Human trafficking a three strikes offense? + Bill renaming a law school gets a hearing
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BILL WOULD MAKE HUMAN TRAFFICKING A THREE STRIKES OFFENSE
The Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday heard testimony on a bill that would reclassify human trafficking as a serious and violent felony, subject to California’s “Three Strikes” law.
SB 1042, authored by Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, “is long overdue in our state,” Grove said in a press conference Tuesday morning discussing the bill.
“A perpetrator’s ability to get off and out of prison in just a few years is completely unacceptable,” Grove said, later adding, “Individuals that perpetrate this specific horrific crime should be punished and put in prison for the longest time possible.”
The bill is endorsed by a host of law enforcement entities and human trafficking victims advocacy groups.
“Human trafficking bears similarities to other strike offenses such as kidnapping, robbery, rape and assault, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement of support for the bill included in the committee analysis. “Serious felonies and strike felonies represent the category of California felonies demonstrated to be the highest priority criminal offenses in the state. The crime of human trafficking deserves to be included on both of these statutory lists.”
The bill is opposed by a number of criminal justice reform advocacy groups. One such group, Free to Thrive, said in a statement that the bill will have unintended consequences.
“As direct service providers and organizations who interact and support survivors of human trafficking, we know that victims and survivors of human trafficking are often misidentified as perpetrators and arrested for human trafficking,” the group said. “Therefore, this bill will hurt victims and survivors, and it will not prevent traffickers from recruiting, grooming, and trafficking more victims while prior victims serve out long sentences on their behalf.”
One thing lawmakers will have to take into account when considering the bill? California’s prison population, which the state has been steadily reducing since a three-judge panel ordered it reduced in 2010.
“Adding crimes to the ‘violent’ felony and a ‘serious’ felony lists and creating new strikes will result in increased sentences and will start to reverse the progress made in prison overcrowding,” according to a committee analysis of the bill.
The bill failed in committee by a vote of 1-2, according to Senate Republican Caucus spokeswoman Jacqui Nguyen.
BILL TO RENAME LAW SCHOOL GETS A COMMITTEE HEARING
Should the University of California Hastings College of Law have its name changed?
Lawmakers will tackle that question at a Assembly Higher Education Committee hearing on April 26.
At question is the bill AB 1936, authored by Assemblyman James Ramos, D-Highland, which would require that the college be renamed by a committee made up by its board of directors, the Round Valley Tribal Council and the Yuki Indian Committee.
Because the Legislature in 1878 named the college, it will take another action of the Legislature to rename it.
The bill was amended to include input from the tribes that former California Attorney General Serranus Hastings persecuted in the renaming process.
“The goal is for all the involved parties to feel heard and respected as the process moves forward. We will continue to refine the bill’s language before the upcoming hearing,” Ramos said.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“If Anne Marie Schubert thinks George Gascón and Chesa Boudin should be recalled for perceived public safety failures, what’s her rationale for running an attorney general campaign when Sacramento violence has skyrocketed? If we apply her logic fairly, what is the result?”
- Gil Duran, former Sacramento Bee opinion editor and current San Francisco Examiner columnist, via Twitter.
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