BILL ANALYSIS �
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 114|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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THIRD READING
Bill No: SB 114
Author: Pavley (D)
Amended: 4/10/13
Vote: 21
SENATE PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE : 7-0, 4/2/13
AYES: Hancock, Anderson, Block, De Le�n, Knight, Liu, Steinberg
SUBJECT : Commercially sexually exploited minors
SOURCE : Childrens Advocacy Institute
DIGEST : This bill extends the sunset date to January 1, 2017,
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, and extends the sunset
date for the District Attorney of Los Angeles to submit a report
to the Legislature to April 1, 2016.
ANALYSIS :
Existing law:
1. Statutorily authorizes the County of Los Angeles, contingent
upon local funding, to establish a pilot project to develop a
comprehensive, replicative, multidisciplinary model to
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address the needs and effective treatment of commercially
sexually exploited minors who have been arrested or detained
by local law enforcement, as specified.
2. Sunsets these provisions on January 1, 2014.
This bill:
1. Extends this sunset date three years to January 1, 2017, for
the discretionary pilot project in Los Angeles County.
2. Extends the sunset date three years to April 1, 2016 for the
District Attorney for the County of Los Angeles to submit a
report to the Legislature summarizing activities of the pilot
project, as specified.
Background
In 2008, the Legislature passed AB 499 (Swanson, Chapter 359,
Statutes of 2008) 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 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
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.
Sexually exploited minors and the criminal justice system .
According to the author's office, 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." Similarly, an Oakland Tribune article from earlier
this year described efforts to address child prostitutes as
victims rather than criminal offenders:
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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.
. . .
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.
"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
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were abused and nobody intervened will go on to become
sexually exploited minors."
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No Local:
No
SUPPORT : (Verified 4/10/13)
Children's Advocacy Institute (source)
American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
California Narcotic Officers' Association
California Police Chiefs Association, Inc.
California Public Defenders Association
California State Sheriffs' Association
JG:k 4/10/13 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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