Just when you think California can’t get anymore bizarre, the California legislature has passed a bill that will make child prostitution legal beginning January 1st. SB 1322 bars children, girls and boys, from being arrested for prostitution or for soliciting prostitution on the streets. From the Washington Examiner:
This terribly destructive legislation was written and passed by the progressive Democrats who control California’s state government with a two-thirds “supermajority.” To their credit, they are sincere in their belief that decriminalizing underage prostitution is good public policy that will help victims of sex trafficking. Unfortunately, the reality is that the legalization of underage prostitution suffers from the fatal defect endemic to progressive-left policymaking: it ignores experience, common sense and most of all human nature — especially its darker side.
The unintended but predictable consequence of how the real villains — pimps and other traffickers in human misery — will respond to this new law isn’t difficult to foresee. Pimping and pandering will still be against the law whether it involves running adult women or young girls. But legalizing child prostitution will only incentivize the increased exploitation of underage girls. Immunity from arrest means law enforcement can’t interfere with minors engaging in prostitution — which translates into bigger and better cash flow for the pimps. Simply put, more time on the street and less time in jail means more money for pimps, and more victims for them to exploit.
So pimps will use underage girls because those children will not be subject to arrest. Better for the pimps! This is a terrible bill that will hurt children. Are California legislators really this clueless? Apparently so.
Only in California. More here.
28 comments
This article is another example of “fake news” that is deliberately spread by the likes of the “Washington Examiner” and The Bull Elephant.
Earlier this year, California made a long-overdue change in the law. Minors who are too young to legally consent to sex can no longer be arrested for prostitution. Instead, the children are treated as sexual abuse victims, just like they would if money hadn’t changed hands.
Regardless of one’s views on legalizing/decriminalizing prostitution, trafficking victims deserve a safe harbor, not a jail cell. The pimp still goes to jail. The customer still goes to jail. Police are still allowed to intervene in child trafficking, just like they are with any other form of child abuse.
The Washington Examiner ran a headline claiming that California “legalized child prostitution.” This false claim has been all over social media for the last couple of days.
Watching the story bounce around on social media has been a bit surreal. Even after having it clearly explained what the law does and doesn’t do, people kept insisting that the change creates an “incentive” for pimps to target kids. In fact, the opposite is true. Previously, a trafficking victim had every reason to be afraid to seek help, knowing
that she (or he) would be arrested along with the pimp and johns.
I even saw it argued that trafficking victims should be arrested as “leverage” to get them to testify against the pimps. By that logic, we should arrest all child abuse victims, not just trafficking. Hell, let’s just arrest all victims of any crime!
It’s hard to know how many of the retweets and whatnot were from people who were genuinely misinformed, and how many were cynically using the issue to deliberately spread fake news. However, given the track record of the rightwing propaganda machine, the motivation likely is spreading fake news.
If you don’t arrest the child, how will you know who to get as a witness? This amounts to decriminalizing child prostitution because the law will be unable to establish a chain of evidence.
Perhaps you folks should do more than rely on the “Washington Examiner,” whose habit is to not report the entire story.
Child prostitution is being decriminalized because, if a child is arrested and charged with prostitution, that child now has a criminal record and often goes to jail.
Under the new legislation, the pimp continues to be charged with a crime. The child is not charged with a crime. Instead the child goes into monitored, controlled foster care.
Sounds like a good idea . . . don’t throw children away for something they are being forced into.
No they don’t go into foster care. The kids go into dead in the street when the pimp cuts his losses, and witnesses.
CA does a lot of things that don’t make sense. So one more wouldn’t surprise me. But this isn’t one of their bad ideas, even though there is some controversy about it and efforts to decriminalize child prostitutes have been misunderstood.
FWIW, I believe that prostitution / paid sex work is socially harmful and should generally be illegal. Trafficking in children is the lowest of the low acts and should be severely punished. But the children shouldn’t be punished. They are the victims.
This law is the result of the proposition that child trafficking victims shouldn’t have to choose between years on the streets and years in jail. There is actually much more to it than meets the eye. I’ve been following anti-human trafficking policy for more than a decade now, and decriminalization of child prostitutes (not child prostitution) is a huge part of the strategy for stopping traffickers. It’s called “safe harbor” legislation. This works for two main reasons: (1) it takes away a tool that traffickers and pimps use to silence their victims “you tell on me, you’ll go to jail because what you are doing is illegal and I’m just ‘helping’ you,” and (2) it gives victims a better chance at leaving the sex trade and recovering because they don’t have a criminal record. In addition, anti-human trafficking legislative packages often include steeper penalties for traffickers and pimps who use underage children in their criminal enterprise.
As a note, Virginia is doing pretty well when it comes to going after traffickers but there is room for improvement when it comes to victim’s assistance. The GA could to consider safe harbor legislation / not prosecuting child victims and providing a way to vacate the convictions of trafficking victims. See the 2014 state rankings from the Polaris Project: https://polarisproject.org/sites/default/files/2014-State-Ratings.pdf
Thanks very much Eve for your informed comments.
Thanks for keeping an eye out for interesting stories.
