in january of 2013 we will have the ability to have all dispatchers to see what skills we have out there who ho they should send to assist our first responders. on that, being the newest member i would like to introduce our language access liaison
i am addressing. >> commissioners i want to be really clear because this is on television. for anybody the lives in san francisco, we are a sanctuary city. your status living in the united states is not an issue. we will not report. please. trust your san francisco police department. call us. we are here to help. >> commissioner turman: thank you chief for pointing that out. we already had a constitutional law here, i'm not sure that it is hour is the best use. the attorney general did do a law-enforcement bulletin; the issue is whether the local jurisdiction is obligated to use state resources to do a federal detainer; it is specific to the sheriff's department. part of the notion is that it is not the job of from my law enforcement to enforce immigration policy; we are here to keep people safe. we appreciate the chief's passion. and ultimately where people come is not relevant and using this forum is important to underscore that commitment, and i'm glad the chief is clear and unequivocal about that. >> victims are not at risk for deportation. that is abundantly clear from what the chief has said. our next line item is regarding the san francisco police department special victims unit. >> i would like to introduce deputy director, lisa hoffman, waiting to tell you about the new system. >> sorry about that. >> good evening and thank you for letting me have a moment to speak. i will keep it brief. we have been in the process after procuring enough that you are 911 system. the current system we have is 12 years old, antiquated. we are not able to currently tell whether an officer have special skills so we don't is best based on skill sets. we will have a processes to install, we upgrade to the new system in 2014 will have the capability to identify officer skill sets and identify and tabulate when we translate on a call. we have no way to currently manage the data to tell us when a call speaking a different language. one of the primary objectives of the new product is to have a system that allows us to determine when we translate for somebody. we have a large member of staff who are language proficient and come from primary speaking language, fluent in their native language. we are looking to get more dispatchers qualified and certified a second language proficient. we are taking information from line from a victim who is hysterical. rather then transferring them to a second party we want to do the translation ourselves. we have been fortunate although -- realizes that we have problems in getting people to certified translation, it is an expensive process. we are willing to wait. we took money out of our own budget the certify 7 new staff members. something in the best benefit of our clients. we are interactive with this process. we do a lot of outreach and speaking engagements where we take our staff that speaks the native-language to those events to make sure the public knows we are not judging them, we don't care where they came from, we just care about getting services that they need. >> i would like for you to hear from -- in the trenches 24/7, working with people speaking many languages that have many different barriers. i would like to have -- come up and talk to you about this. >> thanks beverly. we are running really late. i will keep it brief. language access is a safety issue. we talked about officers securing the scene and worried about the safety of individuals and involved with their own safety when they come upon the scene trying to figure out what is happening. language access can be the difference between a dv homicide happening or not happening. for my organization, where we work every day on civil/legal remedies and integration remedies for dv survivors it is something we encounter on record basis. the dv survivor community that we work with, primarily immigrant, limited english proficient, they will not be a big events or have all the access to some of the information that comes out now. in addition, they are also not likely to be people who will complain. the people who hear those complaints are me and other attorneys who do the kind of work that we do and legal services and social services agencies. they're not likely to call occ to make a complaint. i think anything that relies purely on occ complaints or some other kind of data will be misleading. we are grateful to have this partnership. it is not often that legal services organizations get to regularly meet with law enforcement and learn about their experience. i really appreciate officer hall who is also in eric chang's position; our organization has been involved with this commission for six years. while we have made lots of progress distilled is appointed that on a regular basis, almost every day, i will talk to someone who said that they did not know that they could have an interpreter. they were not offered an interpreter. they did not even get to speak to the police officer on the scene because there was no interpreter or they have to wait an hour or something along those lines and when you think about for survivor, even if they know they will get to have an interpreter, if they have to wait whether an hour or 45 minutes and during that time the officer is talking probably to the abusive partner, it changes the dynamic. the police come in but they're not always 100 percent sure that calling the police in the situation is going to be the most successful route. and then you have is a situation where they're not able to communicate, that don't know what is going on and the city officer talking to the abusive party who a lot of times is a lot more proficient in english and it creates a dynamic of mistrust, we are grateful to the officers who are willing to use their personal cell phones to call language line. the reality is, in the resource environment that we are in, getting the bilingual officer to the scene is time-consuming and elongates the whole process. not having access to a cell phone for an officer forces him into position to use whatever is available or the personal cell phone. that should not be the case. one thing we do, i want to mention as a program, as a policy that we would