July 2015

Follow-Up—
California Department
of Justice
Delays in Fully Implementing Recommendations
Prevent It From Accurately and Promptly Identifying
All Armed Persons With Mental Illness, Resulting in
Continued Risk to Public Safety
Report 2015-504

COMMITMENT
INTEGRITY

LEADERSHIP

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Elaine M. Howle State Auditor
Doug Cordiner Chief Deputy

July 9, 2015	

2015-504

The Governor of California
President pro Tempore of the Senate
Speaker of the Assembly
State Capitol
Sacramento, California 95814
Dear Governor and Legislative Leaders:
This report presents the results of a follow-up audit of the California Department of Justice (Justice) related
to recommendations made in 2013 by the California State Auditor (state auditor). In October 2013 the state
auditor issued a report titled Armed Persons With Mental Illness: Insufficient Outreach From the Department of
Justice and Poor Reporting From Superior Courts Limit the Identification of Armed Persons With Mental Illness,
Report 2013-103. The 2013 audit report included recommendations aimed at ensuring Justice accurately and
promptly identifies firearm owners in the State who are prohibited from owning or possessing a firearm due to
a mental health-related event in their life (armed prohibited person).
This report concludes that Justice’s delays in fully implementing certain recommendations result in
continued risk to public safety. After more than 18 months Justice has not fully implemented seven of the
eight recommendations that we reviewed from our 2013 report. For example, Justice continues to have errors
related to its determinations of whether or not to prohibit individuals from firearm ownership due to a mental
health-related event. In addition, Justice has not taken all steps to ensure that courts and mental health facilities
are reporting all individuals for review to determine whether they should be designated an armed prohibited
person. Although we recommended that Justice consider trends in court reporting and track reporting levels
from mental health facilities, it has not done so. For example, we identified that 91–or 25 percent–of the
361  courthouses had declines of 30 percent or more in the number of prohibited persons reports in 2014;
however, Justice had not identified the significant drops in reporting because it had not analyzed trends in
court reporting. Similarly, Justice developed procedures to identify significant drops in a mental health facility’s
reporting levels, but did not always follow them. Because it had not conducted any trend analyses regarding
court reports or followed up with mental health facilities that show significant drops in reports each quarter,
Justice does not know whether persons with mental illness are going unreported or if some other factor caused
the changes in reporting levels.
Additionally, Justice maintains backlogs in its two processing queues because it continues to redirect its Armed
and Prohibited Persons unit staff to work on another priority for which there is a statutory deadline. Specifically,
during the first quarter of 2015 the backlog in its daily queue was over 3,600 cases, which is six times higher than
its goal of having a maximum of 600 or fewer cases in the queue. Further, as of April 2015 its historical backlog
was over 257,000 potentially prohibited persons. Based on its current rate of reviewing its historical queue,
we estimate that Justice may not meet its goal of clearing the backlog by December 2016. Instead, based on its
current pace, we estimate that Justice may not be able to clear the backlog until sometime in 2022. The longer
it takes Justice to review the records in its backlogs, the longer armed prohibited persons keep their firearms,
which increases the risk to public safety.
Respectfully submitted,

ELAINE M. HOWLE, CPA
State Auditor
621 Capitol Mall, Suite 1200

S a c r a m e n t o, C A 9 5 8 1 4

916.445.0255

916.327.0019 fax

w w w. a u d i t o r. c a . g o v

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California State Auditor Report 2015-504

July 2015

Contents
Summary	1
Introduction	5
Audit Results
Although the California Department of Justice Has Implemented
Quality Control Procedures Over Some of Its Prohibition
Determinations, It Needs to Do More	

11

Justice Continues to Redirect Staff to Another Priority, Which
Adversely Affects Its Ability to Promptly Review Prohibiting Events
Matched With Firearm Owners	

13

At Its Current Pace, Justice Will Not Meet Its Goal of Eliminating
the Historical Backlog of Firearm Owners	

16

Justice Does Not Know if Courts Are Reporting All Potential
Armed Prohibited Persons	

18

Justice Lacks Sufficient Processes for Updating Its List of Mental
Health Facilities 	

20

Justice Did Not Always Follow Up With Mental Health Facilities
When Reporting Levels Dropped	

22

Conclusion	23
Recommendations	24
Appendix
Status of Actions Taken in Response to Selected Recommendations
in the California State Auditor’s Report 2013-103	

27

Response to the Audit
California Department of Justice	

29

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Summary
Results in Brief

Audit Highlights . . .

The California Department of Justice (Justice) has not fully
implemented certain recommendations from our October 2013
report that prevents it from accurately and promptly identifying
firearm owners in the State who are prohibited from owning or
possessing a firearm due to a mental health-related event in their
life (armed prohibited person).1 As we described in our previous
report, Justice attempts to identify these armed prohibited persons
by matching its records of firearm owners against reports about
individuals with mental illness that it receives from superior courts
(courts) and mental health facilities. This identification process is
critical for Justice to complete promptly so that it can confiscate
firearms from armed prohibited persons and ensure public safety.

Our follow-up audit of the California
Department of Justice’s (Justice) progress in
addressing certain issues we raised in our
2013 report highlighted the following:

This follow-up audit focused on certain recommendations we
made to Justice related to the accurate and timely identification
of armed prohibited persons as well as its process for reaching
out to courts and mental health facilities. In our October 2013
report we reported that Justice did not correctly identify three of
eight persons we reviewed as armed prohibited persons nor did its
Armed Prohibited Persons System (APPS database) always contain
accurate information. We noted that of an additional 12 individuals
prohibited from firearm ownership, Justice had omitted a mental
health prohibition in the APPS database for one and for another
Justice staff did not identify all of the individual’s firearms in the
APPS database. As a result of these errors, we recommended that
Justice implement quality control procedures over its Armed and
Prohibited Persons unit (APPS unit) staff determinations. Although
Justice has partially implemented this recommendation, it needs
to do more to ensure that it identifies all prohibited persons.
Specifically, Justice developed and implemented quality control
procedures for review of its staff determinations that individuals are
prohibited from owning a firearm; however, it did not implement
similar procedures over its staff determinations that individuals are
not prohibited from owning a firearm. Despite our previous finding
that APPS unit staff inaccurately identified some individuals as being
not prohibited from firearm ownership, Justice interpreted our
recommendation to be limited to determinations over individuals
who are prohibited from firearm ownership. When we discussed
our concern with Justice, it agreed that it is important to perform
reviews of all staff determinations and in April 2015 took steps to
put new procedures in place to do so.
1	

Armed Persons With Mental Illness: Insufficient Outreach From the Department of Justice and
Poor Reporting From Superior Courts Limit the Identification of Armed Persons With Mental Illness,
Report 2013-103 (October 2013).

»» Although Justice has partially
implemented our recommendation that
it implement quality control procedures
over its Armed and Prohibited Persons
unit (APPS unit) staff determinations,
Justice needs to do more to ensure that it
identifies all armed prohibited persons.
•	 It implemented a review process of its
staff determinations that individuals
are prohibited from owning a
firearm, but did not do so for staff
determinations that individuals are
not prohibited from owning a firearm.
•	 Justice does not have desk procedures
or a checklist to assist the APPS unit
staff in making correct prohibition
determinations, as well as entering
and reviewing information into the
Armed Prohibited Persons System
(APPS database).
»» Justice’s daily processing queue—a queue
that contains the daily events from courts
and mental health facilities—during the
first quarter of 2015 was over 3,600 cases,
which is six times higher than its revised
goal of no more than 600 cases.
»» Justice is unlikely to complete its review of
events in the historical queue—a backlog
of certain persons who have not yet been
reviewed since Justice implemented the
APPS database in November 2006—
by its December 2016 goal.
»» Justice is not conducting trend analyses
of mental health determinations made
by the courts as a means to potentially
identify instances of nonreporting
or underreporting.