I have to disagree here even though I believe the child should be protected. Prostitution involves pimps, clients and prostitutes. Criminalize it all and then through sentencing make sure children are basically excused after the fact. This California legislation amounts to the a priori excusing of prostitution. It will quickly be used by the pimps to skirt the law – I was only helping the child as opposed to participating in a crime.
By the way, give the pimps of children mandatory 20 year prison sentences or even life in prison without parole. If you want to stop something, including murder, rape and robbery, you make sure the sentences are quite stiff and the prison condition at least as poor as the ghettos in many cities. Virginia has an excellent and expedited death penalty statute and many professional murderers go to other states to kill as the risk upon capture is much lower.
I have deleted a post by the OId Redneck because he is once again engaging in name calling. Warning, do not call anyone names, particularly the owner of the blog who has the power to delete your comment.
So . . . the next time I or another Democrat is referred to as a “libtard,” you will delete that post?
Of course not. That’s not the way you republicans work.
If he calls ME that, yes I will delete it.
Yes, it is your blog Jeanine, and you can do as you please.
What would be a more acceptable, less offensive version of libtard? Fuzzy-thinking leftist? Easily-triggered democrat party luminary? Ancient Alien theorist?
It’s long past time for the Almighty to send the “Big One” and allow most of California to slide into the Pacific. IMHO.
Yes, let’s encourage them to succeed.
Now that the Republicans are in charge, the rising oceans will correct California as well as give Loudoun County beach frontage — just a brief Metro stop away for sun and sand.
I, too, fear that God is just.
Once again, the Lovettsville Dimwit shows us that she gets her information from those blast emails that shriek THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.
As it now stands, a child arrested for prostitution can be . . . and they frequently are . .. . charged with a crime, thereby stamping that child with a lifelong criminal record.
Under the new law, the child is not charged with anything and is not arrested. Instead, the child is placed in controlled, monitored foster care, much of which is run by church groups. The pimp is still arrested, charged, and tried.
Of course, the response here on the Bullshitting Elephant is typical of you people . . . rave, rant, accuse without the facts. I guess you’d rather see victimized children continue to be victimized, this time by the state, rather than have the children rescued from the people who are abusing them and put into a normal environment. Typical republican moral values.
Democrats are a danger to society and this only proves it yet again. If any republican in the future thinks they just can’t bear to vote for a republican candidate they don’t like (yes, nevertrumpers I’m thinking of you), just remember this one bill.
The cynic in me wants to believe groups like the North American Man-Boy Love Alliance (NAMBLA) are behind this so they can continue to prey on children.
Islam accepts sex with very young boys and girls. You have to wonder if this foreshadows Rotterdam’s scandal where thousands of British girls were groomed into prostitution.
These Californians are promoting an horrific assault on children and probably in the name of multicultural practices brought by foreigners.
Rotterdam?
I was stationed in Europe in the 1960’s between tours in Vietnam. Even the — 50 years ago — the ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam were home to famous red light districts featuring men, boys, women, and girls of every nationality, skin color, and “performance ability.” The practices dates back to the age of European exploration and is nothing new, though it is sordid and evil.
I doubt that thousands of British girls are being “groomed.” Likely no more than the usual few lost lambs who head for Amsterdam or Rotterdam.
You rightwingerdingers really do need to get out more, especially to the rest of the world where it will shock you to discover that most of the rest of the world is different from you and they are perfectly happy with it.
Apparently, you don’t bother to read much about the UK. Not surprising as you live in the globalist totalitarian bubble. The Rotterdam “grooming” made national news in the UK and has been widely reported elsewhere around the world – easily checked by using google. The scandal and criminality of the “grooming” had been ignored for years by the UK politicians because to investigate would have blown the lid off of their suppression of negative information about the muslim population. Unfortunately, thousands of British girls suffered while the politicians looked the other way. I suspect that the California politicians are now quite happy to have established the equivalent of the Rotterdam “grooming” – and they have done it in the open for all to see. Bravo for depravity seems to be their and your moral compass.
By the way, wikipedia has a quite thorough report on the Rotterdam scandal but I suspect you either won’t check it out or already know about how bad the situation really was and is.
Old Redneck. It is Rotherham England. Here is the wiki story which mentions 1400 girls. Now, I know it is very hard for you white progressives to ever admit that non-whites can be bad people, as you need their votes. But in this particular case, Pakistani men committed outrageous acts because of white progressives who refused to take action against people of color – just as you would. Here is the link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
If 1400 are known, imagine how many are unknown. Cologne started with a few incidents of Muslim sexual aggression and now counts over a thousand. The situation is so serious that Cologne has radically increased its police presence and the military is involved. Then there are likely to be rape whistles handed out. What was once a peaceful party is now garrisoned. This is the world of old red neck.
This guy is a liar. He claims to be everything. DO NOT believe anything he says.
No doubt somebody’s money is behind this legislation. It’s what comes out of a corrupt political system.
Maybe it’s just goodwill from the Clinton foundation. After all, Bill has to find a new hangout after all the fake news stories concerning his Randy Resort trists.
California is ridiculous. Does this also nullify statutory rape laws or can the older predators still be arrested?