Assembly Standing Committee on Public Safety

All right. Good morning, everyone. Please take your seat. Good morning and welcome to the Assembly Standing Committee on Public Safety. Today we are holding an informational hearing here in the City of Pomona on sex work related crimes and efforts to combat human trafficking.

Before I go forward, and as you're getting seated, I just want to thank you all for being here today to discuss what I think is a very important and pressing issue across California. And of course, in a moment, we'll hear from my colleague who represents the Pomona area.

But I want to thank Assemblymember Rodriguez for bringing us all here today to discuss such an important issue. So thank you, my friend. Brief background In 2022, Senate Bill 357 repealed California's loitering law. Up until that time, it was a misdemeanor for a person to loiter with intent to purchase or sell sex.

SB357 repealed that crime in large part based on the view that law enforcement. That enforcement of that law had led to discriminatory and harmful outcomes, particularly for people of color and Members of the LGBTQ community. Since that time, policymakers, stakeholders, and the public have continued to wrestle with this issue.

Efforts have been made to reenact that loitering law, including by my esteemed colleague from Pomona, who will be hearing from shortly. Earlier this year, Stephanie Wynn, Assembly woman Stephanie Wynn and I Co authored AB379, which took the approach of targeting the buyers of sex rather than sex workers, who oftentimes are victimized.

That Bill has been signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom, and indeed, effective January 1st of 2026, it will once again be a misdemeanor in the State of California to loiter with intent to purchase commerce. We're here today to continue the discussion on this important issue.

Through the testimony today, we hope to gain a greater understanding of sex work and its impact on individuals and communities, as well as what we can do as policymakers to prevent human trafficking and support the victims who survive it.

I will note that I do anticipate being joined in short order by Assemblymember Tom Lackey from the Palmdale, Lancaster area. And we will be joined shortly by Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas. So we look forward to having them here with us shortly. Brief programming note about how we'll be conducting today's hearing. We do have three panels.

The first will provide an overview of the sex work industry and human trafficking in California. The second panel will focus on the policing of sex work and law enforcement's efforts to combat human trafficking, including how those actions impact victims and survivors of human trafficking and the folks that are engaged in the sex work industry.

The final panel will examine sex work related prosecutions and how those prosecutions impact survivors after hearing from all three panels. And we will have questions from the Committee Members in the order of each panel. After we've done all that, we will have a period for public comment at the end of today.

The exact amount of time that will be allotted to each speaker will depend on how much progress we make in terms of the panels and how many speakers that we have. But we hope to give at least everyone 30 seconds to a minute.

If we have fewer speakers, more time, and we'll use up our maximum time, time permitting, we will close with some final remarks from myself and my colleague. And I do want to mention that we have a hard out. We have to be out of this room by noon.

So I just encourage everyone to be mindful of that timeframe that we're working with before giving my colleagues a chance to give a brief opening statement. I just want to note that we do have a very full event agenda and as I mentioned, a firm stop at noon.

I ask everyone to keep that in mind, especially our panelists when you're presenting for our panelists. And I'll have our chief counsel here hold it up so you can see it.

We will be holding up a one minute sheet of paper when you have one minute remaining, as well as a wrap up sheet of paper when your time has expired. We ask you to do your best to honor that. With that, I would like to recognize Assemblywoman Michelle Rodriguez to provide a brief opening comment if you.

If you'd like.

I want to begin by thanking the Chair and the Committee staff for holding this informational hearing on human trafficking here in Assembly District 53. It means a great deal to my constituents that the Committee is willing to see firsthand the crisis that is unfolding in our community and across California. Every day.

We see victims exploited by families, feel powerless, and law enforcement is left without the tools to act because of failed legislative experiments. Bringing this hearing here is important to important step forward to restoring accountability, protecting victims, and ensuring the state responds with seriousness to this issue's demands.

For me and our district, combating human trafficking is not just a law enforcement issue, it's a moral one. Human trafficking robs people of their dignity, safety and future. In our neighborhoods, we see devastating toll, especially on young women who are exploited in Plain sight.

That is why I'm grateful to this Committee for shining a light on the problem and for working toward a real solution that will protect our most vulnerable and hold traffickers accountable. This hearing must also serve as a call to action. It's not enough to identify a problem.

Rather, we must use this platform to advance policies that empower law enforcement, provide real support for our survivors, and prevent this exploitation from happening in the first place. The voice we hear, the voices we hear today should guide us toward a stronger framework of prevention, intervention, and justice.

By meeting in my district, you're sending a powerful message that Sacramento is listening. The communities like ours matter, and California will not ignore this crisis. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Assemblywoman. And yes, it's an honor to be here today and as chair of the Assembly Standing Committee on Public Safety, we're excited to get to work and have these hard but necessary conversations. With that, seeing no other colleagues present, we're gonna get right into our first panel.

I would ask all the panelists to come forward at this time. Please situate yourself at the table and chairs that are in front of us. The first panel is entitled Understanding the Issue and Data, Research and Perspectives.

Once you're all seated, and before we get into the meat of it, starting from my left and going to my right, I'll just ask you to briefly introduce yourself. Name and organization, if you don't mind. So with that seeing everyone present, why don't we start right over here? And thank you all for being here.

Thank you. Chair, my name is Professor Hannah Gary. I'm from USC Gould School of Law. It's a pleasure to be here.

Good morning. My name is Tiffany Suess. I'm a supervising Deputy Attorney General from the California Attorney General's Office.

Good morning. I'm Councilwoman Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, representing the City of Long Beach, 8th District. Pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Minouche Kandel. I'm a senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Southern California in our Gender, Sexuality and Reproductive Justice team. Thank you for having me.

Well, wonderful. Thank you all very much. If it's all right, I propose that we go in order. I have a list here of panelists. So, Councilwoman, if you'd like to begin with any comments, we'd love to hear from you. And then we'll go right along. To my colleagues.

What I'd ask is let's hopefully allow all of our panelists to present, and then once they've all had a chance to at least give some opening Comments? We can certainly dive in with conversations. Councilwoman, floor is yours.

Thank you so much. So, good morning to all who are here, to the Chairman Shulps, and for welcoming me here, to the Assembly Member Michelle Rodriguez, and to all of the Members of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I've already stated my name as Tanua Thrash Ntuk, City of Long beach, representing the 8th Council District. I come before you today not just as an elected official, but as a sister, a daughter, a mother and a wife. I'm a proud Californian who believes our collective responsibility to protect the most vulnerable among us.

And it is with that spirit that I join you here today to address the quiet and devastating crisis of human trafficking in our communities. This is a subject that often is relegated to the shadows, a dark corner of our society that we would rather not confront. But we are here today to bring it to light.