like to see,we would like to see language line gets training on domestic violence awareness and maybe cultural competency issues. they provide a huge service to the city. the city is one of their biggest clients. i think there is a lot to be said for the idea that language in and of itself is not a panacea; it is not monolithic. there is a difference between saying a restraining order and saying something else, and how you even talk to the victim of trauma is vital. we would like to see more involvement, rather than assuming that they are the experts which is i think how the police have looked at it in the past. language line is the expert on language, and they should teach us. we have a lot to teach interpreters as well about how to effectively communicate with them. one more thing quickly, for emergency protection orders, i am not sure how many people realize this but the judicial council has translated the emergency protection order into five languages. yet getting a copy of that along with the actual english version to the survivor is something that could easily be done by does not happen. i regularly meet with clients who for the first time understand what that emergency protection order means either because the member from the staff is interpreting it or i had given them a copy in their language and they should not have to wait that long to understand what it means, which is why a lot of times they don't even agree because they don't know what they're being asked about. i want to say thank you and appreciate your time. >> one thing that was also brought up in the neighborhood meetings with the immigrant communities is that they often want to keep the family unit intact. although the victim won't be deported, she is concerned about the father of the children being deported. that has a chilling effect. that is a consideration that we as a community have to take. >> i will chime in on behalf of the domestic violence community; it has been a high priority for us to change the role of california and other states, operating with secure communities for many reasons; one of the major ones is the chilling effect on victims come forward, concern for their own safety or the deportation of the father of the children or their partner. we work with angela chan and the statewide organization against domestic violence; angela did a webinar, a top priority. we will support tom -- introduced on monday to strengthen california's response to this. we are living in san francisco where things are not quite as bad. you can speak to anyone no matter where they are on the continuum of immigration reform about the chilling effect of domestic violence survivors and families, and why the federal initiative is dangerous. >> that is not what i was appear for; i wanted to talk about how honored i have been to be here for two years as part of the language workgroup; access to criminal justice, community day services, justice, safety. it is homicide prevention. as we know from many homicides that we work with families, we have done court watches over the years, and the tragedies that we have seen, language access makes a difference. the trust and logistics of those languages being available has been a real honor. i cannot thank chief -- and deputy chief -- and deputy chief beal, and the two language officers have been so helpful. language liaison henry hocht came out to a community domestic violence meeting. he came, handed out his phone number, everybody got to meet the liaison an officer chan will help us do that as well. it helps when officers can tell clients that they know the language liaison officer for sfpd and he can help them to get where they need to be in a they have an issue they can bring it to the table. it is tremendous. the hour is late. this work could not be done without -- and the team from occ, and the leadership of sfpd to meet with us on almost monthly basis where many of these issues are spelled out every day. it is a pleasure and an honor and a vital goal for all of us. we have to do this. we are doing it. thank you. >> we will call our last item on the agenda, report from the chief, and captain flaherty from the special victims unit, san francisco police department. >> i know that the hour is late. i'm greg suhr, chief of police for san francisco. it is important what commissioner marshall spoke to earlier, and echo about the tragedy in kansas city. we are talking about the 22-year-old mother who was killed and leaves a three-month-old baby. that is with these conversations are about. even though we are in a staffing crisis, the mayor and the people who sit on these chairs will address this but we are still down about 300 officers. thank you for your comments and the material beverly upton who keeps moving around back there. concerning our most vulnerable. in october we built a space in our most secure floor, behind locked doors, a place for children, and many of the folks behind me contributed to making it nice. everybody has been sitting together, we are altogether all the time anyway. in october, domestic violence, elder abuse, missing persons, juvenile violence, came together under one roof. a putting the human trafficking task force regional effort. even though we are in the middle of hiring 1000 officers over the next six years, a critical piece of that and i will read this draft, officers convicted of domestic violence shall not be considered. it will be policy. we have about 5000 applicants so far in the first 10 days. i want the message to be clear that there is no place in the san francisco police department for those folks. that is my shtick. the captaincy work hard to bring you up to speed about the domestic violence unit, now part of svu and what they do in san francisco. we are committed to keep san francisco safe regardless of the place of origin or language efforts. the things that we can do easily we will go quickly. the things that will take a little bit of work or money we will figure out. captain? >> thank you chief. i'm sorry. i am the last one up. i have been asked to speak on a few items. i will try to get through it as quickly as possible. bear with me. when i get to the presentation, once i am completed i will be happy to answer any questions you may have for me. >> good evening everybody, i am denise flaherty, the captain for the special victims unit. our journey starts in 1995, the