California Legislators, Don’t Back Those Bills

California’s human-trafficking industry is scandalously large. In 2015, approximately 293 cases of trafficking involving minors were reported by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. This year, the tally has already hit 200 such cases. Rather than accepting the advice of the authorities who work with victims, California lawmakers have chosen a different route: to pass bills that work in theory, not reality.

Last week, the California state legislature sent SB 823 and SB 1322 to Governor Jerry Brown. The bills seek to decriminalize prostitution for minors and, as SB 823 states, allow “a person arrested or convicted of a nonviolent crime while he or she was a human trafficking victim to apply to the court to vacate the conviction and seal and destroy records of arrest.”

“All we are doing in perpetuating current law is saying, ‘You are not the victim, you are the criminal,’” Democratic assemblyman Mark Stone said. “Let’s say collectively there is no such thing as a child prostitute because there is no such thing as a child prostitute.”

But no one is disputing whether there is such thing as a child prostitute. The debate is over determining the best way to put an end to the sex trafficking that has plagued California’s largest cities.

Sean Hoffman, the director of legislation for the California District Attorneys Association, spoke in opposition to the bills, explaining that everyone agrees that prostitutes under 18 are victims, not criminals. “Where we differ is in how much faith we have in the dependency side of the juvenile system to effectively handle this population,” he said.