Because the way we choose to confront this issue speaks volumes to who we are as a community. It is a test of our resolve, a measure of our compassion, and a reflection of our commitment to. To justice. This is not a distant problem. It is a crisis unfolding in our own backyards.

It is on streets like Long Beach Boulevard in the district where I represent. It is in the community where I grew up in, in South Central Los Angeles on 98th and Figueroa, which still today as well has the issue.

And it is right here, as the Assembly Member pointed out, on Holt Avenue, just a short distance from this Committee hearing, on street corners throughout our districts. We must confront the disturbing reality that our children are being hunted. They're being hunted online, in direct messages by predators, offering a false sense of glamour.

They're being hunted in our parks and on our school campuses. The average age of a child who is Ensnared is just 16 years old. We must be clear. This is not a choice. These are predators. Traffickers are experts at spotting wounds in our children. A child in foster care, a teenager struggling with their identity.

A young person facing poverty at home. They offer a twisted sense of family, a counterfeit version of belonging. And they exploit that trust, creating a powerful, invisible cage of emotional dependency. They don't create the wound, but they certainly deepen it, replacing one trauma for another, disguised as affection and stability. This is more than a crime.

It's a systematic destruction of a young person's self worth, wrapping their reality until the cycle of abuse feels like the only home they have left. When I took office less than a year ago, I heard from parents teachers and small business owners who were witnessing this trafficking firsthand.

I knew that our communities deserved more and inaction was not an option. I knew that the old ways of silos was failing us.

And for far too long we have addressed the symptoms with failing to tackle the root causes which are, we know, economic vulnerability, isolation and lack of opportunity that create a desperation that traffickers are all too willing to exploit. People are falling off a cliff and we're sending an ambulance to the bottom.

Instead of building a fence at the top in Long Beach, we have decided to build that fence this past April. I'm proud to. I'm proud to note that I authored alongside with my council colleague, Councilwoman Joanie Ricks Odie, the policy that launched a comprehensive citywide strategy plan to address the crisis head on.

This plan built on builds on collaboration because it's working together to find solutions. The model we now are building rejects old divisions. Our plan is simple and yet powerful. We want to reject the false choice between supporting law enforcement or supporting victims.

The Long beach model we're currently building is designed to do both and to do it smarter. We're pioneering a public health approach focused on prevention through education, intervention, through community collaboration and recovery. For survivors. This isn't being soft on crime. It is being smart on prevention. To be clear, our first responders are and always will be critical.

As Councilwoman I have had the privilege of seeing the dedication of the Long Beach Police Department up close. And I believe their commitment to protecting our community is second to none. Just this year in my council district, their vigilance led to the rescue of a 14 year old girl being trafficked on Long Beach Boulevard.

A 14 year old girl who deserves a better future. They are heroes, but we're asking them to do this work alone. They deserve more than our praise. They deserve partners in the fight. The model building in Long Beach provides partnerships.

It's one where social workers and survivor informed community organizations serve as co responders allowing law enforcement to focus on their primary mission. Arresting traffickers, not the trafficked. To truly help survivors, we must invest in what we actually need. Long term housing, trauma informed and mental health care and paid job training programs.

With this foundation we see a tragic and frustrating cycle. Many survivors return to their traffickers out of fear, coercion or simply as a means to survive. And finally, we must address the systems that perpetuate this trauma.

Victims who fail to self identify are often arrested and the criminal record they carry creates crushing long term barriers to housing, employment and stability. Making it even more unlikely that a survivor will ever regain footing needed to build a life. This is a poignant quote from Oscar Wilde.

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. The 14 year old girl rescued on Long Beach Boulevard and thousands like her have a past. We have the power to give her her future back.

The work we're doing in Long Beach not only benefits Long Beach, but the entire region. We see it as a laboratory blueprint that can adapt and scale across California. But we cannot do it alone. Therefore, my request for you today is to establish genuine partnerships between the state and local levels.

Let us champion integrated public health approaches across California. Let us invest in community based solutions that prevent the crisis at its roots. And let us demand accountability needed to ensure every survival has a real tangible opportunity to heal.

Let us build together so that California is a place where every child is safe and every person has a chance to reclaim their future again. I'm Tanua Thrash Into Councilwoman for the City of Long Beach. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman, for your presence today, for your information about the Long beach model, and for your engagement with the Public Safety Committee. Before we go to our next speaker, I just want to mention that we have been joined by Assemblymember Tom Lackey. Mr. Lackey, thank you very much for being here.

Our next panelist, we have our representative from the California Department of Justice. The floor is yours.

Thank you. Good morning, Committee Chair and Public Safety Committee Members. Thank you for convening this hearing and allowing me an opportunity to speak with you today for this section of the hearing.

I am here to provide statistics collected by the California Department of Justice from 2019 to 2022 concerning the repealed criminal statute of penal code Section 653.22, the loitering with intent to commit prostitution statute at the California DOJ.

Just by way of background, we collect data on arrests and convictions because it is reported to a General California Department of Justice criminal history information repository. There is not a specific statutory mandate which requires collecting data for arrests and dispositions for the formerly repealed penal code Section 653.22.

Therefore, the data that I'm providing today is collected just within the normal course of how California DOJ collects criminal history information.

So specifically for the data that we provided in advance regarding these statistics, you'll notice that the statistics are broken down for arrests and convictions by race, gender, age group and year in General, I'll just highlight one example. You'll see that the arrests for loitering with the intent to commit prostitution decreased with each year from 2019 to 2022.

So, for example, you'll see that from 2019 to 2022 in Black females from the age range of 18 to 25, arrests in 2019 were 793. But that decreased in 2020 to 424. And then in 2021340 arrests and 279 arrests in 2022.

Similarly, when you look at the convictions, for example, you'll see that in 2019 to 2022, we saw the same trend of convictions decreasing. So in black females, again with the same age range of 18 to 25, the convictions in 2019 were 172 and decreased to 38 in 2020.

And then in 2021 and 2022, there were less than 10 convictions for this specific statute. So that is just an example of what the data provides for one specific race, gender and age group.

Among the years of data that I'm presenting, one of the other topics I just wanted to touch on for this section is at the California Department of Justice. We aim to complete a yearly report to include what the Department of Justice has done in investigating and prosecuting trafficking matters.

In addition, we assist the Little Hoover Commission in providing information on the California Departments of Justice efforts to combat human trafficking. This concludes the data presentation for this section of the hearing. Thank you.

Thank you very much for being here. Next, we'll hear from our representative from the USC School of Law.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Assembly Members. It's really an honor to be with you this morning. I appreciate the invitation to present on this panel. My name is Hannah Gary.

I'm a Professor of International Human Rights Law at USC Gould School of Law, and I direct the International Human Rights Clinic, which is really focused on training law student attorneys in casework and projects that teach them how to seek justice for violations of human rights abuses while representing clients who are survivors of human rights abuse.