formation of the domestic violence response unit going back to the time when the department had separate investigative unit. for years domestic violence, sex crimes, youth crimes all work independently. the investigative bureau was fragmented and never work together closely. through the years we have improved, evolved. under chief surh, in october, 2011, the special unit was created. the mythic violence is no longer an individual area of investigation. in order to serve those who are most vulnerable we must not only examine the crime that has occurred but also identify the services and support that we can provide in order to prevent future victimization. we have 40 members that investigate domestic violence, sexual assault, internet crimes against children, human trafficking, elderly abuse. we have 20 very talented investigators who focus on domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. we recognize the benefit of formalized training offered by post, then we have been diligent and assigning individuals for training as it becomes available. formal training of the members is essential so we don't forget the value mentorship and hands-on training. we have investigators with fast experience and knowledge. our investigators at svu have over 300 years of experience and are able to investigate high-profile crimes efficiently and effectively. a good example of the recent investigation and conviction of the 24th st. quarter rapist. we have purposefully partnered with the most senior investigations with the new generation of investigators. we have great success with these partnerships passing the knowledge, investigative techniques, and expensive cannot be found in the classroom. another example was a series of cases where suspects preyed on elderly members of the asian committee. investigators have done an excellent job. cases such as these are demanding requiring patience and understanding and compassion for the victims. financial crime members are also responsible for elderly abuse both physical and financial. while the majority of the cases are financial in fiscal year 2011-2012, we served 54 cases of elderly care abuse, in most cases the family member was identified as a perpetrator. these were difficult cases to prove due to the close relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, along with mental issues. determination has remained consistent in domestic violence investigation; there was a time when law enforcement only focused on investigation. chief suhr recognize importance of having advocacy groups located directly in the special victims unit. family can meet with investigators and have access to services in the system as they move forward. with the efforts of kathy black and -- svu has a children's room available which offers a safe environment for children exposed to family violence. child abuse is one of the toughest crimes for investigators. children are among the most vulnerable victims. thankfully there are those like kathy baxter who are constantly fighting for the prevention of child abuse. i believe partnership with outside agencies have allowed us to find justice during this complex investigation. another important component of svu is the -- unit. those members solely on internet crimes against children. the cases are complex and require persistent and dedication to identify and locate perpetrators who possess and distribute child pornography. we are only one of many law enforcement agencies across the region who actively participate in the silicon valley internet crimes against children task force. the investigation resulted in the arrest of four predators who possessed hundreds of images. as you can see we have many moving parts under the svu model, and it is important to recognize the specialist team appointed to investigate crimes in human trafficking. human trafficking is a 32 billion dollar industry. after drug trafficking, human trafficking is the second most profitable crime. it has attracted participation by organized criminal gangs. innovation and technology has made it possible for the traffickers to recruit their victims. internet has transformed the landscape of human trafficking. the san francisco police department has adopted a victim centered philosophy which prevents victims from being treated like perpetrators. we work closely with advocacy groups such as asian-pacific legal outreach in numerous volunteer specifically trained in helping the victims. partnership with these advocates ensures that the victims have the resources and assistance to rebuild their lives. a -- is a law enforcement tool that allows victims report crimes without fear of deportation. a u visa is a temporary four-year visa. -- has been designated to issue the visa is by reviewing the applicant's background. the final determination is made by the united states customs and immigration service. in 2011, we received 318 requests for u visas. this year we expect to review 994 cases. the special victims unit leads the way setting the standard for best practices in law enforcement. tvu has several members that our instructors who travel to california to train other law enforcement agencies. as the commanding officer of svu i stand before you tonight very proud of the caliber of members of the officers assigned
forward that we will improve upon? i wanted it a sense of the permanency of this, the development of it, and not just the project that is done every 10 years or something of that nature. >> this is a very historic thing for me. and sitting down with doctor -- we talked about what is the definition of domestic violence and we really do need to go down the list of statutes and say is this in or not. the district attorneys office is tracking domestic violence cases, the police department also. we are using the management system but as the systems hoping we will be able to show different sets of information to you. this is just the first touch of prototype reports. >> wonderful, thank you. >> not to over state, i think it is a critical question. it is not our intent that it be a project. this is something that would be a foundational, fundamental issue moving on. one of the challenges that we will face moving forward is one department only has a certain amount of resources to participate and to keep going, and another one isn't would could end up with something lopsided. an uneven patchwork of