BILL ANALYSIS Ó ----------------------------------------------------------------- |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 114| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- 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 León, 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 CONTINUED SB 114 Page 2 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: CONTINUED SB 114 Page 3 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 CONTINUED SB 114 Page 4 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 **** END **** CONTINUED