And over the years, we have represented dozens of human trafficking survivors. So in my presentation today, I'm going to provide a Let me just move this forward. I'm going to provide a little bit of background on our report that we published in 2021 on research with regard to the impact of law enforcement operations with combating sex trafficking.

And then I'll turn to methodology, our findings and our recommendations.

So turning to background, in 2000, the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, TVPA authorized the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to investigate human trafficking, including sex trafficking and since then, federal, state, and local law enforcement operations have been a central component of the US Government's anti sex trafficking efforts.

These operations, commonly referred to as raids, stings, or sweeps, involve law enforcement working undercover or investigating private establishments to identify sex trafficking victims and perpetrators. Operations take many forms, ranging from ad hoc local efforts to formal coordinated federal local operations such as the Innocence Lost National Initiative and Operation Independence Day, formerly Operation Cross Country.

They are funded in part through appropriations authorized by the tvpa. Through media releases and press conferences. Law enforcement agencies widely have lauded the operations as a powerful anti sex trafficking tool. Yet there are widespread accounts from survivors, and this included from some of our clients who were directly impacted by law enforcement operations.

Advocates and scholars that have criticized the effectiveness of the operations and have pointed to some of the traumatizing nature of those operations.

So to assess the discrepancy we were hearing, the clinic engaged in research over three years to analyze the efficacy of the operations, gathering quantitative and qualitative data in order to assess whether anti sex trafficking law enforcement operations further the legislative goals of the tvpa, namely to protect victims, prosecute traffickers, and prevent human trafficking.

In terms of our methodology, we implemented a threefold research design. We conducted first, a comprehensive literature review, including analysis from recent academic articles, advocacy pieces, trafficking studies, government and regulatory publications, and investigative reports.

Second, we conducted in depth interviews with 42 professionals in the anti human trafficking field, including federal and local law enforcement, federal and local prosecutors, law enforcement advocates, nonprofit advocates, experts, experts, and survivor advocates, many of whom had firsthand experience, as I mentioned before.

Third, we filed 16 FOIA requests and CPRA requests for public records both to federal and California law enforcement agencies, and these requests sought specific information and data from 2003 to the present about departmental guidelines relating to the operations, as well as information on training, funding, execution, the numbers with regard to arrests, charges, and convictions that resulted, as well as demographic information of the victims and perpetrators who are identified in the operations.

At the time of the publication of our report in November 202121 months after we first filed our public record requests, 11 of the 16 agencies denied or failed to answer our requests.

With regard to our findings, Based on the available qualitative and quantitative evidence gathered again over three years, we found that specific information on the outcomes and funding of anti sex trafficking law enforcement operations is simply largely unavailable to the public.

The 2017 reauthorization of the TVPA required the FBI and DOJ to publish status reports on these operations in the US and at the time of the publication of our report, no such public information had been made available. In addition, we found that operations can be quite harmful to people being trafficked.

This harm is not felt equally across demographics. Operations are especially harmful to trafficked persons from marginalized and vulnerable groups, particularly black women and minors, as well as Members of the LGBTQ community and foreign nationals, especially undocumented migrants.

Reported shortcomings of operations range from lack of trauma, informed training for law enforcement and unavailability of services for victims to reports that law enforcement verbally, physically and sexually abused trafficked persons at times during the operations. Finally, we found that the operations failed to achieve the aims of the federal tvpa.

More specifically, first, the operations failed to protect sex trafficking victims. Anti sex trafficking operations identify few victims or traffickers and instead primarily result in the arrest of sex workers and some trafficking victims, but without identification, a disproportionate number of whom are again persons of color, particularly black women and minors.

Law enforcement officers frequently fail to employ a victim centered approach and instead the operations resulted in traumatization and criminalization, arresting, threatening to arrest, interrogation, doubting and blaming of suspected victims. The few victims identified during the operations often faced imprisonment on the basis of a material witness warrant or a criminal charge.

Second, the operations failed to prosecute sex traffickers. A lack of public data, including the number of trafficking prosecutions resulting from operations, makes it nearly impossible to evaluate their effectiveness. Anecdotally, however, interviewees reported that operations failed to result in the prosecution of traffickers because they fail to identify few or no traffickers.

Traffickers who are simply not on site are executed without sufficient investigation or evidence to arrest traffickers and undermine rapport with victims, which is often critical to secure testimony necessary for prosecution of traffickers. Third, and finally, operations fail to prevent sex trafficking.

Operations did not address factors that make people vulnerable to being trafficked and because they failed to identify trafficked persons, routinely failed to connect survivors with the short and long term services that are critical to their stabilization and prevention of retrafficking. Instead, through criminalization, operations exacerbated trafficking victims vulnerabilities, distrust of law enforcement, and reliance on their traffickers.

In closing, based on these findings, we conclude that operations should be limited because they have largely undermined the aims of the TVPA and resulted in re traumatization. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the likelihood that operations will and may need to continue in some capacity, particularly in extreme trafficking situations.

In that case, we strongly recommend the following reforms to advance the aims of the TVPA and minimize collateral harm to victims and effectively combat trafficking, which is what we're all here today wanting to focus on.

So first of all, the operation should drastically limit the use we should drastically limit the use of operations while supporting community and public health approaches to identify victims and traffickers outside of the criminal justice system.

Second, redirect funding to evidence based victim identification methods that are more effective and less harmful to victims and to the extent operations continue, implement strict policies and training that increase the efficiency and efficacy of victim identification while minimizing trauma to victims. Third, increase transparency and oversight of these operations.

Fourth, strengthen and focus on prevention efforts that reduce vulnerability. Fifth, increase services available to victims and finally, improve communication between nonprofit service providers, prosecutors and other law enforcement agencies. Community organizers and I thank you, thank.

You very much for your presentation today. Before we go to our last panelist to give their presentation, I just want to mention that we have the honor and distinction of being joined today by our speaker, Robert Rivas. And I want to thank Speaker Rivas for making the long trip to be here just for this hearing today.

I hope you all take the speaker's presence today as a sign that he, as all of us do, take the issue of exploitation of children and the victimization of folks in our community very seriously. I can think of nobody who takes more seriously the goal of ensuring the safety of every Californian than Speaker Revis.

So, sir, I just want to thank you for being here today. With that, we'll go to our final panelists. We have our Staff Attorney from ACLU Southern California. Thank you for being here.

It doesn't really. Well, good morning again. I'm Minouche Kandel with the ACLU of Southern California. I'm on our Gender, Sexuality and Reproductive justice team. And that is because the decriminalization of sex work is a reproductive justice issue and it's about bodily autonomy.

And like so many reproductive justice issues, the harms of criminalization of sex work have been born disproportionately by women and by sex workers of color and Trans sex workers. And that is what the data shows.