data. as we move forward, we want to make sure we have the adequate resources to have this as even and equal participation is possible so that it is not just something that is not sustainable for the long term. >> thank you commissioner. >> commissioner chan. >> commissioner chan: thank you for your presentation. i want to ask a couple of clarifying questions. it looks like the justis project replaces the cable system. my understanding is that it is a database for local background check, i want to get more of the big picture perspective and also want to find out - my understanding is that the cable system was not a system connected to any databases. i am wondering if the justis system will be different, connected to any federal database like the fbi or department of homeland security. >> i am the justis project manager. justis is designed to replace the aging cable mainframe system. each department is in the process or has completed the implementation of the wrong department specific case management system. though specific case management systems connect to justis is a way to exchange data between departments. since justis is at that how point, it gives us the ability to all information and roll it up to public data as well as criminal justice data. what was your other question? >> i am wondering if justis is any different. >> i know their systems in the city and county of seven san francisco to collect to colect, for background checks, as far as justis replacing the cable system, justis will assist individual departments in creating the roll up reports. we have not received whether to the technical steering committee or the justis council, and requirements to connect federally. >> i asked because of my background. i was curious because one thing that was helpful about the cable system is that you could do a check without reporting someone to immigration. i was curious about that. who analyzes the data? you should is the capabilities and the types of reports that we could pull. is their body that will pull the status of reports and doing an analysis on a regular basis? >> each department analyzes their data. the source of the data has to verify the data. they also have to be able to give permission for other departments to use that data. the analysis belongs at the departmental level. what we do is that once the police department says okay, share the aggregate data, that is when we connect the two so the system can show the reports of the department of women. we don't own the data. the data resides with the department that originated it. >> thank you. >> we appreciate your efforts putting that together so that groups can see trends and recognize issues that we able to deal with. our next line item is a report of the san francisco police department regarding language access. and some of the concerns that were expressed by the assistant district attorney jean roland about issues regarding interpretation. we have ms. sandra marion, from occ, to talk about language access. ms. marion? >> good evening. commissioners, director - members of the public and command staff and police officers. i'm excited to be here and have the opportunity to talk about the work that many organizations, departments and commissions in collaboration with the police department on language access. i work for the office of citizen complaints, in agency that provides civilian oversight of the police department. i will start our presentation giving a little history and identify some of the projects working on. there are other members of the group here, cheaf beal, officer chang, language liaison, -- a member of the working group. he will talk some of the challenges that lap, domestic violence victims face and lastly beverly -- will make concluding remarks. she is also another vital member of our organization or our working group. a little bit of the history. six years ago a number of representatives from 22 organizations can together to work with the police department to write language access policy. we came together with the desire to improve services for the domestic violence victims and witnesses and family situations. most certainly those concerns and specific cases were at the forefront of putting together this language access policy. within two years,the police commission adopted the language access protocol, department general order 5.20. it is one of the best in the country because it is comprehensive and it gives clear guidance. it requires a san francisco police department officers to provide language access or language services to limited english proficient individuals that they encounter in their law enforcement capability, and requires services if a lap person requires assistance. in san francisco on like many police departments there's over 150 bilingual officers and that is remarkable. if you look across the nation, san francisco is at the forefront at having such a source of bilingual officers. the department general order prohibits officers from relying on children, bystanders, family members to be interpreters unless there are exigent circumstances. once that is resolved, the police needs to have a bilingual officer or an interpreter from line with from language services language services to continue. those in the community, trying to resolve situations of language access, this language liaison officer appointed through this general order. our work wasn't done when it was implemented in 2007. part of what we wanted to do was put together training, and a brochure for the public so they would know what their rights are and responsibilities. we put together a brochure, translated it into five different languages. it is the way in which individuals can learn about and exert their right to language access. we continue to do work. there are people who were here, i want to give credit to commissioner chan, the district attorney office was involved, the department of the status on women, you were there at the beginning. and then the police department. there was a willingness in the leadership to move forward, to implement this department general order and to continue with the dialogue on how to best implement land with services that is what recently in the last year, a subset of this language access coalition has come together. we are working on a variety of projects. one of the first was to have another kind of department bulletin for