BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó







                      SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
                            Senator Loni Hancock, Chair              S
                             2013-2014 Regular Session               B

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          SB 114 (Pavley)                                             
          As Introduced January 15, 2013 
          Hearing date:  April 2, 2013
          Welfare and Institutions Code
          AA:mc

             SEXUALLY EXPLOITED MINORS PILOT PROJECT - LOS ANGELES COUNTY  


                                       HISTORY

          Source:  Children's Advocacy Institute

          Prior Legislation: SB 1279 (Pavley) - Ch. 116, Stats. 2010
                       AB 499 (Swanson) - Ch. 359, Stats. 2008

          Support: California Narcotic Officers' Association; California  
                   Police Chiefs Association; Inc.; California Public  
                   Defenders Association; California State Sheriffs'  
                   Association; The American Congress of Obstetricians and  
                   Gynecologists

          Opposition:None known
           


                                         KEY ISSUE
           
          SHOULD THE SUNSET DATE FOR THE DISCRETIONARY PILOT PROJECT IN LOS  
          ANGELES COUNTY REGARDING the development of a comprehensive,  
          multidisciplinary model reflecting the best practices for the  
          response of law enforcement and the criminal and juvenile justice  
          systems to identify, assess and address the needs of commercially  




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                                                            SB 114 (Pavley)
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          sexually exploited children who have been arrested or detained by  
          local law enforcement FOR PROSTITUTION CRIMES BE EXTENDED 3 YEARS?




                                       PURPOSE

          The purpose of this bill is to extend by 3 years the sunset date  
          for the discretionary pilot project in Los Angeles County  
          regarding the development of a comprehensive, multidisciplinary  
          model reflecting the best practices for the response of law  
          enforcement and the criminal and juvenile justice systems to  
          identify, assess and address the needs of commercially sexually  
          exploited children who have been arrested or detained by local  
          law enforcement for prostitution crimes.

           Current law  statutorily authorizes the County of Los Angeles,  
          contingent upon local funding, to establish a pilot project to  
          develop a comprehensive, replicative, multidisciplinary model to
          address the needs and effective treatment of commercially  
          sexually exploited minors who have been arrested or detained by  
          local law enforcement, as specified.  (Welfare and Institutions  
          Code ("WIC") § 18259.7.)  

           Current law  sunsets these provisions on January 1, 2014.  (WIC §  
          18259.10.)

           This bill  would extend this sunset three years to January 1,  
          2017.   

                    RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION

          For the last several years, severe overcrowding in California's  
          prisons has been the focus of evolving and expensive litigation  
          relating to conditions of confinement.  On May 23, 2011, the  
          United States Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its  
          prison population to 137.5 percent of design capacity within two  
          years from the date of its ruling, subject to the right of the  
          state to seek modifications in appropriate circumstances.  




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                                                            SB 114 (Pavley)
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          Beginning in early 2007, Senate leadership initiated a policy to  
          hold legislative proposals which could further aggravate the  
          prison overcrowding crisis through new or expanded felony  
          prosecutions.  Under the resulting policy known as "ROCA" (which  
          stands for "Receivership/ Overcrowding Crisis Aggravation"), the  
          Committee held measures which created a new felony, expanded the  
          scope or penalty of an existing felony, or otherwise increased  
          the application of a felony in a manner which could exacerbate  
          the prison overcrowding crisis.  Under these principles, ROCA  
          was applied as a content-neutral, provisional measure necessary  
          to ensure that the Legislature did not erode progress towards  
          reducing prison overcrowding by passing legislation which would  
          increase the prison population.  ROCA necessitated many hard and  
          difficult decisions for the Committee.

          In January of 2013, just over a year after the enactment of the  
          historic Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011, the State of  
          California filed court documents seeking to vacate or modify the  
          federal court order to reduce the state's prison population to  
          137.5 percent of design capacity.  The State submitted in part  
          that the, ". . .  population in the State's 33 prisons has been  
          reduced by over 24,000 inmates since October 2011 when public  
          safety realignment went into effect, by more than 36,000 inmates  
          compared to the 2008 population . . . , and by nearly 42,000  
          inmates since 2006 . . . ."  Plaintiffs, who oppose the state's  
          motion, argue in part that, "California prisons, which currently  
          average 150% of capacity, and reach as high as 185% of capacity  
          at one prison, continue to deliver health care that is  
          constitutionally deficient."  

          In an order dated January 29, 2013, the federal court granted  
          the state a six-month extension to achieve the 137.5 % prisoner  
          population cap by December 31st of this year.  