I want to be very clear that not all sex work is trafficking, but so much of the data that is out there conflates them, and we're trying very hard not to do that. I also need to start with the background on how loitering laws have been used in California to police and punish people of color.

Going back to the very first Legislature in California in 1850, when they first met in their very first set of laws. They passed a law called the act for the Governance and Protections of Indians and included in that a crime that for Native Americans who were found loitering and strolling about, they could be arrested.

They could then be auctioned off for forced labor to the highest bidder with the money from that labor not going to the person who was being forced to work, but to county coffers.

The use of loitering to police and punish people of color continued during Jim Crow with the use of loitering laws to police and control black people in public spaces and in its current manifestation is being used to police, particularly women of color.

And even if our anti loitering laws are race neutral on paper, they are highly discriminatory in practice. And disproportionate enforcement is often fueled by purposeful or implicit bias on the part of law enforcement. Recriminalizing loitering with the intent to commit prostitution will only exacerbate this issue. So moving on to the data.

This shows the percentage of cases in various jurisdictions that involved women. So the percentage of people who were either arrested or prosecuted for penal code Section 653.22 from 2019 to 2021. This comes from Public Record act requests that we made to various law enforcement agencies and prosecutorial agencies in California.

You can see in many, and these are some of the largest in the state, you can see in many of them it's over 90%. In some, it's 100% of the people in Richmond, 100% of the people arrested for loitering with intent to commit prostitution were women. The San Diego City Attorney.

100% of the people they prosecuted for loitering were women. So these are not traffickers. These are not people purchasing sex. These are people selling sex, some of whom are trafficked, some of whom are not. But when people say that they lost a tool to go after traffickers when 653.22 was repealed, are ignoring that 653.22 was in effect.

It was not used for traffickers. It was used to arrest sex workers. And it should be obvious that arresting survivors in order to identify them or connect them with services compounds their victimization and trauma. Some law enforcement agencies have been saying they need this law to come back so they can engage with survivors of trafficking.

But that's like saying that if your car breaks down on the side of road, CHP needs to arrest you in order to render you assistance. Similar to the gender disproportionalities, there are huge racial disproportionalities with how penal code section 663.22 was enforced when it was effect.

This chart shows the percentage of black and white residents in various jurisdictions, both as their percentage of the General population. That's the column on the left in each jurisdiction. And then as their percentage of the people being either arrested or charged with loitering with intent to commit prostitution. And you can see these huge disparities.

The green column are the percentage of black residents. And the white at the blue is white. And you can see in Alameda County there's a disproportionality of 6.2% of people who are 6.2 who are prosecuted in Los Angeles County. DA 9.3 disparity rate. In Santa Clara County, there was a 30.2 disparity rate.

Black people made up 2% of the population, but 70% of the people who were being prosecuted for 653.22. And again, it's not just any black people. It's primarily black and Trans women who bear the brunt of criminalization.

A very local study that looked at criminalization of youth here in Pomona that was done by Gente Organizada, found that black female youth were charged with sex work related crime at a rate 14 times higher than their proportion in the overall population. And again, we know that Trans people are often singled out.

The Department of Justice puts out their annual RIPA reports now in 2022, they found that police in California were much more likely to stop Trans people, and in particular Trans women for suspicious activity. And we know a lot of those are related to sex. Work offenses.

And again, here is data that's just looking at the percentage of penal code Section 653.22 cases for black women. And again, we see that in the majority of these in these jurisdictions, over 50% and sometimes much higher of the people being charged or arrested for 653.22 are black women.

The LADA, 69% of their cases for 653.22 were against black women. In San Diego City Attorney, 88.2% of their cases for lording with intent to commit prostitution were against black women.

This is just a chart of the total number of cases that these jurisdictions either arrested or prosecuted, depending on the type of agency for 653.22 in the three year period from 2019 to 2021. I think this is really important because some of the loudest voices who are saying they lost a vital tool were never using it.

I know you're going to be hearing from the Riverside County District Attorney later. They brought a grand total of two cases in that three year period under 653.22, and San Diego City Attorney only brought eight. So again, this was not a tool that they were using.

And then one final data point is that a report that looked at charging decisions by the LA City Attorney found that they rejected lording with intent charges much more than other sex work offenses because there was a lack of sufficient evidence. The law so vague that people were being arrested with really no evidence to back it up.

And finally, I just want to be clear that laws that criminalize buyers also harm sex workers, including those who are trafficked. And again, it's really important not to conflate the data on sex work and the data on trafficking. I used to staff the City and County of San Francisco's Task Force on Anti Trafficking.

Before I worked for the ACLU, one of my jobs was to put together reports on data on trafficking in the city. And one year we had to reject all of San Francisco Police Department's data because they completely lumped their sex work cases with trafficking.

We cannot conflate the two or we erase the agency of persons who engage in sex work by choice or circumstance or survival. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation. We have about colleagues. We have a little more than 15 minutes and this is our opportunity for questions to our panelists. You can direct a question to all or any of our panelists. Would anyone like to begin? Okay. Assemblymember Rodriguez, please.

So for you. So what is your suggestion? You say that we shouldn't give the tool back to law enforcement. So how do you suggest I go to my community and tackle this problem?

Well, I really appreciate what the Council Member said about using a public health approach.

And I think that's also one of the recommendations in the USC report that nobody is saying you should ignore people who are being trafficked, who are being harmed, but the best way to do that is connect them with community based services, use of public health approach, the root causes which are lack of access to housing, to job training, to mental health services, that we need to be supporting people but not criminalizing them.

Yeah, go ahead.

So at some point, if we have time, I'd love to talk about some of the racial disparities that some of the colleagues here have mentioned.

But to answer your question directly, one of the matters at the local level that we have to contend with is that it's important if we are, as we separate, if we to separate sex work from human trafficking, Please understand that in communities we are responsible for ensuring that small businesses, should sex work be considered a small business, is regulated accordingly.

And in our community, should sex work continue to be something that is something that's legal for people to do, understand that what we are experiencing on the streets includes folks soliciting sex work in front of child care centers, in front of schools, where our school district as well as several principals of local schools have come out and noted that they want something done in their community.

So, you know, I just wanted to make sure that if we are to. As we separate those two concepts, let's be clear, it's important for the local governments to have the ability to regulate any kind of small business, no matter what it is.

And currently, the way that sex work shows up on our streets is harming our youth in terms of the physical presence, the solicitation, and the activity in very sensitive places in our community. So we need a tool to help us to be able to manage that in our communities.

All right, thank you. Assemblymember. Mr. Lackey, is that you going for the mic? I think so. Okay. Mr. Lackey, you have the floor.

Okay. Hopefully that's better. Now, I think there's a frustration, on my view, that there's an overemphasis on just loitering and on other sex crimes. The data relating to other sex crimes is very light. And the other thing that frustrates me is it seems to be a lack of focus on Johns.