officers who touch upon the common indicators, signs, in a more complicated situation where the person understands some english but because of the complexity of interaction, the rights involved in the need of accuracy, an interpreter is required. would put together good indicators for police officers. the other thing that we worked on, a work in progress, roll-call training scenario based. that is an ongoing project. we have been working with the department, scripting it out, we hope that it will be rolled out of the beginning of next year. under the project we are working on to enhance services, we devised a multilingual card so the police service aids, civilians, people that victims might think are officer, -- this is an important mechanism so that domestic violence victims coming to the station to file reports, there is immediate communication so that things can get moving in a rapid manner. on the technology side we are grappling with how to enhance dispatch. we are working closely with lisa hoffman to have a system that identifies the language skills of bilingual officers immediately and in real-time so that they can be more readily dispatched to the scene and it gives equally important information which is to know if there aren't bilingual officers, waiting on the scene, and can move onto the next level, the language line system. we are working on how do we get officers who want to be bilingual, who want to be certified as bilingual officers, how do they more rapidly get the certification process in place? officers can be certified in mandarin, cantonese, spanish, russian. we are hoping and working with other divisions within the city to get the process moving more quickly. on the street patrol officers, they're using their own cell phones to call language line. on a real level of equipment, officers need a better way to ask his language line. we are working with the department and think outside of the box. bilingual officers use digital recorders because of department requires them to tape interviews with victims, witnesses and suspects. the department was able to provide 50 digital recorders. we need more. let me turn this over to deputy chief beal, a vital member of our team. >> i don't know if i am a vital member of the group. i was assigned to represent the chief on this group. is and as i walked in the door that day and saw the members of the group i knew that i was in trouble. i knew the group was going to be extremely motivated, extremely directed, i immediately began getting homework assignments from these women. it's a great cause. i was glad to help. upon request i reissued department goals to have officers apply for certification for language skills. we have 400 officers that have line with language skills and only half of certified. i have spoken with director -- of hr and she assures me that in the first quarter of 2013, a test will be administered and we will get the numbers that we want. i hope this will be continuing thing with can do a regular basis. also we identified - i was told about issues that we have at psas, and at stations where they did not know how to use a landline. i contacted our academy, captain -- was very receptive. would put together a roll call immediately for all psas. we have a curriculum set up for jan. 2013, a 20-hr. biannual training for all psas. also, ms. marion told me of an idea she had, assisting our dispatchers in identifying what skills the officers have that are working on the street at a particular time, either language skills or crisis prevention training, whatever that may be so they can see at a glance what kind of officers they can dispatch to any type of situation. director griffin assured me that in january of 2013 we will have the ability to have all dispatchers to see what skills we have out there who ho they should send to assist our first responders. on that, being the newest member i would like to introduce our language access liaison officer, officer chan, who will give you numbers that he has compiled, he has been with a group a lot longer. >> good evening. my name is eric chan, i've been in this position approximately 3 months. they took away a lot of my thunder because a lot of what they say was what i was going to go over. we are making a lot of headway in the short time that i have been involved. that is a good thing. it is important to know that from what i have seen our department does really reflect our community. we have approximately 400 officers that speak some type of foreign-language. of that 400 or so, most of them, we have 173 that speak spanish, 81 are certified; 91 cantonese speakers, 60 certified; 20 mandarin, 9 certified, 7 russian, 6 certified, 39 tagalog and 5 vietnamese. there is no lag time to getting information on any type of crime occurring. we do use landline with an interpreter is not available, that is the card. most of the language services, including interpretation, we had 1800 calls that required interpretation of language services, most of that was spanis, with about 1060, second was cantonese, with about 400 calls. sometimes, you may be underreported, it can be a lot higher if not put into the database. as required by the city ordinances, we completed with the lao city ordinances, with city immigration affairs, that was completed on the chief desk for review to be signed. we are making good headway. that is more to be done and i look forward to working with the commission and do more, thank you. >> i understand that there is a line item in the mayor's budget for 500,000 for language access, can you tell me how that was utilized? >> i can bring you a breakdown. most of it was for the pay an officer uses for bilingual pay, paid $30 some odd dollars per pay period, that total comes up to if i'm not mistaken around $30,000 for just pay. and then translation services, language line, that is the bulk of it. telephonic services, around $32,000. and the budget for the officers, 258,000. >> than that is for -- >> bilingual pay. >> i thought you said 30,000. >> 30,000 for telephonic translation services. >> and then you have any kind of auditing or benchmark with the program to see how things are progressing, if improvements need to be made or things are going right? >> what was the question again? >> do you have particular benchmarks or goals or auditing processes to see have language access program is working? >> regarding