BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair A
2011-2012 Regular Session B
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AB 799 (Swanson)
As Amended April 11, 2011
Hearing date: June 7, 2011
Welfare and Institutions Code
AA:mc
SEXUALLY EXPLOITED MINORS PILOT PROJECT:
ALAMEDA COUNTY
HISTORY
Source: Author
Prior Legislation: AB 499 (Swanson) - Ch. 359, Statutes of 2008
Support: California District Attorneys Association; Junior
Leagues of California; Alameda County
Board of Supervisors; California State Sheriffs' Association;
Child Abuse
Prevention Center; California Probation Parole and Correctional
Association; AFSCME, AFL-CIO; Eta Nu Omega Chapter of Alpha
Kappa Alpha Sorority
Incorporation; City of Oakland
Opposition:None known
Assembly Floor Vote: Ayes 62 - Noes 0
KEY ISSUES
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SHOULD THE ALAMEDA COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY BE REQUIRED TO
SUBMIT A REPORT TO THE LEGISLATURE REGARDING ALAMEDA'S SEXUALLY
EXPLOITED MINORS PILOT PROJECT SUBJECT TO LOCAL FUNDING, AS
SPECIFIED?
(CONTINUED)
SHOULD THE SUNSET ON THE STATUTE DESCRIBING THE ALAMEDA COUNTY PILOT
PROJECT RELATING TO SEXUALLY EXPLOITED MINORS BE EXTENDED FIVE
YEARS?
PURPOSE
The purpose of this bill is to extend the sunset of the existing
Alameda County pilot project relating to sexually exploited
minors five years, and to require the Alameda County district
attorney to provide a report to the Legislature on the pilot
contingent upon local funding and operation of the pilot, as
specified.
Existing law expressly authorizes Alameda County, 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 for" prostitution crimes, as specified.
These provisions sunset January 1, 2012. (Welfare and
Institutions Code � 18259 et seq.)
This bill would extend the sunset on these statutory provisions
five years, until January 1, 2017.
This bill additionally would require the District Attorney for
the County of Alameda, on or before April 1, 2016, to "submit a
report to the Legislature that summarizes the activities
performed by the district attorney pursuant to this section, so
that the Legislature may determine whether the pilot project
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should be extended or expanded to other counties prior to the
repeal of this chapter. . . . The report shall, at a minimum,
include the number of sexually exploited minors, if any,
diverted by the program . . . and a summary of the types of
services and alternate treatments provided to those minors."
This bill would provide that the report required by its
provisions "shall be contingent upon local funding, and shall be
required only if the County of Alameda establishes a pilot
project and the district attorney performs any of the activities
of the pilot project authorized by this chapter. The report
shall not include any information that would reveal the identity
of a specific sexually exploited minor."
RECEIVERSHIP/OVERCROWDING CRISIS AGGRAVATION
For the last several years, severe overcrowding in California's
prisons has been the focus of evolving and expensive litigation.
As these cases have progressed, prison conditions have
continued to be assailed, and the scrutiny of the federal courts
over California's prisons has intensified.
On June 30, 2005, in a class action lawsuit filed four years
earlier, the United States District Court for the Northern
District of California established a Receivership to take
control of the delivery of medical services to all California
state prisoners confined by the California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation ("CDCR"). In December of 2006,
plaintiffs in two federal lawsuits against CDCR sought a
court-ordered limit on the prison population pursuant to the
federal Prison Litigation Reform Act. On January 12, 2010, a
three-judge federal panel issued an order requiring California
to reduce its inmate population to 137.5 percent of design
capacity -- a reduction at that time of roughly 40,000 inmates
-- within two years. The court stayed implementation of its
ruling pending the state's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
On May 23, 2011, the United States Supreme Court upheld the
decision of the three-judge panel in its entirety, giving
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California two years from the date of its ruling to reduce its
prison population to 137.5 percent of design capacity, subject
to the right of the state to seek modifications in appropriate
circumstances.
In response to the unresolved prison capacity crisis, in early
2007 the Senate Committee on Public Safety began holding
legislative proposals which could further exacerbate prison
overcrowding through new or expanded felony prosecutions.
This bill does not appear to aggravate the prison overcrowding
crisis described above.
COMMENTS
1. Stated Need for This Bill
The author states:
The pilot project established by AB 499 will sunset on
January 1, 2012. AB 799 will extend the sunset by
five years to maintain the integrity and continuity of
this important diversion program.
2. What This Bill Would Do
As explained above, 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 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." AB 499, now codified, contains the following
discretionary features for a pilot in Alameda County:
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Development of a comprehensive, multidisciplinary model
to address the needs and effective treatment of
commercially sexually exploited minors who have been
arrested or detained by local law enforcement for
solicitation<1> or loitering with the intent to commit
prostitution.<2>
Development of protocols for identifying and assessing
minors, upon arrest or detention by law enforcement, who
may be victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
Development of a diversion program reflecting the best
practices to address the needs and requirements of arrested
or detained minors who have been determined to be victims
of commercial sexual exploitation.
Formation of a multidisciplinary team to (1) develop a
training curriculum reflecting the best practices for
identifying and assessing minors who may be victims of
commercial sexual exploitation, and (2) offer and provide
this training curriculum through multidisciplinary teams to
law enforcement, child protective services, and others who
are required to respond to arrested or detained minors who
may be victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
"Commercially sexually exploited minor" means a person under 18
years of age who has been detained for a violation of the law or
placed in civil protective custody on a safety hold based only
on a violation of prostitution or pimping crimes, as specified.