I think they're the ones that we need to be focusing on. And I do believe that both races are well represented in Johns, all races. So I think that we can be distracted and not focused on really a meaningful aspect of this problem. And that is, without the demand, we don't have to worry about the supply.

And so I'm frustrated that we have very limited data on the John activity. What's being done, what's not being done, because I think that's a very critical component of this problem that gets underrepresented in our data.

All right, thank you very much. Assemblymember any other questions from my colleagues? Okay. I do have a few questions. I'd like to start with our representative from the California Department of Justice, who I believe also serves as the state's human Trafficking coordinator, if I'm not mistaken. Outstanding. Thank you very much for being here and offering your expertise.

Thank you for providing some data in preparation for today's hearing. In your view, does the data tell us anything about whether the prior loitering law resulted in more arrests for those sellers as opposed to purchasing sexual activity?

So I think that what we see from the data that we have is it was based upon just. In general, it didn't differentiate whether it was for someone that was purchasing or someone that was loitering. So a sex worker.

So it is all categorized into one. So it didn't necessarily differentiate.

All right, thank you for that answer.

And just so I can make sure I'm tracking that and digesting it appropriately, because the prior statute allowed for the criminalization and charging of both solicitation or the provision of sex services, the data doesn't break out as to, you know, when the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, for one example, was charging a case.

We don't necessarily know without pulling the court record, we. Whether that was a John that was charged or a victim, if you will, someone who is engaged in the sex work industry. Exactly. Okay, thank you. The next question I have is for Professor Gary, USC School of Law. And it's again, in the theme of data.

What type of public data do you believe would be helpful to the Committee and to the Legislature at large in evaluating the effectiveness of law? Enforcement, anti trafficking operations. And do you foresee any barriers in terms of accessing that data?

Thank you for that question.

So, first of all, our research identified the barrier of access to data in that even, you know, following the laws on public records requests and actually, you know, engaging with experts on tailoring our requests to be specific and not to be over broad, and spending many months actually drafting and redrafting to make sure that our requests were as narrow and tailored as possible to get the data that we were asking.

For various reasons, we did not get it. Some it was denied simply because they said they didn't have it or that the request is overbroad. But it felt as if there was a real lack of transparency and willingness to hand over the data, perhaps in part because it's not being collected effectively.

The other piece is that, you know, a real barrier, I think, to accurate data is the failure of Congress to enforce the reporting requirements around this under appropriations and that Congress needs to exercise its power in that regard.

The TVPA provides for oversight with regard to these cross regional, local, state, national stings and operations and the coordination of those across law enforcement agencies. And there really should be robust requirements around the reporting on how that money is used.

What our data showed was that it seemed to be that much of the money was being it was targeted at sex work rather than at rescue of trafficking survivors. With regard to. I'm sorry, the first question was again.

Essentially it was what type of public data do you believe would be helpful for the Legislature to evaluate the effectiveness of its laws?

Yeah, so what we were really hoping for was to understand, you know, and I think my colleague here on the panel pointed out a lot of the times the data fails to distinguish with regard to arrests, who's being arrested, the data on the individuals, also the data that are the specifics on the laws that are being used for the arrests.

A lot of it wasn't clear. It was kind of all just blended together and hard to parse out. But we did do the best we could in our report, and I would welcome the. I'd be happy to share the report with anyone on the Committee who would like and email it to you.

We do have charts that did try to split out the data that we were able to gather. We did get the most responsiveness from California agencies. And so that was much appreciated. So I think it would be very informative. And we do have it broken down by charts in terms of types of individuals arrested. That includes John's.

That includes, you know, those who were considered, you know, labeled to be survivors or trafficked persons. And then that includes sex workers. And it also the data would be helpful in terms of breakdown by age and oftentimes it wasn't clear with regard to gender.

Thank you very much for your answer. In a moment I'm going to pitch it over to Assemblymember Lackey who has a follow up question or comment. I did want to just mention that the Committee does have a copy of the report in today's Committee packet.

If you're in the room here in person and you'd like to see it, we have extra packets outside the room. This will also be made available on the Committee's website so everyone can have access to look at that information.

Assemblymember Lackey, I think it's becoming very. Clear that part of our problem as we address this very huge challenge we all agree is a challenge, is our data collection. Our data collection is substandard.

And if you look in here on page 55 of this particular report that he just talked about, there's a number, I think there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 points that it indicates that we need to focus on in order to figure out how to address this problem.

We need more information so that we can focus on the remedy. Without understanding the problem, it's hard to formulate good remedies.

And so I think our data collection needs to be improved and I don't know what process we need to pursue to make that happen, but if we need legislation to do that, then that's what we should be pursuing.

Thank you very much Assemblymember, and I will just note if you are following here in real time. Mr. Lackey was referring to page 55. This is recommendation 3.2 in the report. I do have a pair of other questions for other panelists, but are there any other questions from my colleagues at this point?

Okay, then the next question I have would be for our esteemed councilwoman from the City of Long Beach. Effective January 1st of 2026. As I mentioned, with regards to AB379, it will now be a crime to loiter in a public place with intent to purchase commercial sex as opposed to engaging in the sex work industry.

I know I'm asking you to sort of look into the crystal ball here, which is maybe an unfair question, but do you believe based on what you're seeing on the ground in your community, this new law will meaningfully impact the issues that you are seeing in Long Beach?

Thank you for that.

And to your last question regarding data and to the colleague there on the Assembly Member who also talked about that, I just want to say that at the local level, because really the only data that we are able to collect is in the either911 or non emergency police calls that are received at the local level.

We are working on educating our community about helping them understand what they could report, what they should report regarding seeing Members of the community out on the street with intent potentially to solicit sex. So that is one area where we've been able to collect data.

But even with that, having legislation, having resources, having the ability to follow up with what those calls that are coming in are telling us is something that we simply don't have. And I would say, you know, this is a matter that, you know, communities are dealing with on a daily basis.

And part of what we need, not only is it law enforcement, but I've talked about the emphasis around the public health response.

And so while we might have the ability to approach individuals now that we currently don't have to be able to engage in a conversation to try and gather information and do some initial investigative analysis right on the spot, a big part of what is needed, and all of my colleagues here have said it is really those upstream support and services.

And we are able to offer people that a pathway out of the lifestyle should they choose to and would like to move along into a different kind of lifestyle.

And so we really need to figure out how do we couple ensuring that there are resources for those organizations who can offer the housing, who can offer the anonymity and protection for people who need that, who are trying to move away from those who have put them into this lifestyle and all of the wraparound resources that would be needed to create a different pathway of life.

And frankly, you know, here on the panel we've talked so much about black women and the disparities that they experience.