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Further, in our follow-up review of Justice’s quality control
procedures over its staff determinations that an individual is
prohibited from firearm ownership, we identified two errors in
the 10 cases we reviewed. Specifically, in one case we found that
an APPS unit staff had incorrectly prohibited an individual from
firearm ownership because the APPS unit staff member had not
reviewed all pertinent information, such as the individual’s Social
Security number and address. When Justice makes this type of
error, it inappropriately infringes upon an individual’s right to
own and possess firearms. In the other case, we determined that
the APPS unit staff had not included all weapons belonging to the
individual in the APPS database as required. Ensuring the APPS
database contains accurate information is important because
Justice agents who confiscate weapons from the armed prohibited
persons use this information when planning firearm confiscations.
These errors may have occurred because Justice does not currently
have desk procedures or a checklist to assist the APPS unit staff in
making correct prohibition determinations, as well as entering and
reviewing all pertinent information into the APPS database.
Additionally, in our previous report we noted that Justice had
backlogs in its two processing queues: a daily queue and a historical
queue. During late 2012 and early 2013, Justice had a backlog of
more than 1,200 matches pending initial review in its daily queue—
the queue that contains the daily events from courts and mental
health facilities that indicate a match and may trigger a prohibition
for an individual to own a firearm. Because a backlog in this queue
means that Justice is not reviewing these daily events promptly, we
recommended that Justice establish a goal of no more than 400 to
600 cases in the daily queue. However, during this follow‑up audit,
we found that Justice’s daily queue during the first quarter of 2015
was over 3,600 cases; this is six times higher than its revised goal
of no more than 600 cases. Just as it did during the previous audit,
Justice continues to cite its need to redirect staff to another Bureau
of Firearms (bureau) priority, which has a statutory deadline, as the
reason for this backlog. We believe that, if Justice had a statutory
deadline on the initial processing of the matches in the APPS
database, it would encourage Justice to avoid redirecting APPS unit
staff. The chief of the bureau believes that seven days would be a
reasonable time frame to complete an initial review of matches.
Furthermore, when we conducted this follow-up audit, we found
that Justice is unlikely to complete its review of events in the
historical queue by its December 2016 goal, a goal that we discussed
in our October 2013 report. The former assistant bureau chief
explained that the backlog in Justice’s historical queue (historical
backlog) consists of persons who registered an assault weapon
since 1989 or acquired a firearm since 1996 and who have not yet
been reviewed for prohibiting events since Justice implemented

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July 2015

the APPS database in November 2006. In our previous report
we reported that as of July 2013, Justice’s historical backlog was
nearly 380,000 persons; now as of April 2015—over a year and a
half later—its historical backlog is still over 257,000 potentially
prohibited persons. Based on Justice’s annual averages of reviewing
the historical backlog since 2010, we estimate that Justice will not
complete its review of the historical backlog until 2018 based on
Justice’s most productive year or 2022 based on Justice’s current
pace. The longer it takes Justice to review the records in historical
backlog the longer armed prohibited persons keep their firearms,
which increases the risk to public safety.
In our October 2013 report we also reported that many courts were
not aware of a state law requiring them to report individuals to
Justice when the courts make certain mental health determinations
because Justice had not reached out to the courts to discuss
reporting requirements and confirm instances of nonreporting
or underreporting. As a result, we recommended that Justice
coordinate with the Administrative Office of the Courts at least
once per year to share information about court‑reporting levels,
including the trends in the number of reports each court sends.
We also recommended that when Justice identifies a court that
it determines may not be reporting all required information, it
should request that the court forward all required case information.
When we reviewed the changes Justice implemented since the
previous audit, we determined that Justice was not conducting a
trend analysis as we recommended. If Justice had conducted such
an analysis, it would have found that 25 percent of the courthouses
had a significant decline in the number of prohibited person reports
in 2014. By not considering such trends, Justice cannot ensure that
it has the necessary information to identify all armed prohibited
persons with mental illness.
This audit focused on relevant actions Justice has taken related to
selected recommendations we made in our October 2013 report.
During our follow-up audit, we updated our evaluation of the status
of these recommendations, and we noted conditions that indicate
a need for additional recommendations to Justice. For example,
Justice needs to better manage its competing priorities to ensure
that it reviews potentially armed prohibited persons promptly.
Additionally, it needs to implement quality control procedures
over all of its determinations, regardless of whether the APPS unit
staff determine that an individual is prohibited or not prohibited
from firearm ownership. We believe that by fully implementing the
recommendations from our prior report and fully implementing
the additional recommendations we present in this report, Justice
can ensure that it fulfills its responsibility of identifying armed
prohibited persons.

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Recommendations
Legislature
To ensure that Justice fairly balances competing responsibilities
and avoids redirecting APPS unit staff to competing priorities, the
Legislature should require Justice to complete an initial review of
cases in the daily queue within seven days.
Justice
To ensure that it accurately identifies all prohibited persons, Justice
should implement its plan to develop a checklist by July 2015 and
desk procedures by September 2015 to aid its analysts in making
correct prohibition determinations.
To ensure staff can promptly address the daily queue and the
historical backlog, by July 2016 Justice should identify and
implement strategies, including pursuing funding, to staff its bureau
operations to the level it needs.
Agency Comments
Justice agrees with our recommendations and outlined steps that it
will take to implement them.

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July 2015

Introduction
Background
State law, enacted in 2001, mandated that the California
Department of Justice (Justice) create a database to match
information related to persons in the State who are prohibited
from owning or possessing a firearm (prohibited persons) with its
records of firearm owners to determine whether these individuals
are prohibited from owning their firearms.2 Justice implemented
this database, commonly known as the Armed Prohibited Persons
System (APPS database), in November 2006. The purpose of this
database is to cross-reference all persons in California who are
firearm owners and who are unlawfully in possession of a firearm
because of a qualifying event in their life that prohibits them
from owning a firearm (prohibiting event). Justice refers to these
individuals as armed prohibited persons.
As we described in our October 2013 report, although different
qualifying events can cause someone to become prohibited
from owning a firearm, the scope of this audit is limited to
prohibitions related to mental health.3 Because of the variety
of prohibiting events, different entities throughout the State are
required to report to Justice when a prohibiting event occurs. Mental
health facilities are generally responsible for reporting prohibiting
events related to mental health status. Superior courts are generally
responsible for reporting events related to criminal proceedings,
but they are also required to report information to Justice related
to determinations concerning an individual’s mental health.
Additionally, state law requires local law enforcement to report to
Justice any time a licensed psychotherapist reports that a patient has
made a threat against an individual.
Process of Reporting Mental Health Firearm Prohibiting Events to
Justice and Identifying Prohibited Persons
The Armed and Prohibited Persons unit (APPS unit) within Justice’s
Bureau of Firearms (bureau) is responsible for identifying armed
persons with mental illness from a daily list of individuals who
may meet the criteria. As of May 2015 the APPS unit employed
2	

State law directs Justice to identify persons who have ownership or possession of a firearm, as
indicated by a record in Justice’s Consolidated Firearms Information System (CFIS). CFIS contains
records of firearm owners from information that Justice receives from sales and subsequent
transfers of firearms as well as registered owners of assault weapons. Thus, we use the term
firearm owners throughout the report to describe these individuals.

3	

Armed Persons With Mental Illness: Insufficient Outreach From the Department of Justice and
Poor Reporting From Superior Courts Limit the Identification of Armed Persons With Mental Illness,
Report 2013-103 (October 2013).