lap, limited language proficiency, less than 2% of total calls that they receive regarding limited english proficiency. that is a benchmark, when occ receives a complaint, the victim cannot get across to the police what happened because of the limits barrier. that is a benchmark. did i answer that? >> i have to say that back in 1998 i work with supervisor -- drafting the equal access to services ordinance and what was surprising to me was animal control department had the most language access. they monitor potential violence in the home because of there's an abused animal there is likely to be abuse in the family. >> in oakland, san jose, what they indicated to me was well, they don't have a formal policy such as what we have. that many feel good but they are scrambling around trying to figure it out. some of the questions i posted, hopefully that will spark interest in developing an lao project. >> i want to be a strong advocate for a cross agency training; i had the benefit, dr. rossi put this together -- training on domestic violence, cantonese and spanish. officer kathy wong was in my class along social service workers, 911 tech people. the cross training of people, cross disciplinary if possible. >> one of my goals is a streamlined the process; if we have a pool of authors that want to take the test and be certified, and increase the certification not only in chinese, spanish, russian but perhaps vietnamese, maybe we can get a test going in more regular basis to make it easier for the officers to take tests and be certified. >> commissioner turman. >> commissioner turman: perhaps you can give us sort of a quick description of how the certification process works for anyone who might be interested. >> the certification process is handled by the department of human services. they did the testing. once the announcement goes out, officers have a deadline. they can apply and personnel submits a list of officers to the department of human resources. they also test for the civilian side in other departments. what they're trying to do with what you cuts is say we are going to test on a certain date we have to wait for more people rather than testing four people now and two later. that slows the process down. as deputy chief beal says, we have 14 in line to take the test, in spanish, and 14 in chinese, 1 in russian. that helps. but waiting on the street waiting for an interpreter, it is great to have someone who is coming. if we can stream that it's a great call.
victims in the city. i want to thank everyone for their leadership to get to this point in my question is, we talked about this a few weeks ago before the police commission. i think you are doing a great outreach to the community. obviously part of my concern that talk about over the last few weeks is in light of recent events in the city. the concern is that women who don't speak english or are living in poverty will have concerns about reaching out of the police department. we want to reassure and reach out. can you talk about your efforts to reach out to communities through various newspapers in different languages and how the department is getting the message out that we do have access to other languages and can serve diverse populations? >> anytime there is a community meeting, and it is based on a certain ethnicity group, we try to have interpretation service provided. we will post those signs in that language, so if it is held in chinatown or wherever, for that outreach. it is important when the victim makes the police report; it helps if a native speaker is there, eases some of the angst the victim may have when reporting a crime. in terms of outreaching and publications, i don't know everything that we have this is internally where we are trying to streamline and have more officers certified. >> i know you have been on the job three months, it's wonderful progress. >> i want to add that we are in the process of creating a card that we can all of the stations have, all psas, where the victim comes in, the card explains the process. the card will be printed in five different languages. they can pick the language they speak; point to it, then we know what they need. the officer will get them the service. i want to say that the chief and i especially the chief, he is out there all the time, i work with public affairs and recently we did an interview on the chinese speaking channel on the chinese talkshow. two days ago, i saw the chief being interviewed on a korean show; he is always trying to reach out to all of the communities that we are approachable, we are here to help, we are trying to provide a service to anyone who needs it. all of us are here to help anyone in need. >> i was also going to recommend that perhaps you also engage -- america media, and san francisco-based pacific news service. you can put something in english and each media outlet reports on their language with no copyright violations. >> great idea. i want to get that information from you after the meeting. >> commissioner kingsley? >> thank you for your report. >> commissioner kingsley: my questions may be a little premature. do we have any information, percentages? >> approximately 1800 clients accessed either language line or an interpretation service from either an officer or a professional. >> of the 1800, is it broken down in terms of what percentage are officers and what is the language line? >> yeah. 1739 times language line was used. 90 percent is language line. >> what is the reaction to the use of language line? is it reliable? they have a sense that getting quality interpretation? >> by the very nature of using the phone and passing the phone three ways it slows the process. there is no doubt about it. when we dig down into the nuances, language line is what we have, they are professional. we trust them. they can testify as well in court. there is three-ways to say something. by the very nature of trying to hand the phone back and forth. >> how long does it take once a call is initiated? >> immediate. >> and the users reaction? i know that you have developed cards, and that would help a lot in terms of their reactions. is it off-putting? >> they understand. they are giving their story and it is relayed back to the officer, and the officer asked another question, back and forth, until we get the whole story. it works. sometimes it is cumbersome the way to set