We know based on equity analysis and data in the City of Long beach that black women are the most rent burdened in our city, so have the hardest time being able to maintain rent for themselves and their families. They're much more likely to be headed by single family households.

And black businesses within the city are likely to have the least amount in receipts of businesses of all the cities. So if you think about the housing and the economic opportunities, unfortunately the streets become an option for people.

And I look forward to having conversations about how we couple both the ability to approach as well as resources to provide those families accordingly.

Thank you very much for the thoughtful answer there. Much appreciated. My final question goes to our Staff Attorney from the ACLU, similar question.

We're talking about this new law that will now go into effect January 1st of 2026, as I mentioned, it will now be a crime to loiter in a public place with intent to purchase commercial sex. Do you think that this I would characterize this more narrowed approach as opposed to the criminalization of those engaged in the industry.

Do you believe that it is still problematic and if so, can you explain to the Committee?

Yes, we believe it's very problematic. We oppose the bill as it was going through the Legislature. It's problematic because any law that criminalizes any part of sex work harms people who sell sex, including people who are trafficked.

So when you criminalize the purchase of sex, sex workers have less time to take into safety measures into account because the purchasers are worried that they might get arrested. And so people can't do things like check before I get into a car, is there a handle that opens from the inside.

They have less bargaining power to make sure that they are in like a safe location. So any kind of law that criminalizes even just the purchase of sex creates harms for sex workers. So even though this law was seen as narrower, it still is harmful to people who sell sex, including people who are trafficked.

And that's why a lot of the major trafficking organizations opposed that law.

So I do think we're probably, and I will also say we know that when it is enforced against people purchasing sex, it will also be enforced in a discriminatory way because we our data from the past on other kinds of laws that criminalize purchase of sex shows that it's primarily enforced against men of color.

Even though I, I agree with Assemblymember Lackey, it's not that men of color are purchasing sex more than other than white men, but they are the ones who are criminalized, arrested and prosecuted for it. So I think it will be problematic in that way as well.

Thank you for the answer. Colleagues. We have time for one more question. If anyone has a question. I have one perhaps follow up question then for you staying on this topic. The United States Supreme Court recently overturned an order that would otherwise block Ayes from racial profiling.

Do you believe that expanding laws against loitering with intent to purchase commercial sex could result in expanded racial profiling in the aim of immigration enforcement?

Yes. So one of the problems with criminalizing sex work offenses is that they are deportable offenses. And so if you create further opportunities for immigrants to be criminalized, it then creates opportunities for them to be Deported by ICE.

So, again, this is a particular time where we don't want to give ICE even more weapons to remove people, remove our neighbors from our state. But creating crimes, especially ones with incredibly vague criteria like loitering, will definitely create more people who will then be potentially deportable by ICE. Absolutely.

Well, thank you all very much for your presence today.

I did want to respond to your question about the prior law not distinguishing between people who are selling and people loitering with the intent to sell sex and people who are loitering with the intent to purchase sex. And so what can the data tell us?

I think we do know that the vast majority of people who are purchasing sex are men. And so when we see that 90% of the people who are charged or arrested for loitering are women, we know those are people selling sex. They are not people purchasing sex. I did want to point that out.

Great. Thank you all very much for your participation today and the information that you furnished to the Committee. We're now going to go to our next panel. I think at least one panelist will be staying up here. Panel number two is entitled Policing Sex Work and Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking.

If the two new panelists would come on down and we'll do the same thing again once everyone's seated, we'll have you reintroduce yourself to the Committee. I believe we have our Police Chief from the City of Pomona joining us, and then we have a representative from Rising Worldwide.

All right, so as we did last time, if I can start on my left, just move on down and just reintroduce yourself to the Committee, and we'll let you get started.

Good morning. I'm Tiffany Suess, supervising Deputy Attorney General with the California Department of Justice.

Good morning. My name is Mike Ellis. I'm the Police Chief for the City of Pomona.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Jess Torres. I'm the Director of program at Rising Worldwide and a survivor of childhood sex trafficking. Thank you.

Well, thank you all for being here. Why don't we go ahead and start on this side, and we'll work our way down. So we'll have our representative from California, DOJ, go first.

Thank you. As many of you know, human trafficking is not just a global crime, but it is a domestic crime where a trafficker profits from exploiting human beings. This crime impacts everyone. Children, women, men, migrants and refugees, with traffickers targeting those persons that are particularly vulnerable. Vulnerable? Human trafficking encompasses both sex and labor trafficking.

In 2024 in California, the National Human Trafficking Hotline reports that it received 1,064 tips regarding sex trafficking in our state. I am here today to discuss with you specifically sex trafficking and the California Department of Justice's work in this area.

So as it relates to the California Department of Justice's work, through collaboration with federal, state and local law enforcement partners and community organizations, the California Department of Justice launched two regional human trafficking teams known as our Human Trafficking and Sexual Predator Apprehension Teams. HT SPAP for short. We created a team in Sacramento and in Fresno.

Sacramento covering the Northern California part of our state and then Fresno down all the way to San Diego covering the southern part of our state.

In addition to creating these teams and making the investigation and prosecution of these cases a priority, we are the task force commander of the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force and the newly formed Sacramento County Regional Human Trafficking Task Force.

So our agents, where we had originally created the human trafficking teams have in Sacramento in particular now joined that task force and are part of the local enforcement and investigation of both sex and labor trafficking cases.

As it relates to the California Department of Justice, our Special Prosecution Section, which I am a supervisor in the Sacramento office of that section, we also prosecute both sex and labor trafficking cases. We specifically focus on complex multi jurisdictional cases that often span multiple counties and throughout the state.

Not just focusing on sex trafficking, but also paying particular attention to labor trafficking as well because that is often under reported and under investigated at the local level.

As it relates to the Department of Justice's assistance with survivors of trafficking, we specifically provide assistance by collaborating directly with service providers and and our state and local partners to help victims and survivors access trauma informed care, mental health services, victim compensation and more.

We also created a vacature guidance for survivors of trafficking who have nonviolent offenses that were convictions. By assisting with this vacature guidance to requesting permission from the courts to secure relief for a conviction that may have resulted as a result of being traffic. And as I indicated, our Special Prosecution section is statewide.

So we focus on prosecuting sex and labor trafficking cases, approaching these cases with a victim centered approach regarding our survivors, but also holding traffickers accountable for their conduct. And last I want to mention what my other role is.

In addition to supervising the Special Prosecution Section, combating human trafficking has historically been a priority for the Department of Justice. And under the direction of when Kamala Harris was Attorney General, the California Department of Justice created the Human Trafficking Coordinator which is a statewide coordinator for the Department of Justice. I also wear that hat.

I serve in that role as well as the Human Trafficking Coordinator I coordinate efforts among law enforcement agencies and victim services provider providers to combat sex trafficking. We provide a victim centered approach in all investigations and prosecutions. I also have a leadership role in public outreach and awareness surrounding human trafficking.