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eight staff, one quality control staff, and a manager.4 As Figure 1
shows, Justice has an automated process that it runs each night,
which matches the records in the Mental Health Firearms
Prohibition System (mental health database) and the criminal
history system with information in Justice’s CFIS, which contains
records of firearm owners in California since 1996 and of assault
weapon owners since 1989. Specifically, Justice’s automated process
compares personal identifying information within the two systems,
such as Social Security numbers, to identify individuals who own
a firearm and who may have had a mental health prohibiting event
logged into one of the two databases within the last 24 hours. All
persons identified through this automated check are placed in a
pending daily queue for APPS unit staff to review.
Staff in the APPS unit manually review each person in the pending
daily and historical queues to determine whether the automated
check has matched the correct individual. The APPS database
matches prohibiting events with firearm owners, and then Justice’s
APPS unit staff review these matches and determine whether
the individual is actually prohibited from possessing a firearm.
Matches remain in the daily queue until an analyst completes an
initial review of the match. For example, the automated check will
match an individual with a recent prohibiting event with someone
in CFIS who has the same personal identification number, such as a
California driver’s license number, but a different name and date of
birth. Justice has implemented a manual review of these potentially
prohibited persons so it does not incorrectly label firearm owners
as prohibited persons by an automated process. In addition to
verifying identity, staff also verify that the event that pulled the
individual from the criminal history system or the mental health
database is actually a prohibiting event. When staff determine that
someone is a prohibited person, they identify that individual as
prohibited in the APPS database and update his or her information,
including address and firearm ownership information. In addition,
the historical queue is a backlog of individuals who have not yet
been reviewed for prohibiting events since Justice implemented the
APPS database in November 2006.
The APPS database identifies individuals who own firearms and
whether they have a prohibition. State law specifically requires
Justice to search its firearm records to determine whether the
individual has had a prohibiting event. State law does not direct
Justice to, nor is Justice attempting to, identify for purposes of
the APPS database individuals who have prohibiting events, are
unarmed, and are living at the same residence as firearm owners.
Effective January 1, 2014, state law specifies that when firearm
4	

There are two quality control staff positions, but as of May 1, 2015, one of the quality control
positions is vacant.

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July 2015

Figure 1
The Process of Reporting Mental Health Firearm Prohibiting Events to the California Department of Justice and
Identifying Armed Prohibited Persons

California Superior
Courts (courts)

Mental Health Facilities

Criminal Determinations

Civil Determinations
California Department of Justice (Justice)

Mental Health Reporting
System (electronic)
Automated Criminal History System
(criminal history system)

Mental Health Firearms
Prohibition System
(mental health database)

Armed Prohibited Persons
System (APPS database)
(stored within the Consolidated
Firearms Information System)

1

2
3

The APPS database matches individuals from
these supporting systems against firearm
owners records, and all matches are placed in
the pending review queue.

Each night records from
the mental health
database and criminal
history system are sent
to the APPS database.

Pending Review Queue
NO

Is this the
same person?

YES
Prohibiting event?

Staff review each match in the pending queue
to determine if the individual is prohibited.

NO

NOT Prohibited

YES

Prohibited

Sources:  Information provided by Justice’s Bureau of Firearms and the Bureau of Criminal Information and Analysis.
Note:  As described in the Background, local law enforcement agencies report whenever a licensed psychotherapist reports that a patient has made
a threat against an individual. These reports are submitted manually and electronically through the Mental Health Reporting System. According to
the manager of the mental health unit, Justice only expects to receive 500 of the reports submitted by local law enforcement agencies during 2015
compared to thousands of reports submitted by the courts and mental health facilities.

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owners know or have reason to know that they reside with a
prohibited person, they may not keep a firearm at the residence
unless the firearm is maintained under specific conditions that state
law prescribes, such as within a locked container. A violation of
these requirements is a misdemeanor. According to the assistant
bureau chief, the Justice agents that conduct firearm seizures
will investigate whether any other firearms owners reside in the
residence during their investigations. Further, the APPS unit is
not responsible for background checks for firearm purchases.
Another bureau unit, the Dealers’ Record of Sale processing unit,
is responsible for completing these background checks.
Scope and Methodology
This follow-up audit focused on certain recommendations we made
to Justice in our October 2013 report related to the accurate and
timely identification of prohibited persons as well as its process for
reaching out to courts and mental health facilities.

Table 1
Selected Recommendations in the California State Auditor’s Report 2013-103
and the Methods Used to Follow Up On Them
RECOMMENDATION

1

To ensure that it makes correct determinations about
whether an individual is an armed prohibited person, by
January 31, 2014, the California Department of Justice
(Justice) should implement quality control procedures
over Armed and Prohibited Persons unit (APPS unit)
staff determinations. These procedures should include
periodic supervisory review of staff determinations to
ensure that staff decisions correctly identify all armed
prohibited persons.

METHOD

•	 Reviewed Justice’s quality control procedures over its APPS unit staff
determinations identifying individuals as prohibited from firearm ownership
(prohibition determinations).
•	 Reviewed the prohibition determination review logs from June 2014 to
March 2015, which staff use to track decisions identifying individuals as
prohibited from firearm ownership to select test items.
•	 Selected 10 cases from the prohibition logs to identify whether Justice staff
determined that individuals were prohibited from firearm ownership correctly
and that those determinations contain all pertinent information.
•	 Interviewed staff to determine why Justice had not implemented quality
control procedures for staff determinations that individuals are not prohibited
from firearm ownership.

2

To ensure that timely information is available for its
efforts to identify armed prohibited persons and
confiscate their firearms, Justice should manage staff
priorities to meet both its statutory deadline for firearms
background checks and its internal deadline for initially
reviewing potential prohibited persons. Justice should
report annually to the Legislature about the backlog
of unreviewed potential prohibited persons and what
factors have prohibited it from efficiently reviewing
these persons.

•	 Interviewed key staff to determine how Justice manages its staff priorities.
•	 Obtained documentation to demonstrate actions Justice has taken to manage
its staff priorities.
•	 Reviewed the data compiled by the APPS unit manager from January 13, 2015,
through March 25, 2015, of the Armed Prohibited Persons System
(APPS database) daily queue to determine whether Justice is effectively
managing staff priorities.
•	 Reviewed and analyzed Justice’s report to the Legislature to determine if it has
reported about the backlog of unreviewed potential prohibited persons and
what factors have prohibited it from efficiently reviewing these persons.

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RECOMMENDATION

3

4

5

6

7

8

METHOD

To ensure that potential armed prohibited person cases
do not wait too long for their first review by the APPS
unit, by December 31, 2013, Justice should revise its goal
for the daily queue to a more challenging level of no
more than a maximum of 400 to 600 cases. Justice should
monitor its performance against this goal and manage
staff priorities as needed to meet it.

•	 Obtained documentation that demonstrates whether Justice is tracking the APPS
database daily queue for the review of potential armed prohibited persons to
monitor its goals to have no more than 600 cases in the queue at any one time.

To ensure that it meets its goal of eliminating the
historical backlog of reviewing firearms owners by
the end of 2016, Justice should manage its staff resources
to continually address the backlog, and should notify
the Legislature if it believes that it will not be able to
fully process this backlog by its goal date. To help guide
this effort, Justice should establish benchmarks that will
indicate whether it is on track to meet its goal.

•	 Reviewed reports that demonstrate Justice’s progress on eliminating the
historical backlog.

To ensure that it has the necessary information to identify
armed prohibited persons with mental illness, Justice
should coordinate with the Administrative Office of the
Courts (AOC) at least once a year to share information
about superior court (court) reporting levels and to
determine the need to distribute additional information
to courts about reporting requirements. In coordinating
with the AOC about potential underreporting, at a
minimum, Justice should consider trends in the number of
reports each court sends and the number of reports that it
might expect to receive from a court given the court’s size,
location, and reporting history. Whenever Justice identifies
a court that it determines may not be reporting all required
information, it should request that the court forward all
required case information.

•	 Interviewed Justice staff to determine whether it monitors the trends
in court reporting of prohibited persons, and makes any effort to reach
out to courts that do not report or are potentially underreporting
prohibited persons.

To ensure that it keeps an accurate and up-to-date
list of all mental health facilities that are required to
report individuals with mental illness, at least twice a
year Justice should update its outreach list of mental
health facilities by obtaining a list of facilities from the
California Department of Health Care Services (Health
Care Services).

•	 Determined whether Justice’s outreach list of mental health facilities was
complete by obtaining an independent listing of mental health facilities, which
Health Care Services maintains, and comparing it to the list Justice uses for
outreach activities.

