Why are California Democrats opposed to making sex trafficking a serious felony? | Opinion
Thanks to Assembly Democrats, there is too much suspense surrounding Senate Bill 14, which seeks to make the sex trafficking of minors in California a serious felony.
Just a month after blowback by Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislative Republicans led the Assembly Public Safety Committee to reverse its rejection of the bill, SB 14 is facing a dubious financial review before the Appropriations Committee. There on Wednesday, Chairman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, placed SB 14 on “suspense” because of its cost.
The suspense file is where bills can die, never to receive another hearing. There is a persuasive financial argument that SB 14 does not cost California anything at all if the cost savings from preventing a repeat perpetrator from walking free is taken into account.
Holden and the Democrats on the Appropriations Committee acted as if nothing unusual was happening.
“Is it every bill that costs $150,000 or more automatically in most cases goes to suspense?” asked Assemblyman Isaac Bryan, D-Los Angeles. “This is a very normal process for every piece of legislation. Not a policy committee. It is a fiscal committee, isn’t that correct?”
“That is correct,” Holden said.
Remember that Bryan was one of the Democrats on the Public Safety Committee who refused to support SB 14, not once, but twice, in July.
“All evidence has shown that longer sentences don’t actually stop things from happening,” he said at the time. “All they do is increase our investments in harm and subjugation at the expense of communities that need not have this be a problem to begin with.”
His sentiment was echoed in Holden’s staff analysis of the bill.
“In light of the growing cost of incarceration and its limited utility in deterring crime, both the Little Hoover Commission and the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code have encouraged sentencing reform in California, which includes limiting sentencing enhancements,” the analysis read. The state Department of Corrections estimates that it costs California $128,000 to incarcerate a prisoner for a year.
Existing laws call for sentencing a convicted sex trafficker for between eight and 20 years. The serious felony category lengthens sentences for repeat offenses, a doubling of a second offense and a sentence of 25 years to life for third offenses. Judicial discretion and other sentencing credits can reduce prison stays. The bottom line is that the serious felony category would keep repeat offenders incarcerated longer.
Lead author Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, insisted on testifying before the committee, even though Holden had told her beforehand that her bill had no chance of passing on Wednesday as it headed to suspense. And she made a persuasive case that the fiscal committee was looking at only one side of the costs.
The committee’s cost analysis completely ignored the savings if one repeat sexual trafficker, held in prison for additional five years, could not continue trafficking children.
“The cost of rehabilitation (for a victim) far outweighs the cost of incarceration (for a trafficker),” Grove testified. A 13-year-old freed from trafficking, as an example, faces approximately $300,000 in state costs until the victim is an adult. “ One trafficker, five minors, cost the state about $1.5 million,” Grove said. “That is just for basic services without considering other costs, police, victims advocates.”
She was right.
Try as he might, Holden was not presiding over yet another cost bill in the cost committee. He and his staff did not give this bill a fair and full review.
There are powerful forces among the Legislature’s Democrats who dearly want to kill this and every bill that seeks to lengthen any sentence, regardless of whether a sentence fits the crime or costs little to no money when all factors are considered. They have killed in committee numerous attempts.
That the sex trafficking of a minor is not considered a serious felony in California is a mistake of history. Correcting the mistake makes sense from the perspective of both justice and finance.
“It is both terrifying and unacceptable that we are not able to vote on this bill,” said Kate Sanchez, R-Rancho Santa Margarita, an Appropriations Committee member.
All eyes are now on Holden, the Democrats on the Appropriations Committee, new Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and a governor who for one July news cycle tried to keep the bill alive.
This story was originally published August 22, 2023 at 5:00 AM.