          The ongoing litigation indicates that prison capacity and  
          related issues concerning conditions of confinement remain  
          unsettled.  However, in light of the real gains in reducing the  
          prison population that have been made, although even greater  
          reductions are required by the court, the Committee will review  




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          each ROCA bill with more flexible consideration.  The following  
          questions will inform this consideration:

                 whether a measure erodes realignment;
                 whether a measure addresses a crime which is directly  
               dangerous to the physical safety of others for which there  
               is no other reasonably appropriate sanction; 
                 whether a bill corrects a constitutional infirmity or  
               legislative drafting error; 
                 whether a measure proposes penalties which are  
               proportionate, and cannot be achieved through any other  
               reasonably appropriate remedy; and
                 whether a bill addresses a major area of public safety  
               or criminal activity for which there is no other  
               reasonable, appropriate remedy.


                                      COMMENTS

          1.  Stated Need for This Bill; Author's Amendments

           The author states:

               This bill seeks to extend the sunset date on the Los  
               Angeles County pilot program for sexually exploited  
               youth.  Currently, the program is set to sunset  
               January 1, 2014.  This bill would extend the sunset by  
               three years.

          The author intends to amend this bill to also change the date in  
          Welfare and Institutions Code section 18259.7(e) concerning a  
          report to the Legislature from April 1, 2013, to April 1, 2016,  
          to reflect the sunset change proposed by the bill.

          2. Background
           
          In 2008, the Legislature passed AB 499 (Swanson) to authorize a  
          pilot project in Alameda County intended "to encourage the  
          development of a comprehensive, multidisciplinary model  
          reflecting the best practices for the response of law  




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          enforcement and the criminal and juvenile justice systems to  
          identify and assess commercially sexually exploited children who  
          have been arrested or detained by local law enforcement."  In  
          2010, the Legislature passed a virtually 








































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          identical bill to pilot the same kind of project in Los Angeles.  
           This bill extends the sunset on the Los Angeles project from  
          January 1, 2014, to January 1, 2017.  This sunset mirrors the  
          sunset date for the Alameda County project.

          3.  Sexually Exploited Minors and the Criminal Justice System
            
           News articles over the last few years have highlighted the  
          problem of child and teen prostitutes.  For example, the Contra  
          Costa Times in 2008 reported, "last year, of the 443 females  
          arrested for prostitution in Oakland, 29 were juvenile cases. ?   
          Meanwhile, police have only just started to quantify the problem  
          and have been working to nail down firm numbers. ?  Technology,  
          the Internet, and cell phones have all changed the game.  Pimps  
          now use technology to sell girls as young as 11 or 12 on the  
          street."<1>  Similarly, an Oakland Tribune article from earlier  
          this year described efforts to address child prostitutes as  
          victims rather than criminal offenders:


               The majority of youngsters involved in the sex trade  
               have been abused or neglected.  Almost all the  
               youngsters on the streets have run away from a home  
               situation they find untenable. 



               "A lot of these young girls are foster care youth and  
               kids not connected to any family system," said Brian  
               Bob, outreach coordinator for Covenant House, a  
               nonprofit homeless shelter for youth that drives a van  
               around Oakland five nights a week to provide food and,  
               if they'll accept it, shelter to homeless youngsters.  
               The vast majority of homeless girls Covenant House  
               finds are prostitutes, he said. 




               ----------------------
          <1>   Dunlap, Kamika, Cops Treating Child Prostitutes as  
          Victims, Contra Costa Times, April 23, 2008.  



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               . . .   



               Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Sharmin  
               Eshraghi Bock, who prosecutes human exploitation and  
               trafficking cases, said many young girls who fall into  
               prostitution have never known a loving family, so they  
               mistake a pimp's affection and promises of material  
               things for love. 



               . . .   



               Sexually Abused and Commercially Exploited Youth, an  
               Oakland-based counseling program, last year surveyed 100  
               children ages 11 to 17 who had been peddled on the  
               streets and referred for counseling. 



               They found that 75 percent of the children had been  
               raped at some time in their lives, 48 percent had been  
               physically or sexually abused, and 70 percent had been  
               assaulted while working the streets.



               Most respondents were runaways: Eighty-eight percent  
               said they had run away from their family home or a  
               foster care home.  . . .



               Nola Brantley, coordinator of the SACEY counseling program,  
               said the child prostitution epidemic in Oakland can be  
               partially blamed on an overtaxed police system. 












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               "There are cases of severe child abuse in Oakland that  
               will go uninvestigated and not prosecuted because of  
               lack of manpower," Brantley said.  "Some of these same  
               children who were abused and nobody intervened will go  
               on to become sexually exploited minors."<2> 


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          <2>   Barbara Grady, Many Child Prostitutes Seeking Shelter,  
          Oakland Tribune, April 22, 2008.