As soon as it identifies mental health facilities that
have not yet received information about reporting
requirements and the online reporting system, Justice
should send these facilities the related information.

•	 Identified new mental health facilities since 2013.

To ensure that it continues to receive information
from facilities that currently report individuals with
mental illness and that should continue to report such
individuals, by January 31, 2014, and at least twice a
year thereafter, Justice should implement a review of
the number of reports it receives from individual mental
health facilities. These reviews should focus on identifying
any significant drops in a facility’s reporting levels
and include follow up with facilities that may require
additional assistance in reporting.

•	 Interviewed Justice staff to determine whether it monitors the trends in mental
health facility reporting of prohibited persons, and makes any effort to reach
out to facilities that are potentially underreporting prohibited persons.

•	 Reviewed and analyzed data compiled by the APPS unit manager from
January 13, 2015, through March 25, 2015, of the APPS database daily queue.
•	 Assessed whether Justice has met its revised goal for the daily queue.
•	 Determined the steps Justice intends to take to work toward meeting its goal
for the daily queue.

•	 Determined Justice’s projected completion date for the historical
backlog, based on Justice’s progress eliminating the historical backlog.

•	 Reviewed quarterly reports for 2013 quarter four through 2014 to
determine the number of courts that reported prohibited persons to Justice
and identify the associated trend in court‑reporting levels.
•	 Determined what actions Justice has taken to receive reports from courts that
had a significant drop in their reporting levels.

•	 Interviewed Justice’s management to determine the reason for any errors in
Justice’s list.

•	 For any new mental health facilities identified, determined what, if any, outreach
Justice conducted to inform the facilities about reporting requirements.

•	 Reviewed Justice’s tracking sheet of quarterly reports for 2013 quarter four
through 2014 to determine the number of mental health facilities that reported
prohibited persons to Justice and the trend in facility reporting levels.
•	 Interviewed Justice staff and reviewed key documents to determine what
actions Justice has taken to receive reports from facilities that had a significant
drop in their reporting levels.

Sources:  Recommendations made in the report by the California State Auditor titled Armed Persons With Mental Illness: Insufficient Outreach From
the Department of Justice and Poor Reporting From Superior Courts Limit the Identification of Armed Persons With Mental Illness, Report 2013‑103
(October 2013), and information and documentation identified in the table column titled Method.

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Assessment of Data Reliability
In performing this audit, we relied on electronic data extracted
from Justice’s APPS database and mental health database. The
U.S. Government Accountability Office, whose standards we are
statutorily required to follow, requires us to assess the sufficiency
and appropriateness of computer-processed information that we
use to support our findings, conclusions, or recommendations.
Consistent with our previous audit issued in October 2013, we
did not perform accuracy and completeness testing of these data
because the source documents required for this testing are stored
by various entities, such as mental health facilities, courts, or
firearm retailers located throughout the State, making such testing
cost-prohibitive. Consequently, we found the data from the APPS
and mental health databases were of undetermined reliability for
the purposes of identifying the daily backlog, forecasting Justice’s
completion of the historical backlog, and identifying trends
in court and mental health facility reporting. Although these
determinations may affect the precision of the numbers we present,
there is sufficient evidence in total to support our audit findings,
conclusions, and recommendations.

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Audit Results
Although the California Department of Justice Has Implemented
Quality Control Procedures Over Some of Its Prohibition
Determinations, It Needs to Do More
In our October 2013 report we reported that the California
Department of Justice (Justice) did not always properly identify
persons in the State who are prohibited from owning or possessing
firearms (prohibited persons) nor did its Armed Prohibited Persons
System (APPS database) contain accurate information.5 Specifically, we
reported that Justice should have identified three of the eight persons
we reviewed as prohibited based on their mental health history.
Further, we reported that although Justice had reached appropriate
determinations for 12 additional individuals prohibited from
firearm ownership, the information in the APPS database about
the individuals was not always accurate. Of these 12 individuals,
Justice had omitted a mental health prohibition in the APPS
database for one and for another Justice staff did not identify all of
the individual’s firearms in the APPS database. We also reported
that the errors may have been, in part, a consequence of the Armed
and Prohibited Persons unit (APPS unit) managers or supervisors
not reviewing prohibition decisions. Thus, we recommended that
by January 31, 2014, Justice should implement quality control
procedures over its APPS unit staff determinations. We specified
that these procedures should include periodic supervisory review
of staff determinations to ensure that these determinations correctly
identify all firearm owners in the State who are prohibited from
owning or possessing a firearm due to a mental health-related event
in their life (armed prohibited persons).
Justice has partially implemented our recommendation to
implement quality control procedures over its APPS unit staff
determinations. In response to the audit recommendation, Justice
developed and implemented quality control procedures over its
determinations that individuals were prohibited from owning
firearms. Justice also added two quality control positions to its APPS
unit to fulfill the audit recommendation to perform supervisory
reviews of staff determinations. As part of the quality control
procedures for prohibition determinations, APPS unit staff maintain
manual logs of individuals who they identified as being prohibited
from firearm ownership (prohibition logs). At the end of each
workday, the staff submit the prohibition logs to the quality control
staff. The quality control staff are responsible for reviewing at least
10 percent of each analyst’s daily prohibition log activity to ensure
5	

Armed Persons With Mental Illness: Insufficient Outreach From the Department of Justice and
Poor Reporting From Superior Courts Limit the Identification of Armed Persons with Mental Illness,
Report 2013‑103 (October 2013).

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staff made correct determinations relative to the firearm prohibition
criteria and the quality control staff note their review on the
prohibition logs. We reviewed the totals of the monthly prohibitions
the APPS unit manager compiled based on the prohibition logs
from June 2014 to March 2015 and found that, on average, quality
control staff reviewed 21 percent of the APPS unit staff prohibition
determinations, which exceeded Justice’s goal of 10 percent.
Although Justice implemented
supervisory reviews of prohibition
decisions, it did not do the same for
staff determinations where APPS
unit staff concluded that the firearm
owner did not meet the criteria to
be an armed prohibited person.

Although Justice implemented supervisory reviews of prohibition
decisions, we found that it did not implement the same type of review
procedures of staff determinations where APPS unit staff concluded
that the firearm owner did not meet the criteria to be an armed
prohibited person. Our previous report described that in three of the
eight determinations we reviewed, Justice incorrectly determined
individuals should not be prohibited from firearm ownership when
they should have been prohibited. However, Justice focused its quality
control procedures on reviewing staff determinations of prohibited
individuals exclusively. Justice explained that it only implemented
quality control reviews of staff determinations to prohibit firearm
ownership because it interpreted the California State Auditor’s
recommendation to be limited to those prohibition determinations. It
is critical that Justice review its staff decisions that an individual is not
an armed prohibited person because of the grave risk to public safety
if it fails to properly identify armed individuals with mental illness
who could potentially be involved in fatal shootings.
When we discussed our concern with Justice, it agreed that it is
important to perform reviews of staff determinations both identifying
individuals who are and are not prohibited from firearm ownership.
Consequently, in April 2015 Justice requested that its information
technology unit create an automated report that would generate a
sampling of prohibited and nonprohibited persons determinations for
the quality control staff to review.
Justice continues to have errors in its determinations of whether or
not to prohibit individuals from firearm ownership related to mental
health. Specifically, Justice staff did not use all available information to
determine whether an individual should be prohibited from firearm
ownership nor did it always ensure the APPS database contains
updated information. Because Justice has not yet implemented quality
control procedures for staff determinations that an individual was
not a prohibited person, we focused our review on the accuracy and
effectiveness of Justice’s decisions to prohibit individuals from firearm
ownership. In our review of 10 APPS unit staff determinations to
prohibit individuals from firearm ownership, we identified two errors.
In one case an analyst incorrectly prohibited an individual. In that
case, the individual had the same name and date of birth as another
individual who had prohibiting mental health events. However,
the analyst failed to use other identifying information such as the