I regularly present trainings to law enforcement on investigating the cases emphasizing using a victim centered trauma informed approach and I also participate in our regional task force meetings when I present trainings.

I spend a significant amount of time on my training focusing how the victim must be the center of the investigation and that the investigating agency is aware of the available resources to assist survivors.

In addition to training law enforcement, I also train community based organizations and other state agencies on how to recognize human trafficking and how to assist survivors as well.

I also stay informed of the trends as it relates to human trafficking by maintaining contact with law enforcement, discussing trends, and actually reviewing human trafficking investigations that are submitted to my unit to determine whether there's sufficient evidence to file charges against the traffickers.

And I in our unit again we file both sex and labor trafficking and we prosecute those cases in our state superior courts. So for example, the Department of Justice successfully investigated and prosecuted Nassan Joaquin Garcia.

He was the leader of the La Luz Del Mundo Church for sexual assault against three separate minor victims and this was discovered when the California Department of Justice began to investigate Mr. Garcia for sex trafficking minor children whose family members were members of the church La Luz Del Mundo.

He's now serving a 17 year prison sentence as a result. We prosecuted this case in the Los Angeles County Superior Court and as I mentioned, our work is not just limited to sex work. We also successfully prosecuted the Gamos family for labor trafficking.

In the case of People versus Gamos, where a family criminal enterprise trafficked vulnerable Filipino nationals in their care home, businesses and daycares, three of those members of that family served prison sentences as well and that was prosecuted in San Mateo County Superior Court. I personally prosecuted that matter.

In addition to prosecuting sex trafficking cases, the Department of Justice has had success in investigating and prosecuting illicit massage businesses for pimping, pandering and money laundering.

Even if we do not see that sex trafficking is present, still using a victim centered approach for any of the sex workers, not criminalizing them, but again focusing on the owners of those businesses.

In People vs. Gregorio, a case prosecuted in Sacramento Superior Court, we secured a six year prison sentence on one of the owners for the illicit massage business for pimping, panning, money laundering and defrauding state and local agencies. In all of these cases, we provided services to providers and led the investigations and prosecutions in a trauma informed manner.

Last is the Human Trafficking Coordinator. I review relevant proposed legislation regarding human trafficking and provide input regarding the potential impact of the legislation if it's legislation which impacts law enforcement's ability to successfully investigate human trafficking. I discuss with our law enforcement partners as it relates to penal code section the repealed statute 653.22.

I was certainly aware of the arguments in favor and against the repeal of that statute and engaged with our law enforce enforcement partners and community based organizations to discuss that.

In conclusion, the Department of Justice remains committed to combating human trafficking both as frontline investigators and prosecutors, but also by training others in how to approach these cases in a trauma informed, victim centered way. Through our actions, we're committed to supporting survivors, supporting our law enforcement partners and supporting the safety of our communities.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak on this subject.

Thank you for your presentation. And I will just note on a, on a personal note, I think it's wonderful for the community to hear what the Department's working on.

The Gamos case was obviously a major lift for the Department and having played a small role in the Nason Joaquin Garcia prosecution, I really appreciate you highlighting that case as a gold standard of how the how the Department leads the way in combating human trafficking.

Thank you.

All right, Chief Ellis, you're up.

Chair Members, good morning. Thank you for allowing me to present this morning. As I said before, my name is Mike Ellis. I'm the Police Chief for the City of Pomona. I'm also representing the California Police Chiefs Association which is comprised of the 335 municipal police chiefs from across the state.

The underlying issues being discussed today are unfortunately not new, but remain among the oldest and most insidious criminal acts that law enforcement encounters on a sadly, consistently and daily basis.

The psychological and physical harm suffered by the victims in these cases is hard to comprehend and strikes at our hearts, especially when we, many of us parents, encounter children being victimized. One of the greatest costs associated with our anti human trafficking operations is separating the victims from the involved criminal acts. I want to make this clear.

It is not the intent or goal of the police chiefs to criminalize these victims in these cases, but to rely on the laws and our tools to leverage treatment and services for each individual in need. Ensuring that those exploited are themselves protected and secure is our mission.

Equally of concern is ensuring those who exploit the bodies of another, either through sex, work or other forms of human trafficking, are held accountable for those crimes. This is the perspective we take into developing policy solutions. Those built with equal parts, focused on enforcement and prosecution alongside services for victims.

Over the years, the Legislature has attempted to strike the appropriate balance in developing a statewide response. In certain areas this balance has been achieved and in other areas there is still more work to be done. For example, we greatly appreciate the work of the Chair and others to pass AB379 this year.

The bill not only resolved an issue involving a lack of parity for the consequences of soliciting a minor, but also took comprehensive steps to target those loitering with intent to purchase sex, created incentives for vertical prosecution units, and established a funding mechanism to provide more services to victims.

This is exactly the type of balanced approach the California Police Chiefs Association encourages, and we were pleased to stand in support of AB379 and lend our advocacy towards getting that bill signed into law. Although we believe AB379 will have a positive overall impact, there remains a separate but related issue that still must be addressed.

As you've heard legislation in 2021 Senate Bill 357 repealed laws that made it a misdemeanor to loiter with the intent to commit prostitution, argued as an end to police profiling, a goal that we share. SB357 narrowly passed the Legislature and took effect in 2022.

Almost immediately, police departments across California started experience a new resistance to intervention and limitations to enforcement. Lacking the clear authority to act against what is now lawful behavior, we began to see open air markets for sex established throughout dozens and dozens of cities.

While penalty still exists for purchasing sex and for those caught committing such acts, it is too easy to hide and obscure the evidence of this conduct. To be blunt, unless our officers see money exchanged or witness the act itself, there is little we can do.

As a result, it is now too common to find public solicitation happening in broad daylight. And let me underscore this is harmful behavior. It is harmful to those involved in the industry. It attracts and fosters related crimes like human trafficking, and it exposes our communities and youth to dangerous situations.

I would like to share a couple of examples specific to Pomona that I feel drive this issue home. As the Police Chief, I have received numerous complaints from parents and school administrators at Village Academy High School.

School this school serves students in grades nine through 12 and it is located at the intersection of Indian Hill and Holt, right in the middle of Pomona's human trafficking corridor. Some of the complaints are about the way sex workers dress in front of the school.

The more concerning complaints are about female teenage students who, while on their way walking to school are solicited by men who are looking to engage in prostitution or even worse, teenage girls that are being approached by pimps to be recruited. These kids have to pass this gauntlet just to get to school.

This breeds insecurity and takes our children's minds off of what their main focus should be, which is to learn and reach their full potential. Another issue is the impact SB357 has had in our ability to rescue juveniles from human traffickers.

