On Monday April 9, Governor Walker signed Act 270 which permits the disclosure and sharing of more juvenile court information contained in the Consolidated Court Automation Program (CCAP) with many more parties in the juvenile system, including municipal courts, guardian ad litems, prosecutors, and attorneys representing children/youth. Drawing more attention is that the Act requires the state court system to provide juvenile CCAP information to law enforcement for purposes related to the investigation of delinquent behavior. The bill as finally passed and signed by Governor Walker includes some additional flexibility for the state courts office on how they provide information to attorneys and protections for the most confidential personal information that may be contained in a CCAP record. But, it remains unclear (despite the best efforts of the state courts office to explain it’s not a simple thing to do) how the information will be provided to law enforcement. Some claim it will be as simple as an officer logging into their computer in their squad car – some are not so sure.
The previous legislature passed a provision that allowed for the transfer of information contained in CCAP records to the Department of Children and Families eWiSACWIS child welfare data system, theoretically providing social workers with more information.
Although adopted over two years ago, and after considerable work to make this data transfer work, that process has recently been suspended in order to reevaluate whether the planned transfer process will really work. It would certainly be ironic if, after all this effort, social workers responsible for making critical decisions and recommendations to the court end up with less access than anyone else in the process.
WCCF did not take an “up or down” position on the final version of this bill – the original version raised greater concerns, some of which were resolved in the substitute bill that was finally adopted – we do accept the general notion that more information shared among critical decision makers can be useful (it can also be harmful if not done properly). You can check out our brief statement on this and other key legislation on our “legislative wrap-up” page. by Jim Moeser