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Social Security number and address of the individual that would
have led her to make the correct determination. According to
the APPS unit manager, the analyst could not remember why she
had not used all available information. When we brought this
concern to Justice’s attention, it immediately corrected the mistake
and changed the individual’s status in the APPS database to not
prohibited. As a result of this error, although Justice had not yet
seized the individual’s firearm, it inappropriately designated this
individual as being an armed prohibited person for two months.
When Justice incorrectly determines that an individual should be
prohibited from firearm ownership, it inappropriately infringes
upon a person’s right to own and possess firearms.
In the other case, although the analyst correctly prohibited the
individual, we found that she had not updated the information in
the APPS database to include all weapons belonging to this person.
In October 2014 Justice implemented a policy that requires staff
to update or review all information, including weapons, in the
APPS database if the date of the last review exceeded one year.
When we asked the APPS unit manager about the error, he stated
that the error was an oversight by the analyst due to a training
issue. Specifically, he stated that the analyst did not know that a
voluntary registration was an ownership record, which should be
included in the APPS database. The APPS unit manager stated
that he had a meeting with staff to address the issue and will create
new procedures for voluntarily registered firearms by the end of
July 2015. Finally, the APPS unit does not have desk procedures
or a checklist to assist the analysts in conducting their reviews of
potentially prohibited persons. Desk procedures or a checklist could
assist staff to ensure they review all necessary information to make
correct determinations and accurately update the APPS database. If
Justice had desk procedures or a checklist in place, the analysts may
not have made these two errors. After we discussed this concern
with Justice, it decided to implement these items. As of June 2015
Justice expects the checklist will be complete in July 2015 and the
desk procedures will be complete in September 2015. Ensuring
that information contained in the APPS database is accurate is
important because Justice agents who confiscate weapons from
armed prohibited persons use information in the APPS database
when planning firearm seizures.
Justice Continues to Redirect Staff to Another Priority, Which
Adversely Affects Its Ability to Promptly Review Prohibiting Events
Matched With Firearm Owners
In our October 2013 report we noted that Justice’s APPS database
has two main processing queues that staff use to review and
determine whether a firearm owner should be prohibited from

In another case, although the
analyst correctly prohibited
the individual, she had not
updated the information in the
APPS database to include all
weapons belonging to this person.

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owning a weapon: a daily queue and a historical queue.6 The APPS
database matches prohibiting events with firearm owners, and
then Justice’s APPS unit staff review these matches and determine
whether the individual is actually prohibited from possessing
a firearm. Matches remain in the daily queue until an analyst
completes an initial review. We also reported that during late 2012
and early 2013, Justice had a backlog of more than 1,200 matches
pending initial review. At that time Justice had established a goal
to maintain no more than 1,200 matches in the APPS database
daily queue. Also, the former APPS unit manager stated that
prohibiting event matches should not remain in the APPS database
daily queue for longer than two days. By leaving a large number of
matches unreviewed each day, Justice may not be able to conduct
a timely initial review of these matches. Without a timely review
of the matches, Justice agents cannot conduct timely confiscations.
Therefore, we recommended that by December 31, 2013, Justice
revise its goal for the daily queue to a more challenging level of no
more than a maximum of 400 to 600 cases, so that matches do not
wait too long for an initial review.
We previously reported that Justice
had experienced significant delays
in processing its APPS database
daily queue and recommended that
Justice monitor its performance
against a revised goal of 400 to
600 cases in the daily queue.

We also previously reported that Justice had experienced significant
delays in processing its APPS database daily queue. At the time
of our previous audit, Justice redirected staff from the APPS unit,
focusing its efforts on addressing a rise in background checks,
required by state law, of individuals attempting to purchase a
firearm (Dealers’ Record of Sale). This staff redirection resulted
in an excessive backlog of the matches in the APPS database
daily queue. The Dealers’ Record of Sale unit processes these
background checks, and state law requires Justice to complete
them within 10 days of receipt of a completed application or fee
for firearm purchases. However, there is no similar statutory time
requirement for the completion of APPS unit staff determinations.
Justice reported that it temporarily redirected APPS unit staff to
assist with the Dealers’ Record of Sale processing unit to perform
background checks until Justice could hire additional staff.
Therefore, we recommended that Justice monitor its performance
against a revised goal of 400 to 600 cases in the daily queue and
manage staff priorities as needed to meet that goal. Additionally,
we recommended that Justice manage staff priorities to meet
both its statutory deadline for firearm background checks as well
as its internal deadline for initially reviewing potential prohibited
persons. We also recommended that Justice report annually to the
Legislature about the backlog of unreviewed potential prohibited
persons and what factors have prevented it from efficiently making
determinations regarding these persons’ right to own a firearm.

6	

We discuss the historical queue, or backlog, in the next section.

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July 2015

Justice has partially implemented our recommendation to reduce
its goal for the daily queue; however, its actions to implement our
recommendation to manage its staff priorities are still pending.
Although Justice issued a memorandum to staff revising its goal
to a maximum of 600 cases, Justice is not meeting that goal. In its
one-year update in October 2014 on the status of implementing this
recommendation, Justice reported that it had maintained 600 or
fewer cases in its daily queue since July 2014. Therefore, at that time,
we considered this recommendation fully implemented. However,
during this audit when we reviewed data compiled by the current
APPS unit manager—who was hired in December 2014—from
January 13, 2015, to March 25, 2015, the average daily queue has been
over 3,600 cases pending initial review; this is six times higher than
Justice’s revised goal. According to the Bureau of Firearms (bureau)
assistant chief (assistant bureau chief ), the bureau was able to
maintain a daily queue with 600 or fewer cases during the summer
when it did not have to redirect staff to conduct background checks.
However, beginning in November 2014, the Dealers’ Record of Sale
transactions increased requiring the bureau to once again redirect
APPS unit staff.
The assistant bureau chief told us that the bureau will not be able to
meet this revised goal of no more than 400 to 600 cases remaining
in the daily queue without additional staff in its Dealers’ Record
of Sale unit to process background checks. Based on a staffing
analysis the bureau conducted, it believes it needs an additional
13 positions—35 positions in total—within the Dealers’ Record
of Sale unit to handle the background check workload without
redirecting APPS unit staff. As of May 2015, of the 22 positions
authorized for the Dealers’ Record of Sale unit, four positions
are vacant. Therefore, the bureau believes it would need to hire
17 additional staff in total—four vacant and 13 new positions—to
handle the background check workload. The assistant bureau chief
believes that if the Dealers’ Record of Sale unit was fully staffed,
the current staffing level in the APPS unit would be sufficient to
complete its workload. According to the assistant director of the
Administrative Services Division (administrative services), Justice
has not sought these additional positions because it currently does
not have sufficient funds in its budget to pay for additional positions
and is currently unable to access funds from other potential
sources. He further indicated that Justice and the bureau are looking
internally at other long‑term funding options to support the bureau.
Justice’s continued redirection of APPS unit staff to meet the
statutory deadlines for the Dealers’ Record of Sale background
checks negatively impacts its ability to ensure that APPS database
matches do not wait too long for their initial review. We believe that
if Justice also had a statutory deadline for the initial processing of the
matches in the APPS database, it would encourage Justice to avoid

Although Justice issued a
memorandum to staff revising its
goal to a maximum of 600 cases,
Justice is not meeting that
goal—from January 13, 2015, to
March 25, 2015, the average daily
queue has been over 3,600 cases
pending initial review.

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redirecting APPS unit staff. Although during our previous audit
the former APPS unit manager indicated that matches in the APPS
database should not wait longer than two days for the initial review,
the bureau chief believes that seven days is a more realistic time
frame. He stated that the volume of events causing an individual
to be prohibited is unpredictable. Further, according to the bureau
chief, the number of potential prohibited persons increased because
of an increase in gun sales and a state law that became effective
January 2014—Assembly Bill 809 (Chapter 745, Statutes of 2011)—
requiring firearm owners to register long guns, which increases the
number of potential matches in the APPS database.
Justice has not yet implemented
our recommendation to report
to the Legislature about the daily
queue of unreviewed potential
prohibited persons and what factors
have prevented it from efficiently
reviewing these persons.