This bill would require the Alameda District Attorney to submit
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<1> Specifically, a violation of subdivision (a) or (b) of
Section 647.
<2> Specifically, a violation of subdivision (a) of Section
653.22.
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a report on this pilot, subject to local funding, as specified.
The bill also extends the sunset on the statutory language for
five years to 2017.
2. Status of Pilot
As explained in the Assembly Public Safety Committee analysis of
this bill:
The pilot project authorized under AB 499 (Swanson),
Chapter 359, Statutes of 2008, is part of a larger
project called "H.E.A.T (Human Exploitation and
Trafficking) Watch." H.E.A.T Watch is "an innovative,
multi-level blueprint designed to combat the H.E.A.T.
epidemic victimizing our youth, plaguing our
communities, and impacting our businesses." �A.C.D.A.O,
Alameda County District Attorney's Office Unveils
H.E.A.T. Watch, (as of
March 31, 2011).]
In a March 23, 2011, progress report on the AB 499
Diversion Program, the A.C.D.A.O stated: "As a result
of the passage of AB 499, the �A.C.D.A.O.] has been able
to develop a comprehensive system response that directs
CSEC away from
the criminal justice system and into programs offering
specialized services essential for the stabilization,
safety, and recovery of these vulnerable children. . .
.
Raising awareness and creating the infrastructure
necessary to respond to this epidemic is an important
first step. Though funding has until recently been
lacking for Alameda County to launch a formal diversion
program, the passage of AB 499 enabled A.C.D.A.O. to
officially commence the necessary and important process
of collaborating with systems and community based
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organizations (CBOs) to forge alliances, build
infrastructure, and design an effective and responsive
program. Since the passage of AB 499, A.C.D.A.O. staff
and Consultant Julie Posadas Guzman convened working
groups to assess the existing response and discuss the
design and implementation of a Diversion Program
acceptable to all key partners . . . After much
productive discussion and thoughtful deliberation,
Julie Guzman of JPG Consultants produced a Concept
Paper setting forth the design and recommendations for
the AB 499 Diversion Program. . . .
In partnership with Child Abuse Interviewing, Listening
and Coordination Center (CALICO), A.C.D.A.O. recently
applied for and obtained a federal grant to pilot the
program for a 1 year run starting in April 2011. CSEC
girls have been identified for the program and Alameda
County Presiding Juvenile Judge Trina Thompson and
Judge Tara Desautels, who have taken a leadership role
in facilitating and implementing the Diversion Program,
will be handling all AB 499 Diversion Court cases in
another new model program underway in Alameda County -
Girls Court. AB 499 provided the impetus for Girls
Court, which will prove to be an ideal forum for the
identification, recovery, and decriminalization of CSEC
in the Diversion Program. The extension of AB 499 will
support the success of the Diversion Program and Girl's
Court.
Despite the absence of funding and a formalized
Diversion Program, the existence of AB 499 strongly
supported the A.C.D.A.O.'s ongoing commitment to ensure
CSEC receive necessary supports and programs that
address their individualized needs. A.C.D.A.O.'s
partnership with the City of Oakland's Measure Y
Initiative has enabled hundreds of identified CSEC to
be referred to CBOs . . . 2008-2010 data from the City
of Oakland showed over 400 identified CSEC were
referred to community based services in the county.
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Even with the Diversion Program 'under construction,'
AB 499 produced impressive results. A.C.D.A.O. Deputy
District Attorney Ursula Dixon, who was in charge of
launching the AB 499 program, estimates that from
February 2009 to October 2010, she saw close to 100
CSEC, and half of those children were amenable to
diversion, meaning they were willing to receive
services and did not have a juvenile history or other
pending cases which would preclude their participation
in a services only response. Quantifying the results
of AB 499 beyond this number has been a challenge due
to lack of data compilation and information sharing
between agencies such as Probation and Social
Services. Since AB 499 enabled agencies to start
sharing aggregate data on this population, the
extension of the legislation will enable more in-depth
and accurate numbers related to CSEC who interface
with multiple systems and agencies within both the
�jurisdiction] and the region.
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The existence of AB 499 has also supported A.C.D.A.O.'s
efforts to bring together key stakeholders to develop
a comprehensive system response that diverts CSEC away
from criminalization while decreasing their continued
risk of re-victimization and recidivism. For example,
AB 499 enabled the A.C.D.A.O. to convene county
agencies such as law enforcement, Probation, Social
Services, Public Defender, and CSEC specific CBOs to
review all cases �where] CSECs have been identified by
law enforcement in the jurisdiction. These 'Safety
Net' meetings commenced in January of 2011. To date,
over 50 CSEC cases have been assessed through this
innovative multi-disciplinary team (MDT) model and
CSEC are currently being identified in Safety as
appropriate candidates for the Diversion Program.
Since many of the youth identified in Safety Net are
not residents of Alameda County, A.C.D.A.O. has also
utilized information attained from these weekly
meetings to develop strategic partnerships and share
best practices with neighboring counties for CSEC
cases that are multi-jurisdictional in nature.
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."<3> Similarly, an Oakland Tribune article from 2008
described efforts to address child prostitutes as victims rather
than criminal offenders:
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<3> Dunlap, Kamika, Cops Treating Child Prostitutes as
Victims, Contra Costa Times, April 23, 2008.
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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
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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 were abused and nobody intervened will go
on to become sexually exploited minors."<4>
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<4> Barbara Grady, Many Child Prostitutes Seeking Shelter,
Oakland Tribune, April 22, 2008.