Apparently as of January 4, 2010, DPS has eliminated or "discontinued" the CJIS code (13990031) for Assault (FV). According to DPS, the CJIS code for a regular assault (13990001) is to be used for ANY Class A assault regardless of whether it's FV related or not.

DPS advises something about "checkboxes" on the manual report forms to indicate FV, but also says it won't appear on the CCH that you or the officer on the street sees. Additionally, anyone who reports electronically doesn't have these check boxes and you must type "Family Violence" in the leteral field when reporting.

We've asked for an explanation, but so far really haven't gotten one except that a separate code should not really have ever been issued and the code has included "spouse" for several years. Huh? What about the other relationships? And what about the fact that a patrol officer will most likely never be able to tell if he should be booking for a FELONY (Assault - 2nd) at 3 AM because he doesn't have access to the court paperwork.

Does anyone else see this as a problem? Did you know about this change?

That'd be a big "WTH!?" that you're hearing...

In addition to the concerns with enhancements: (CCH will just show "Assault"), and it'll be up to "us" to obtain the priors which may or may not be Family Violence.

What about witnesses? Assault/Family Violence or male assaulting female are Crimes of Moral Turpitude (and thus - if witnesses have these convictions, we must let defense counsel know - and vica versa). Same issue as above - how are we to know (without many phone calls) if a conviction listed only as "Assault" is something that we need to turn over (or something that WE CAN USE to question the credibility of a defense witness) or not?

What about firearm purchase/ownership. A "Family Violence" conviction has quite an effect on that, as well. Again, if the CCH is just going to show "Assault", who determines if that person is able to purchase a firearm.

The negative implications with this issue are countless.

While we're talking about CJIS Codes and Family Violence, how about 13990071 "ASSAULT BI FAM/HOUSE MEM 2+ W/IN 12 MONTHS" ??? Listed as PC 25.11 (The new "Continuous Violence Against The Family" offense). We've already had several issues with Officers not being able to find the Code under "C" for "Continuous" since it's listed under "A" for "Assault"... Why not just list the offense titles as they are actually listed in the Code.

[This message was edited by Brent Robbins on 01-20-10 at .]

Everyone,

I'm just trying to get the word out about a change that has been made that was not really communicated to the end users - the police, prosecutions and clerks. I am not trying to start a big dispute, or say bad things about any agency. The intention, after consulting with a staff member at TDCAA before I posted this thread, was to have a concise list of reasons that DPS should re-examine this change.

So please keep that in mind when replying.....stick to the problems that this change will cause you or your office.

Why? Here's an excerpt from an email by a non-TDCAA member commenting on this thread:

"The comments on the TDCAA range from sensible disagreement with the DPS decision to down right rude comments about DPS. None agree with the decision."

True enough. To avoid any further counterproductive communications, I'm going to shut this down for a while. It will be re-opened when I have some (hopefully good) news to share on this topic.

All questions/comments about the issue may be sent to me until the thread is re-opened.

Thanks.

Thanks to all of you who called or emailed to inform us that DPS has rescinded this change.

I am trying to find out the agency's future plans for change in this area to avoid a repeat of this incident. When I know more, I will post the information here.