Justice has not yet implemented our recommendation to
report to the Legislature about the daily queue of unreviewed
potential prohibited persons and what factors have prohibited it
from efficiently reviewing these persons. Since May 2013 when
the Legislature appropriated new funding to Justice for the
purpose of increasing its efforts to remove firearms from armed
prohibited persons through Senate Bill 140 (SB 140)—Chapter 2,
Statutes of 2013—Justice has broadened its focus to include a greater
emphasis on confiscation of firearms. In its six‑month and one‑year
updates on the status of its outstanding recommendations, Justice
indicated it would report to the Legislature in March 2015 through
its required SB 140 report. However, when Justice submitted that
report, it focused solely on the SB 140 reporting requirements and
did not include information about the daily queues and the factors
that have prohibited it from efficiently reviewing these persons.
When we asked Justice why it had not reported information about
the daily queues within the SB 140 report as it indicated it would,
Justice explained that the information was excluded because of an
oversight. It indicated that the bureau and administrative services
have noted the oversight and will ensure that it is included in
subsequent reports. When Justice delays the timely identification of
armed prohibited persons, it cannot conduct timely confiscation
of these firearms and, therefore, increases the risk to public safety.
At Its Current Pace, Justice Will Not Meet Its Goal of Eliminating the
Historical Backlog of Firearm Owners
In addition to the backlog and delays that Justice’s APPS unit has
experienced in the daily queue, Justice has also faced difficulty in
remaining on pace to complete its review of a historical backlog of
individuals by its goal of December 2016. As we discussed in our
previous audit, according to the former assistant bureau chief, the
historical backlog was initially about one million firearm owners
and consists of persons who registered an assault weapon since
1989 or acquired a firearm since 1996 and who have not yet been

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reviewed for prohibiting events since Justice implemented the
APPS database in November 2006. In fiscal year 2006–07 Justice
received funding to address the backlog and, according to the
former assistant bureau chief, Justice indicated it could complete
the backlog by the end of 2016. We reported that as of July 2013,
nearly 380,000 persons remained in Justice’s historical backlog, and
we estimated that it would not complete its entire backlog until
2019. As a result, we recommended that Justice manage its staff
resources to continually address the backlog, and notify the
Legislature if it believes that it will not be able to fully process this
backlog by its goal date of December 2016. To help guide this effort,
we recommended that Justice establish benchmarks to indicate
whether it is on track to meet its goal.
In response to our recommendation, in September 2014, the bureau
chief directed his nine APPS unit staff to complete 11,500 historical
cases each month for the next 25 months to meet its goal of
eliminating the backlog by the end of 2016. He authorized the
APPS unit staff to use whatever overtime or resources necessary
to achieve this goal on or before the end of 2016.
Although it has reduced the historical backlog since our previous
report, Justice is still not on schedule to eliminate the backlog by
its goal of December 2016. As of April 1, 2015, Justice’s historical
backlog of unreviewed firearm owners was 257,115 persons. As
shown in Figure 2 on the following page, we projected Justice’s
estimated annual reduction of its APPS database historical backlog
using its highest annual reduction since 2010—84,546—which
occurred in 2013. Even if Justice reduced its backlog at this pace, we
estimate that it will not finish addressing the backlog until 2018.
Further, we noted that Justice’s rate of completion significantly
slowed in the first quarter of 2015. According to the APPS unit
manager, Justice’s progress on the historical backlog had slowed
because Justice redirected staff away from the historic backlog due
to an increased number of Dealers’ Record of Sale background
checks and potential prohibited persons in the daily queue, just as it
did during our previous audit in October 2013. He also stated that
Justice prioritizes the background checks over the APPS database
daily queue and historical backlog because state law requires
Justice to conduct these background checks within 10 days. If this
slower rate of completion continues, we estimate that Justice may
not complete the backlog until sometime in 2022. The longer it
takes to review the records in the historical backlog the longer
armed prohibited persons keep their firearms, which increases the
risk to public safety. Despite Justice’s slowed pace in reviewing
the historical backlog, according to the assistant bureau chief,
Justice has not reported the status of the historical backlog to the

Although it has reduced the
historical backlog since our
previous report, Justice is still not on
schedule to eliminate the backlog
by its goal of December 2016.

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Legislature because Justice still plans to eliminate this backlog by
December 2016. She could not tell us how Justice plans to do this,
but indicated that it is exploring all possible options.

Figure 2
Number of Unreviewed Firearm Owners in the Armed Prohibited Person System Historical Backlog
Number of unreviewed individuals
Optimistic projected number of unreviewed individuals*
Current projected number of unreviewed individuals†

550
500
450
Number of Unreviewed Firearm Owners
(in thousands)

18

COMPLETION GOAL
(December 2016)

400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

2022

Year
Sources:  Summary reports from the California Department of Justice’s (Justice) Armed Prohibited Persons System.
*	 This projection uses Justice’s highest annual rate of reduction since 2010, which was 84,546 in 2013.
†	 This projection uses Justice’s 2015 rate of reduction as of April, 2015, which is projected to be 35,108 annually.

Justice Does Not Know If Courts Are Reporting All Potential Armed
Prohibited Persons
In our October 2013 report we reported that many superior courts
(courts) were not aware of a state law requiring them to report
individuals to Justice when the courts make certain mental health
determinations, as shown in the text box on the following page.
The 34 courts we surveyed at that time indicated they had not
collectively reported about 2,300 of these determinations over a
three‑year period. Before our audit, Justice had not reached out to
the courts to remind them about the reporting requirements, and it
had not followed up with nonreporting courts to confirm that they

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had no reportable determinations. We recommended
that Justice coordinate with the Administrative
Office of the Courts (AOC) at least once a year to
share information about court‑reporting levels, and
to determine the need to distribute additional
information to courts about reporting requirements
and the manner in which to report. In coordinating
with the AOC about potential underreporting, at a
minimum, we recommended that Justice consider
trends in the number of reports each court sends
and the number of reports that it might expect to
receive from a court given the court’s size, location,
and reporting history. Further, we recommended
that whenever Justice identifies a court that it
determines may not be reporting all required
information, it request that the court forward
all required case information.

Determinations That Superior Courts Must
Report to the California Department of Justice
An individual has been found by a superior court (court) to be:
•	 A danger to others as a result of a mental disorder or
illness, which results in a court-ordered commitment to a
treatment facility.
•	 Not guilty by reason of insanity or has regained his or
her sanity.
•	 Mentally incompetent to stand trial or has regained his or
her competency.
•	 Gravely disabled due to a mental disorder or impairment
by chronic alcoholism and requiring a conservator, and the
possession of a firearm would present a danger to himself
or herself or others.
•	 No longer gravely disabled and requiring a conservator or
the court has found that the possession of a firearm would
no longer present a danger to himself or herself or others.