up. >> commissioner kingsley: do we know if there are any high-quality computer interpretation applications yet? >> personally, i have an app on my phone, and i have used it a number of times. not something important. i use it to get the nuances. but as far as anything else i am not aware of. >> commissioner kingsley: curious as to whether or not we were following the technology. >> you mean speaking into something and have it automatic to dictate into english? >> well yes but on a more professional level, a particular software application developed. (off mic) >> the best thing is to have an interpreter. >> commissioner kingsley: a real person, absolutely. thank you very much. >> commissioner chan? >> commissioner chan: in terms of the reference to psas, says we are televised, we can educate the public on how to make it was reported you are involved in domestic violence. can you describe what the issues were, and how we can collaboratively address the issue? here is how it works. when there's a problem you go to the department or the commission and we address it. >> one thing that sandra had spoken about in our workshop is that there was an issue where psa may not have known severity of the walk-in who had some type of an issue. prior to me get in there. if you have an issue, and you don't speak, don't leave. the last thing we want to do is have the person leave. if this is impractical emergency, point to this. if it is something else stand by and we will either get an interpreter or line with service, that is what is going on with psa; they were being retrained on that a couple of months ago. beginning in january there are going to have a continuous professional training just like we have for advanced officers who do that every two years. >> i think i know what you exactly want. we learn that a victim came to the station and try to report -- this is domestic violence -- unfortunately the police service aid who do not speak the language and who could not get someone to assist told the victim to go home. an officer will be going to their home to make a report. the officer was never dispatched; they can came back the next day along with their teenage son and report was made through their teenage son being an interpreter, absolutely unacceptable. we learn about this with the meanings. you brought it to light. we address it immediately as a group. we try to think of ways to fix this problem. one is supervision and training and came up with that card. not only role-cal training but our biennial training, and video to make sure we never dropped the ball again. even one victim having to suffer through that is an acceptable. >> i brought that case to light for the group. and the glitches where police service aids and civilians are not the place to take a domestic violence report. and encountering a language barrier. >> actually that is what i was going to bring up. we recently met at cameron house with some of our asian partners, and that was a concern not the specific incident, speaking cantonese or another language in the person realizing they cannot make the report and the person at the other end realizing that she was not making a report. i don't know the logistics. can the police service aid take a report? >> any type of sexual offense or domestic violence they're not authorized. we're coming up with the card to explain to the victim that the psa, is unable to do so, but stay there, we will get an officer to take the report and explain the process to them so they don't have the anxiety and feel they are not being helped. >> to take up on this comment, at the neighborhood meetings that we have had in the past month, i'm glad that you are wrapping up more certified bilingual officers. it makes the victim not want to come back and make a report. certain refugee groups, particular the cambodian, laotian, and now iraqi women are distrusting of government. i would like to suggest that maybe we can have partnership with our technology partners to have particular tablets and face time, and split screen. often times when we are speaking it is not just that we say or hear, but the body language as well. for these women from war-torn countries they are distrusting and if they cannot see the person they will hang up. >> that is an excellent idea. it is another homework assignment. will get it done. i will see what we can do. we are coming up with computers and tablets and handhelds. if we can put that technology there we will work towards that goal. >> my question goes back to the ongoing issues. i would gather that this topic has been raised already with the police commissioner or discuss discussed at the commission level. the concern with immigrant communities is that interaction with the police could lead to either party, both parties, being deported and how that is being - whether there is training that sensitizes the least of this, or how is it handled? >> commissioner, it's been the policy of the san francisco police department since the sanctuary city ordinance was passed over 30 years ago, before i became a police officer, it isn't just something we need to train to. it's always know. i can assure anyone watching on tv at this commission, san francisco is a sanctuary city. we are here to help regardless of your country of origin or language. we are working hard as you can tell to figure out the language. chief beal spoke about me doing those interviews. i don't speak korean and chinese. we do spanish radio once a month, speak with marcos gutierrez about whatever they want to talk about; sanctuary city has come up more than once. it is not a training issue for us. it is department policy. it is city law. it is what we have been raised on. >> does the department have the authority to control that information within its own database so it is and shared with the federal authorities? >> what information is that? >> my understanding is there is no opt in and out. maybe commissioner chan can say something. >> secure communities is a post-arrest situation, a sheriff situation. those questions are not asked at the police department level. >> the chief has been extremely supportive of efforts by community groups. chief beal recently met with community groups about the same issue, that is something they have been receptive, trying to address. -- has resulted in over 638 deportations as of august this year. it has an impact on the