BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2035
Page A
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 2035 (Chesbro)
As Amended May 23, 2014
Majority vote
HUMAN SERVICES 6-0 APPROPRIATIONS 17-0
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|Ayes:|Stone, Maienschein, |Ayes:|Gatto, Bigelow, |
| |Ammiano, | |Bocanegra, Bradford, Ian |
| |Ian Calderon, Garcia, | |Calderon, Campos, |
| |Hall | |Donnelly, Eggman, Gomez, |
| | | |Holden, Jones, Linder, |
| | | |Pan, Quirk, |
| | | |Ridley-Thomas, Wagner, |
| | | |Weber |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Clarifies that a juvenile who is determined to be a
victim of commercial or sexual exploitation may be rendered a
dependent of the court and increases training requirements on
individuals required to provide assistance and support to
commercially and sexually exploited children (CSEC) who are
rendered a dependent or delinquent of the court. Specifically,
this bill :
1)Defines a "child trafficking victim" as an individual under
the age of 18 who meets any of the following conditions:
a) Is a victim of human trafficking, as specified;
b) Is involved in prostitution, pornography, or stripping;
or,
c) Is engaged in survival sex, which is defined as the
exchange of sex for money or other considerations,
including food or shelter, in order to ensure his or her
survival.
2)Permits a juvenile court to adjudge a child a dependent of the
court if he or she is a victim of sexual exploitation,
receives food or shelter for, or is paid to perform, sexual
acts, and the parent or guardian fails or is unable to protect
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the child, as specified.
3)Requires instruction on cultural competency and sensitivity
relating to, and best practices for, providing adequate care
to sexually exploited and trafficked minors in out-of-home
care to be included in the following training programs:
a) Group home administrator certification training
programs;
b) Pre and post-placement foster parent certified training
programs;
c) Community college relative and nonrelative extended
family member (NREFM) foster care education programs; and,
d) Mandated reporter training programs.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee:
1)Unknown, potential minor net increase in annual child welfare
services costs (General Fund) to the extent sexually exploited
and trafficked minors are placed under the jurisdiction of the
juvenile dependency court.
2)One-time costs of $10,000 (General Fund) to develop new
curriculum component to the required training program for
foster care providers. Annual costs of $65,000 to provide
training for this new component to foster caregivers.
COMMENTS : Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) of children is
defined as the sexual exploitation of children entirely, or at
least primarily, for financial or other economic reasons. Under
this definition, the economic exchanges may be either monetary
or non-monetary (i.e., for food, shelter, drugs).<1> Sex
trafficking of minors is defined as the "recruitment, harboring,
transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the
purpose of a commercial sex act" where the person is a U.S.
citizen or lawful permanent resident under the age of 18
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<1> Estes and Weiner. "The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of
Children In the U. S., Canada and Mexico." Univ. of PA, 2002.
http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/restes/CSEC_Files/Exec_Sum_020220.pdf
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years.<2>
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), there
are an estimated 100,000 children in the United States who are
abducted, manipulated, or forced into prostitution and sexual
exploitation each year, and another 300,000 or more who are at
risk of commercial sexual exploitation. However, it is likely
that this number is much greater due to the difficulty in
identifying commercially and sexually exploited children. It is
also estimated that anywhere between 50% and 80% of all children
who are commercially or sexually exploited are or have at one
time or another been involved with child welfare.
It is important to acknowledge the severe emotional and
psychological trauma a child undergoes when they are a victim of
sexual exploitation. Although it is reasonable to presume that
a child would seek escape or attempt to run away from his or her
abuser, for children who are commercially or sexually exploited,
oftentimes they have already run away from an undesirable
situation. Hungry, seeking a way to survive, and otherwise
facing the world alone, many CSEC are taken in, either through
abduction or coercion, and exploited by individuals who make
promises of caring and protection. This can result in CSEC
becoming willing participants in their own exploitation, where
the psychological trauma they suffer is similar to the trauma
that occurs in domestic violence victims.<3> Many CSEC display
symptoms of and suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, described as a
paradoxical psychological phenomenon where a positive bond
between hostage and captor occurs when the hostage views the
perpetrator as giving life by simply not taking it.
