Sacramento – Are Democrats in California weak when it comes to protecting minors from sexual trafficking?
It is a question that has caused chaos in the state capitol for more than a week. But really, it is a question that Republicans have been doing, and answering with a resonant yes, for years.
At the risk of declaring the obvious, I will let him know that California has some of the most difficult laws against sexual trafficking in the country, including the protection of minors. But for a long time it is about how laws regarding older adolescents, those 16 and 17 and even minors must be written and applied. I will explain why in a minute.
It is also obvious that adolescents should not be bought and sold by sex. That makes the problem a perennial winner for Republicans, who regularly present bills to harden the penalty of sexual crimes, demolish them by Democrats, and then the media campaigns that result in headlines such as the recent “California Democrats fight to protect the sex of purchase with children.”
The nuances about why some Democrats continue to vote harder sanctions are easily and difficult to explain when politicians discuss sexual trafficking. And the Democrats have inflicted this same wound so many times following this book of republican plays that the blood will not be washed.
The most recent manifestation of this long -term drama has a turn: a first -year Democrat in the Assembly wrote the bill that this year became the Republican weapon.
Maggy Krell (D-Sacramento), a former state prosecutor specialized in persons trafficking, wrote legislation a few weeks ago to close an escape in a previous law that dealt with the crime of requesting a minor by sex differently depending on the age of the minor.
A person who tries to buy sex from a child 15 years old or less, by current law, is probably committing a serious crime. But someone who tries to buy sex from a 16 or 17 year old is committing a crime that is a “bobler”, loadable as a serious crime or a minor crime in the first crime, at the discretion of the prosecutor, but demands that the minor prove that they are being trafficked for the highest crime.
As they have done in recent years when the Republicans floated the idea, Krell's Democratic colleagues demanded that the serious crime of their legislation be withdrawn. Krell finally agreed, a commitment to keep other parts of the bill alive, including a disposition to be illegal to lodge with the intention of buying sex.
But then he supported the Republicans when they made a scandal last week on the floor of the assembly, effectively going against their own party.
Chaos exploded, followed by madness.
The president of the Assembly, Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) removed the name of Krell of the bill and gave it instead to the Nick Schultz assembly (D-Burbank), also a former prosecutor, and the Stephanie Nguyen Assembly (D-Elk Grove). The Republicans had a field day with press releases, speeches and even began publishing ads on social networks accusing the Democrats of being soft with sexual crimes. Interestingly, the Democrats began publishing the same type of ads against Republicans.
Then, on Tuesday, Rivas and Schultz announced a detention with Krelll. Buy sex of a 16 or 17 year old man returns to the invoice as a serious crime: if the buyer is more than three years older than the person who is trafficked, and if the child can prove or not that they are being trafficked.
A committee listened to the new bill on Wednesday, with the name of Krell in it, and is now advancing in the legislature. There is a political conclusion and a meal to carry out all this.
The reason why some Democrats say they have blocked automatic crime in the past is difficult to follow. Basically, his argument says, an 18 -year -old could buy Taco Bell or a vape for a younger friend, and that could be considered a request for serious crime if sexual acts occurred. Frankly, I have trouble thinking that prosecutors would present these positions, but you never know.
The problem that really underlies this perennial fight and from which the Democrats seem to have more difficulties in speaking is philosophical. Some people in the progressive purpose of criminal justice reform, including some survivors of sexual trafficking, believe that the best way to combat abuse is to decriminalize sex work or even legalize it.
Decriminalization basically means not making many of the laws currently in books that lead to sex workers and arrested buyers, such as those laws regarding the application. It is not an impulse to stop arresting those who coercion or force people to traffic situations.
The speaker of the Robert Rivas Assembly (D-Hollister) stripped the name of the Maggy Krell Assembly (D-Sacrament) of a sex trafficking invoice, then restored it after reaching a commitment.
(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)
The idea is that many sex workers, including younger adults and those in the LGBTQ+community, are sex workers by choice or necessity, and to make up with long criminal records that prevent them from obtaining work or housing is not useful or fair, and chasing buyers simply makes their work more dangerous.
Soma Snakeoil, co -founder and executive director of the Sidewalk project, an organization that performs work against traffic and damage reduction, testified at the audience on Wednesday about that concern.
“We do not want to hear about the safety of survivors with hypercrimination invoices,” he told legislators. “This is an applying approach to the law for sexual trafficking and sex work. We need a public health approach.”
He added that if we do not like the “dirty and ugly truth” that some adolescents are forced to participate in sexual works to survive, especially vulnerable groups such as Foster Youth, we need to do more to provide homes and options for them.
That perspective goes hand in hand with the impulse of the years of the Democrats to address the overbarrow of black and brown people, which has led to the legislature rarely to add new serious crimes to the Criminal Code.
You may agree or disagree with those points of view, but it is worth discussing them. However, our current political mood, with proposal 36 (which increased some sanctions for drug crimes) approved by voters and Trump in the White House, has changed dramatically.
Sex trafficking is in the center of that turn.
Do you remember when Qanon spread conspiracies on international smuggling rings, including that the Wayfair retailer was in the heart of a scheme to sell children through furniture listings? That type of panic about sex traffic has been incorporated to the right, although the truth is that the most trafficked children are sold by someone they know: a father, a boyfriend, perhaps even by another young person who is themselves.
But hard with crime has returned to fashion, and no politician wants to defend decriminalization. I think that decriminalization has many traps, but if some Democrats believe it is the solution, it is a lack of policy of not talking about it, and leads voters to understand their position as weak of sexual criminals when it really is, like Schultz, the new author of the bill, says a “total approach to the information” that seeks the penalties of the main ones.
“I do not disagree with anything they said today in investing in people in the front,” Schulz told commentary colleagues from Snakeoil and other opponents of the bill.
Krell, who has dedicated her professional life to stop sexual traffickers, firmly believes that buyers need to face more consequences, and she has a point. We can lock as many sexual traffickers as we can, but while buyers feel safe, there will always be a demand. This bill, he told me, is about punishing the “hairs” who take advantage of children, whether a pimp is involved or not.
It was a political failure of democratic leadership to think that Krell would be silent on this issue. Krell is the rare politician who means what he says and says what he means. He probably became hurt when his name was removed from the bill, but only increased his willingness to fight for a change in the law in which he believes.
If someone leaves this, he looks good, it is Krell, who proved to be willing to fight even with his own party leaders. However, with the commitment of the age gap of three years, the Democrats now have a united front and can point out the bill as a success for all involved.
But do not be surprised if the Republicans return to execute the work next year.