victims of domestic violence. it is a continual problem. >> but not from the san francisco police department. >> there is a reason case, longer story. not because of the specific police officers fall; this program has a direct connection to the immigration database. it is problematic. >> commissioner cahn is passionate about. >> appropriately so. while it is a policy in the training within the police department, it is a sanctuary city however there is a reality of the federal program that does affect people's lives. that is a conflict that could bear some understanding, i think. >> commissioner kingsley. >> commissioner kingsley: not that this is necessarily the forum but i thought that in today's paper the attorney general indicated that it was optional whether or not a jurisdiction wanted to turn over this data, and that we aren't under an obligation to forward data when low-level crimes. >> i spoke to the attorney general myself. i told her that we would continue to do, and that she understood that. but the notification is compulsory. >> i did not read the article that you're referencing. i understand that the issue was at california says it's optional. the federal government says it is not. in the meantime, this is what i am addressing. >> commissioners i want to be really clear because this is on television. for anybody the lives in san francisco, we are a sanctuary city. your status living in the united states is not an issue. we will not report. please. trust your san francisco police department. call us. we are here to help. >> commissioner turman: thank you chief for pointing that out. we already had a constitutional law here, i'm not sure that it is hour is the best use. the attorney general did do a law-enforcement bulletin; the issue is whether the local jurisdiction is obligated to use state resources to do a federal detainer; it is specific to the sheriff's department. part of the notion is that it is not the job of from my law enforcement to enforce immigration policy; we are here to keep people safe. we appreciate the chief's passion. and ultimately where people come is not relevant and using this forum is important to underscore that commitment, and i'm glad the chief is clear and unequivocal about that. >> victims are not at risk for deportation. that is abundantly clear from what the chief has said. our next line item is regarding the san francisco police department special victims unit. >> i would like to introduce deputy director, lisa hoffman, waiting to tell you about the new system. >> sorry about that. >> good evening and thank you for letting me have a moment to speak. i will keep it brief. we have been in the process after procuring enough that you are 911 system. the current system we have is 12 years old, antiquated. we are not able to currently tell whether an officer have special skills so we don't is best based on skill sets. we will have a processes to install, we upgrade to the new system in 2014 will have the capability to identify officer skill sets and identify and tabulate when we translate on a call. we have no way to currently manage the data to tell us when a call speaking a different language. one of the primary objectives of the new product is to have a system that allows us to determine when we translate for somebody. we have a large member of staff who are language proficient and come from primary speaking language, fluent in their native language. we are looking to get more dispatchers qualified and certified a second language proficient. we are taking information from line from a victim who is hysterical. rather then transferring them to a second party we want to do the translation ourselves. we have been fortunate although -- realizes that we have problems in getting people to certified translation, it is an expensive process. we are willing to wait. we took money out of our own budget the certify 7 new staff members. something in the best benefit of our clients. we are interactive with this process. we do a lot of outreach and speaking engagements where we take our staff that speaks the native-language to those events to make sure the public knows we are not judging them, we don't care where they came from, we just care about getting services that they need. >> i would like for you to hear from -- in the trenches 24/7, working with people speaking many languages that have many different barriers. i would like to have -- come up and talk to you about this. >> thanks beverly. we are running really late. i will keep it brief. language access is a safety issue. we talked about officers securing the scene and worried about the safety of individuals and involved with their own safety when they come upon the scene trying to figure out what is happening. language access can be the difference between a dv homicide happening or not happening. for my organization, where we work every day on civil/legal remedies and integration remedies for dv survivors it is something we encounter on record basis. the dv survivor community that we work with, primarily immigrant, limited english proficient, they will not be a big events or have all the access to some of the information that comes out now. in addition, they are also not likely to be people who will complain. the people who hear those complaints are me and other attorneys who do the kind of work that we do and legal services and social services agencies. they're not likely to call occ to make a complaint. i think anything that relies purely on occ complaints or some other kind of data will be misleading. we are grateful to have this partnership. it is not often that legal services organizations get to regularly meet with law enforcement and learn about their experience. i really appreciate officer hall who is also in eric chang's position; our organization has been involved with this commission for six years. while we have made lots of progress distilled is appointed that on a regular basis, almost every day, i will talk to someone who said that they did not know that they could have an interpreter. they were not offered an interpreter. they did not even get to speak to the police officer on the scene because there was no interpreter or they have to wait an hour or something along those lines and when you think about for survivor, even if they know they will get to have an interpreter, if they have to wait whether an hour or 45