For its one-year update on the status of
implementing recommendations in our 2013 report,
we designated its status of the recommendation
Source:  California Welfare and Institutions Code, sections 8103,
5300, and 6500.
to monitor court reporting as fully implemented
because Justice provided procedures that satisfied
this recommendation. However, upon further
review during this follow-up audit, we determined
that Justice had only partially implemented this recommendation.
Although Justice had provided the AOC with the number of
quarterly reports sent by each court, it has not conducted the trend
analysis as we recommended. Following the October 2013 report,
Justice developed procedures to identify significant drops in the
number of reports provided by each court, and to provide the AOC,
at least once per year, with a listing of all courts that are, or are
not, in compliance with reporting mental health prohibitions. The
procedures Justice developed did not contain criteria for identifying
a significant drop. However, during this audit Justice revised its
procedures to specify that it considers a reporting drop of 30 percent
or more to be significant in the number of reports provided by a
facility. When we asked if Justice had implemented its procedures,
Justice provided an example of the quarterly court reporting that
it had sent the AOC, but acknowledged that it had not considered
the reporting trends because of management turnover in its mental
health unit. Justice did not provide any further explanation for its
failure to conduct an analysis of court reporting trends.
If Justice had considered trends in court reporting, it would have
identified that there are significant drops in a specific court’s
reporting that may indicate that the same courts are not forwarding
all cases to Justice for review. For example, we identified that 91—
or 25 percent—of the 361 courthouses had declines of 30 percent

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or more in the number of prohibited persons reports in 2014.
Although these courthouses may have valid reasons for the decrease
in reports, if Justice does not identify them for follow-up, it will not
know whether persons with mental illness are going unreported
or if some other factor caused the facility to stop reporting
these individuals.
Because it is not considering such trends, Justice cannot ensure that
it has the necessary information to identify all armed prohibited
persons with mental illness and, therefore, cannot ensure public
safety. Justice’s current mental health unit manager—who has
held the position since February 2015—stated that Justice plans to
implement its revised procedures, which includes sending AOC a
list of courts with reporting drops of 30 percent or more, for the
quarter ending June 30, 2015.
Justice Lacks Sufficient Processes for Updating Its List of Mental
Health Facilities
In our previous report, we identified
22 mental health facilities that
Justice had not contacted about
reporting requirements and
we recommended that at least
twice a year it should update its
outreach list of mental health
facilities; Justice has only partially
implemented this recommendation.

In our previous report we identified 22 mental health facilities that
Justice had not contacted about reporting requirements. Mental
health facilities are an essential provider of the information Justice
uses to identify individuals who are prohibited from owning firearms
for mental health reasons, such as an involuntary hold because they
present a danger to themselves or others. Although Justice must rely
on mental health facilities to report individuals with mental illness
so that it can determine whether the individuals are prohibited
from being armed, our 2013 report explained that Justice did not
verify that the list of mental health facilities it used included all
facilities that should be reporting potential firearm prohibitions. As
a result of not having a complete list, Justice did not communicate
with those facilities missing from the list about its expectations for
reporting or which individuals the facilities should report. Therefore,
we recommended that at least twice a year Justice should update its
outreach list of mental health facilities by obtaining a list of facilities
from the California Department of Health Care Services (Health
Care Services)—the entity responsible for approving these facilities.
We also recommended that as soon as it identifies mental health
facilities that have not yet received information about reporting
requirements and the online reporting system, Justice should send
these facilities the related information.
For its one-year response, we designated its status of the
recommendation to update its outreach list as fully implemented
because Justice provided procedures that satisfied this
recommendation. However, upon further review during our
follow‑up audit, we determined that Justice had only partially
implemented this recommendation. Although Justice compared

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its list of mental health facilities to the list from Health Care
Services, it had not identified all of the differences between the
lists. Specifically, Justice’s procedures state that twice a year it will
obtain a list of mental health facilities from Health Care Services
and ensure that all facilities required to report are reporting
accordingly. Justice staff identified 16 differences when comparing
the information on the lists between July and November 2014, such
as incorrect names, addresses, or phone numbers for facilities.
However, we identified 10 additional differences that Justice
overlooked, including one facility that was missing from its list and
nine facilities with incorrect addresses or phone numbers.
Although Justice has procedures to update its list of mental health
facilities, the procedures do not include supervisory review to
ensure Justice’s staff completely updates its list. When we asked
Justice how it planned to ensure errors such as those that we
found do not occur in the future, the assistant bureau chief
stated that the mental health unit plans to change its tracking
spreadsheet to allow staff to note discrepancies between the lists.
In the event of discrepancies, the analyst will contact the mental
health facility and verify the correct information and then indicate
the follow‑up actions in the comment section of the tracking
spreadsheet. The assistant bureau chief also agreed to implement a
supervisory review of the updated list to ensure that staff identified
discrepancies and took appropriate steps to update the list. When
Justice fails to ensure that it has a complete and accurate list of all
reporting mental health facilities, Justice increases the risk that
it will not identify individuals who should be prohibited from
possessing a firearm and will not be able to confiscate firearms that
these individuals possess. Also, Justice may not provide important
information about reporting requirements to mental health
facilities missing from the list.
Additionally, Justice fully implemented our previous
recommendation that as soon as it identifies mental health
facilities that have not yet received information about reporting
requirements and the online reporting system, Justice should send
these facilities the related information. Justice explained that when
a new mental health facility contacts Justice, it sends the facility
information on the reporting requirements and how to submit
reports. Further, if Justice identifies a new mental health facility
through its review of the Health Care Services list, it will send the
facility the necessary information. Justice identified six new mental
health facilities licensed since February 2013. Although Justice did
not maintain documentation that it sent reporting requirement
information to these facilities, each new facility had provided it with
prohibited persons reports. The mental health unit manager stated
that going forward, Justice will maintain documents to show that it
sends reporting requirement information to new facilities.

Although Justice staff identified
16 differences when comparing
the information on the mental
health facilities lists between July
and November 2014, we identified
10 additional differences that
Justice overlooked, including one
facility that was missing from its
list and nine facilities with incorrect
addresses or phone numbers.

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Justice Did Not Always Follow Up With Mental Health Facilities When
Reporting Levels Dropped
In our October 2013 report we noted that Justice did not track
reporting levels from mental health facilities. Our analysis indicated
that 146 facilities each submitted more than 100 prohibition
reports to Justice during 2012, but four of these facilities stopped
submitting reports by the end of the year. In addition to those
four facilities, 10 more facilities had decreases in their reporting
levels of more than 50 percent from the first quarter of 2012 to
the last quarter of the year. We concluded that at that time the
facilities with significant drops in reporting may have valid reasons
for the decrease in reports, but if Justice does not follow up with
these mental health facilities, it cannot know whether persons
with mental illness are going unreported or if some other factor
caused the facility to stop reporting these individuals. As a result,
we recommended that Justice implement a review of the number
of reports it receives from individual mental health facilities at
least twice per year. These reviews should focus on identifying any
significant drops in a facility’s reporting levels and include follow up
with facilities that may require additional assistance in reporting.

Although Justice developed
procedures to identify significant
drops in a mental health
facility’s reporting levels per our
recommendation, Justice did not
always follow them.

For its one-year response, we designated its status of the
recommendation to follow up with mental health facility reporting
levels as fully implemented because Justice provided procedures
that satisfied this recommendation. However, upon further review
during our follow-up audit, we determined that Justice had only
partially implemented this recommendation. Although Justice
developed procedures to identify significant drops in a mental
health facility’s reporting levels, Justice did not always follow
them. Justice’s procedures state that at least twice a year it will
review the number of reports received from individual mental
health facilities, identify all significant drops, and follow up with
the facilities. Although Justice does not have formal criteria for
identifying a significant drop, the mental health unit manager stated
that, as with the courts, the department considers a reporting drop
of 30 percent or more to be a significant drop in the number of
reports provided by a facility, and warrants follow-up. As shown in
Table 2, Justice identified significant drops in mental health facility
reporting each quarter. However, it did not identify all drops of
30 percent or greater. For example, in the fourth quarter of 2014,
of the 31 mental health facilities whose reporting dropped more
than 30 percent, Justice only identified 23 of them.
The mental health unit manager stated that missing some of the
significant reporting drops was an oversight on behalf of the mental
health unit staff. Because staff did not identify certain significant
drops, they did not reach out to those facilities to investigate the
reason for the drop in reporting. The manager also stated that

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the department will evaluate and implement enhanced quality
assurance measures to avoid missing these types of errors in the
future. Specifically, the assistant bureau chief stated that Justice will
modify its procedures to include a manager’s secondary review of
the trending report to ensure that staff identified and followed up
on all reporting drops.
Table 2
Number of Significant Reporting Drops in Prohibited Persons Reports
for Mental Health Facilities in 2014
QUARTER 2

QUARTER 3*

QUARTER 4

Number of significant reporting drops†

 

15

19

31

Number of drops the California Department
of Justice (Justice) identified

12

17

23

Significant drops Justice did not identify

3

2

8

Number of facilities Justice contacted

0

12

0

Source:  Justice’s Mental Health Reporting System.
*	 Justice contacted mental health facilities that had a significant drop in reporting in this quarter only.
†	 Justice defines a significant drop in prohibited event reporting as a change of 30 percent or
greater between reporting periods.

