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 Bill Text - AB-1897 Mentally disordered offenders: criteria for commitment.

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 |Add To My Favorites |Track Bill | Version: 07/02/26 - Amended Senate
 04/29/26 - Amended Assembly
 03/18/26 - Amended Assembly
 02/12/26 - Introduced

 AB-1897 Mentally disordered offenders: criteria for commitment.(2025-2026)

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 Date Published: 07/02/2026 09:00 PM

AB1897:v96#DOCUMENTBill Start

 Amended
 IN 
 Senate
 July 02, 2026

 Amended
 IN 
 Assembly
 April 29, 2026

 Amended
 IN 
 Assembly
 March 18, 2026

 CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION

 Assembly Bill

No. 1897

Introduced by Assembly Member Haney

February 12, 2026

 An act to amend Sections 2962 and 2966 of the Penal Code, relating to mentally disordered offenders.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 1897, as amended, Haney.
 Mentally disordered offenders: criteria for commitment.

Existing law requires that, as a condition of parole, a prisoner who has a severe mental health disorder be treated by the State Department of State Hospitals if the prisoner meets certain requirements, including, among others, that the person in charge of treating the prisoner and a practicing psychiatrist or psychologist from the State Department of State Hospitals have evaluated the prisoner and that a chief psychiatrist of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation certify to the Board of Parole Hearings that by reason of the prisoner’s severe mental health disorder, the prisoner represents a substantial danger of physical harm to others. Existing law allows a prisoner to request a hearing before the Board of Parole Hearings for the purpose of proving that the prisoner meets the criteria to be treated by the State Department of State Hospitals. Existing law allows a prisoner
 who disagrees with the determination of the Board of Parole Hearings to file a petition in court in the county in which the prisoner is incarcerated or is being treated for a hearing on whether they met the criteria.

This bill would require that the prisoner undergo the Historical Clinical Risk Management-20, Version 3 assessment, as specified, and would instead allow a prisoner to file
 a petition in court in the county of commitment to state prison.

This bill would require a psychiatrist or psychologist, when determining whether a prisoner represents a substantial danger of physical harm to others, to consider, among other things, the prisoner’s history of violence that was related to their severe mental health disorder.

The bill would also authorize the court, upon stipulation of the petitioner, prosecuting attorney, and defense counsel in the county of commitment to state prison, to conduct a hearing in the county of commitment to state prison.

Digest Key

 Vote:
 MAJORITY 
 Appropriation:
 NO 
 Fiscal Committee:
 YES 
 Local Program:
 NO 

Bill Text

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

 Section 2962 of the Penal Code is amended to read:

2962.

 As a condition of parole, a prisoner who meets the following criteria shall be provided necessary treatment by the State Department of State Hospitals as follows:

(a) (1) The prisoner has a severe mental health disorder that is not in remission or that cannot be kept in remission without treatment.

(2) The term “severe mental health disorder” means an illness, disease, or condition that substantially impairs the person’s thought, perception of reality, emotional process, or judgment; or that grossly impairs behavior; or that demonstrates evidence of an acute brain syndrome for which prompt remission, in the absence of treatment,
 is unlikely. The term “severe mental health disorder,” as used in this section, does not include a personality or adjustment disorder, epilepsy, intellectual disability or other developmental disabilities, or addiction to or abuse of intoxicating substances.

(3) The term “remission” means a finding that the overt signs and symptoms of the severe mental health disorder are controlled either by psychotropic medication or psychosocial support. A person “cannot be kept in remission without treatment” if during the year prior to the question being before the Board of Parole Hearings or a trial court, the person has been in remission and has been physically violent, except in self-defense, or has made a serious threat of substantial physical harm upon the person of another so as to cause the target of the threat