Child Welfare Services (CWS) - Dependency and Probation: In
California, there are generally two avenues that lead to a child
entering the state's child welfare or probation system. The
first is through child protective services. The other is
through law enforcement and county probation services. The
difference between the two is whether the child is at risk of
abuse, neglect or abandonment, or if the youth has been alleged
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<2> Smith et al. "The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex
Trafficking: America's Prostituted Youth." Shared Hope Int'l,
2009.
http://sharedhope.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/SHI_National_Rep
ort_on_DMST_2009.pdf
<3> Website: Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting, and Serving
Sexually Exploited Youth. "Who is a CSEC - CSEC: Framing the
Issue" http://www.misssey.org/csec.html#reference
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of committing a crime.
In cases where a child is suspected to be a victim of abuse,
neglect or abandonment, a county child welfare agency's (CWA)
child protective services social worker is required to
immediately investigate the complaint to determine its validity.
If suspected abuse, neglect or abandonment is found to be
valid, a child protective services social worker may remove the
child from the family and place the child into temporary
custody. Soon after that, before the juvenile court, the CWA is
required to recommend whether the child should become a
dependent of the state, can be immediately returned to their
family with or without court supervision, or placed into out of
home care, i.e. foster care. Once placed into foster care, the
child is provided a case plan that outlines his or her
placement, an array of services that he or she needs, and
assigned a social worker who is responsible for his or her
wellbeing, with the ultimate goal of reunifying the child with
their family or seeking a permanent placement, such as legal or
kinship guardianship or adoption.
For youth who are engaged by law enforcement due to an
allegation that the youth has committed a crime, a law
enforcement officer can take the child into temporary custody.
If the law enforcement is able and the crime is not serious,
generally the youth can be returned to their family if that is
in the child's best interest. However, if it is not in the
child's best interest to return the child his or her home,
where, for example, the child has no parent or relative to
return to, the minor is destitute and has no home, or returning
the child to the home would result in his or her abuse or
neglect, the child can be transferred to the custody of a county
probation officer. Upon adjudication of the youth for his or
her crime, typically, unless the crime is of a serious or
heinous nature, the youth is assigned to probation and placed
into a juvenile court facility, i.e. juvenile hall, or some
other form of appropriate yet secured facility. Similar to
dependency, a ward is provided a case plan that outlines his or
her needs, placement and services.
The struggle to appropriately address and serve CSEC: One of
the primary challenges California faces today is the ability to
appropriately identify, address and serve CSEC. Although CSEC
are victims and not perpetrators of sex crimes, many youth do
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not enter into dependency, but rather, have been arrested and
adjudicated as a ward of the court because, according to first
responders, law enforcement, and CWAs, our CWS lacks the
adequate ability to respond to and provide for CSEC. According
to a national report on "Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking -
America's Prostituted Children," issued by Shared Home
International and funded by a grant from the US Department of
Justice:
Law enforcement officers report they are often
compelled to charge a victim of domestic minor sex
trafficking with a delinquency offense in order to
detain her in a secured facility to keep her safe from
the trafficker/pimp and the trauma-driven response of
flight? The results are detrimental for the victim who
rarely receives any services in detention, much less
services specific to the trauma endured through sex
trafficking. Also, the entry of the juvenile into the
delinquency system can disqualify her from accessing
victim of crime funds for services in some states.<4>
This creates a paradigm whereby CSEC, who have been habitually
and repeatedly entrapped, forced to exchange sexual actions in
return for survival, is rescued by law enforcement, but is then
placed into another form of entrapment, e.g. incarceration,
because that is the only viable option law enforcement has to
protect CSEC from their abusers.
Some argue that the need to charge CSEC with a crime in order to
provide a safer and more secure environment through
incarceration is in direct correlation to the lack of a
community based infrastructure and the state statute's
prohibition on locked or otherwise secure facilities. For those
CWAs that do have systems and protocols in place to serve CSEC,
it is argued that it has taken years to have done so and only by
leveraging other resources outside of the CWS.
It is important to acknowledge the current deficiencies within
California's CWS, e.g. inadequate fiscal resources, shortage of
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<4> Smith, Linda A., et al. The National Report on Domestic
Minor Sex Trafficking: America's Prostituted Children. Shared
Hope International.
http://sharedhope.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/SHI_National_Rep
ort_on_DMST_2009.pdf
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staff and personnel, and lack of training and experience to
address and respond to a difficult to serve population.
However, it is equally as important, if not more, to acknowledge
that the current process of arresting a CSEC can result in the
re-victimization of the youth and lead to his or her
self-confirmation that he or she violated the law and is not a
victim of commercial and sexual exploitation.
Analysis Prepared by : Chris Reefe / HUM. S. / (916) 319-2089
FN: 0003826