Furthermore, Justice’s methodology for contacting mental
health facilities is incomplete because it does not investigate all
reporting drops that occur during the year. For example, Justice
only contacted facilities with drops between the second and
third quarter of 2014, even though it identified 12 significant drops
between quarter one and two. When we discussed our concerns
with Justice, the assistant bureau chief indicated that Justice would
modify its methodology to follow up on all reporting drops for all
four quarters. When it does not reach out to mental health facilities
with significant drops in reporting, Justice risks being unable to
identify all armed prohibited persons because the mental health
facilities may not know about all of the reporting requirements.
Conclusion
This audit focused on relevant actions Justice has taken related to
selected recommendations we made in our October 2013 report
regarding the accurate and timely identification of prohibited
persons as well as its process for reaching out to courts and
mental health facilities. During this follow-up audit, we updated
our evaluation of the status of the recommendations as shown
in the Appendix beginning on page 27, and we noted conditions
that indicate a need for additional recommendations to Justice.

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We believe that by fully implementing the recommendations
from our prior report and fully implementing the additional
recommendations we present in this report, Justice can ensure that
it fulfills its responsibility of identifying armed prohibited persons.
Recommendations
Legislature
To ensure that Justice fairly balances competing responsibilities
and avoids redirecting APPS unit staff to conduct Dealers’ Record
of Sale background checks, the Legislature should require Justice
to complete an initial review of cases in the daily queue within
seven days and periodically reassess whether Justice can complete
these reviews more quickly.
Justice
To ensure that it accurately identifies all prohibited persons, Justice
should implement its plan to develop a checklist by July 2015 and
desk procedures by September 2015 to aid its analysts in making
correct prohibition determinations.
To ensure staff can promptly address the daily queue and the
historical backlog, by July 2016 Justice should identify and
implement strategies, including pursuing funding, to staff its bureau
operations to the level it needs.
To fully implement our previous recommendation and ensure
that it keeps an updated accurate list of all mental health facilities,
by July 2015 Justice should implement supervisory review of its
analyst’s comparison of Justice’s mental health facilities list and
Health Care Services’ list to ensure staff identified and corrected
all discrepancies.
To fully implement our previous recommendation and ensure
that it investigates all significant drops in mental health facility
reporting, Justice should revise its procedure to consider drops
between each quarter.

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We conducted this audit under the authority vested in the California State Auditor by Section 8543
et seq. of the California Government Code and according to generally accepted government auditing
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate
evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on the information
specified in the Scope and Methodology section of the report. We believe that the evidence obtained
provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions.
Respectfully submitted,

ELAINE M. HOWLE, CPA
State Auditor
Date: 	

July 9, 2015

Staff:	
	
	
	

Tammy Lozano, CPA, CGFM, Audit Principal
Meghann K. Stedman, MPPA
Michael Henson
Veronica Perez, MPPA

Legal Counsel:	

J. Christopher Dawson, Sr. Staff Counsel

For questions regarding the contents of this report, please contact
Margarita Fernández, Chief of Public Affairs, at 916.445.0255.

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Blank page inserted for reproduction purposes only.

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Appendix
Status of Actions Taken in Response to Selected Recommendations
in the California State Auditor’s Report 2013-103
As Table A shows, this follow-up audit found that the California
Department of Justice (Justice) has not fully implemented several of
the selected recommendations we reviewed from our October 2013
report that we believe will ensure it can accurately and promptly
identify armed prohibited persons with mental illness. Specifically,
these recommendations relate to Justice identifying all firearm
owners in the State who are prohibited from owning or possessing a
firearm due to a mental health-related event in their life, eliminating
its daily and historical backlogs, as well as conducting outreach to
potentially nonreporting or underreporting superior courts and
mental health facilities.
Table A
Status of Actions Taken in Response to Selected Recommendations in the California State Auditor’s Report 2013-103

RECOMMENDATION

STATUS

PAGES WHERE
RECOMMENDATIONS AND
ACTIONS ARE DISCUSSED

To ensure that it makes correct determinations about whether an individual is an armed prohibited
person, by January 31, 2014, the California Department of Justice (Justice) should implement quality
control procedures over the Armed and Prohibited Persons unit (APPS unit) staff determinations.
These procedures should include periodic supervisory review of staff determinations to ensure that
staff decisions correctly identify all armed prohibited persons.

Partially
Implemented*

11–13

To ensure that timely information is available for its efforts to identify armed prohibited persons and
confiscate their firearms, Justice should manage staff priorities to meet both its statutory deadline
for firearms background checks and its internal deadline for initially reviewing potential prohibited
persons. Justice should report annually to the Legislature about the backlog of unreviewed potential
prohibited persons and what factors have prohibited it from efficiently reviewing these persons.

Pending

13–16

To ensure that potential armed prohibited person cases do not wait too long for their first review
by the APPS unit, by December 31, 2013, Justice should revise its goal for the daily queue to a
more challenging level of no more than a maximum of 400 to 600 cases. Justice should monitor its
performance against this goal and manage staff priorities as needed to meet it.

Partially
Implemented

13–16

To ensure that it meets its goal of eliminating the historical backlog of reviewing firearms owners by
the end of 2016, Justice should manage its staff resources to continually address the backlog, and
should notify the Legislature if it believes that it will not be able to fully process this backlog by its
goal date. To help guide this effort, Justice should establish benchmarks that will indicate whether it
is on track to meet its goal.

Partially
Implemented

16–18

To ensure that it has the necessary information to identify armed prohibited persons with mental
illness, Justice should coordinate with the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) at least once
a year to share information about court‑reporting levels and to determine the need to distribute
additional information to courts about reporting requirements and the manner in which to report.
In coordinating with the AOC about potential underreporting, at a minimum, Justice should consider
trends in the number of reports each court sends and the number of reports that it might expect to
receive from a court given the court’s size, location, and reporting history. Whenever Justice identifies
a court that it determines may not be reporting all required information, it should request that the
court forward all required case information.

Partially
Implemented*

18–20

continued on next page . . .

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RECOMMENDATION

To ensure that it keeps an accurate and up-to-date list of all mental health facilities that are
required to report individuals with mental illness, at least twice a year Justice should update its
outreach list of mental health facilities by obtaining a list of facilities from the California Department
of Health Care Services.
As soon as it identifies mental health facilities that have not yet received information about
reporting requirements and the online reporting system, Justice should send these facilities the
related information.
To ensure that it continues to receive information from facilities that currently report individuals with
mental illness and that should continue to report such individuals, by January 31, 2014, and at least
twice a year thereafter, Justice should implement a review of the number of reports it receives from
individual mental health facilities. These reviews should focus on identifying any significant drops in
a facility’s reporting levels and include follow‑up with facilities that may require additional assistance
in reporting.

STATUS

PAGES WHERE
RECOMMENDATIONS AND
ACTIONS ARE DISCUSSED

Partially
Implemented*

20–21

Fully Implemented

20–21

Partially
Implemented*

22–23

Sources:  Selected recommendations made in the report by the California State Auditor (state auditor) titled Armed Persons with Mental Illness:
Insufficient Outreach From the Department of Justice and Poor Reporting From Superior Courts Limit the Identification of Armed Persons With Mental Illness,
Report 2013-103 (October 2013) and the state auditor’s analysis of Justice’s actions related to the recommendations.
*	 The state auditor originally considered these recommendations to be fully implemented based on documentation submitted by Justice that
indicated it had fully implemented our recommendation. However, when we conducted our follow-up audit we determined that Justice had not
implemented the recommendations as its documentation led us to believe. Therefore, we have changed the status of these recommendations to be
partially implemented.

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