In 2021, before SB357 was passed, the Pomona Police Department rescued 17 juveniles from human trafficking while utilizing the loitering section to make legal contact. After the passage of SB357, that number dropped by 70%. And in 2024, we only had five rescues of juveniles.

The Department of Children and Family Services even contacted my office directly to try to understand the drop in rescues which they were seen throughout Los Angeles County.

To address these realities, CPCA was proud to work with Assemblymember Michelle Rodriguez last year on AB63, and I'd like to thank her for her work, which was an attempt to strike a balance in addressing the concerns raised by our communities.

AB63 did recreate penalties for loitering with intent to commit prostitution, but also ensured officers prioritized treatment and conducted their enforcement in a way that focused on the actions and not a person's sexual or gender identity. AB63 was also provided protections for the victims of human trafficking that we might encounter.

While AB63 represents one plan to address the issues I've outlined, it is by no means the only solution. Internally, CPCA has discussed possibly using temporary restraining orders to prevent the establishment of sex markets near schools and other vulnerable locations. We can also further refine what types of services must be available.

But in the end, we must correct the problem our communities are experiencing. The public expects their law enforcement to provide reasonable protections from harm, and they are demanding action regarding this issue. In doing so, we can find a balance that continues to uphold the original intent of SB357.

Prevent profiling and protect victims, but stop short of allowing the consequences we see to remain unchallenged. Again, thank you to all of you for your time and consideration of myself, the City of Pomona and the California Police Chiefs Association.

Thank you very much, Chief. And I'll take this opportunity to thank the City of Pomona for hosting our hearing today. Appreciate the all, all the accommodations. Last but not least, we'll hear from Jess Torres. The floor is yours.

Do we have that? Okay.

Thank you to all of you for inviting me and allowing me to graciously represent my community here today. Unlike other movement spaces, the anti trafficking sector is not an impacted person led movement. It was a systemic, legislated, criminal legal response created by allied professionals. And so survivor inclusion is often an afterthought.

However, those closest to the issue are most qualified to solve is also important to name that survivor is not job title is an experience and that for too long, if and when we are invited to the table, the only thing folks see us qualified to do is divulge the most gruesome details of our trauma.

This is to legitimize and substantiate the solutions that they perceive are best for us. But there should be nothing about us without us. Because survivors are not on monolith, it is important to also name that the professionalization of victimhood is unethical.

We need to make sure that we are not asking people to do work they are not specialized in. And so here are my areas of specialization. 20 years of impact in the last 20 years, I have focused my professional endeavors to these areas of focus here.

And I will not read them all because we would be here forever. The hyper fixation on girls and who is left behind our current models are largely built on the dominant narratives that young girls are beaten into submission by pimps. And this is absolutely a valid and true reality for many people.

However, while this is the most commonly platformed experience, it is not the universal or even the most prevalent form of child trafficking. Labor trafficking is actually the most common. And up to 71% of youth in the in a sex trade are boys. Only 10% of these boys had pimps. Often there is no bad guy to arrest.

Many are homeless or LGBTQ youth trading sex to survive. In California, nearly 100,000 youth are unhoused in 2021, but only a few thousand shelter beds exist. So no matter how many laws we pass, if a young person has nowhere to sleep, there will also be there always be someone trading sex to survive.

And thus we find ourselves here. What drives participation in the sex trade for LGBTQ youth? Excuse me. I'm sorry. Okay. Bad Encounters report A report by the Young Women's Empowerment Project found that the youth found that the criminal criminal legal system often makes violence worth worse for youth in the sex trade.

Out of 142 stories police caused the most harm. 48 reports followed by health care, schools and other systems. Only six reports involve pimps. Is a reminder that while exploiters must be held accountable, our systems are also failing young people.

What drives participation in the sex trade for LGBTQ youth LGBTQ youth, especially Trans youth, face discrimination, violence and shelters from service providers many self removed from foster care for safety. Only one in four LGBTQ kids are pushed out of their homes.

One in four, excuse me, LGBTQ kids are pushed out of their homes and they're six times more likely to experience violence than their heterosexual peers and yet still think the streets are a safer place for Trans youth. Trading sex is often a necessary survival strategy. What drives a sex change for them isn't force, fraud and coercion.

It is the need for food, housing, clothing, medicine, gender affirming care and living wage employment which they are discriminated from.

If people had access to legal immigration pathways, mental and physical health care and dignified work, the demand would shrink the illusion of progress Policing street based prostitution focus on what is most visible youth and adults working on the street, but it's easier to which is much easier to target.

However, the visibility just doesn't mean it's the core of the problem. Many young people move their activity online or to less visible spaces, meaning the same number of youth remain engaged. It is just harder to reach and support them.

This is a knot in my backyard and out of sight, out of mind kind of thinking and it is delusion of progress. So while it looks like the problem is shrinking because there are fewer people on the streets, in reality it is just being displaced and not solved. End demand endangers not protects.

Bills that claim to protect survivals while doubling down on the law enforcement center tactics repeat the same historical harms. Arrest, stigma and further marginalization. Utilizing arrests through the loitering and through the loitering statute to identify survivors or other services is not an ethical means of outreach. Arbitrary and biased policing.

We need to talk about how criminalizing demand actually creates more danger, not safety for people in sex trade. And by contrast, reducing criminal penalties for sex work has been shown to decriminalize to drastically lower STI rates and violence against women. And here are some stats on the New England New Zealand's decriminalization model of 2003.

Lastly, it's important to say that we need to actually end supply and not demand. Supply and demand are economic policies for the cost of services. The demand reduction approach to anti trafficking work for the last 20 years has only exasperated trafficking persons.

Economic policies in the US have reduced wages, they've increased unstable housing, they've exasperated access to resources only increasing the supply of marginalized people susceptible to being trafficked. Increasing supply while decreasing demand only means that the cost of services in this case, trafficked people is lower.

In order to end trafficking, we need to change our economic policies to reduce the supply of systemically marginalized and dehumanized people, to lower the number of potential victims of trafficking. I've trained law enforcement for a very long time and the one thing I hear them say always is that they always go back.

And this is in fact because we are not meeting any of the needs that these folks need and that are necessary to exit. Lastly, I will share a piece of my testimony. When we say these laws will help protect children, I question what children we are talking about because I was that child.

And legislation like this, the ones being discussed today and addressed here, got me locked away in terrifying isolation. Not by my trafficker, but by federal authorities. My mother bravely immigrated to the US with me when I was two. We settled in Los Angeles where a family member begins sexually exploiting me.

When it came to light, Child Services asked me for the name of the person harming me because a five year old barely knows their own last name, let alone the last name of other people.

After hours of forensic exams, interrogation, and despite my being terrified of disclosing anyone, fearful of the police, I blurted out Carlos, my uncle's first name.

They then targeted and blamed my 12 year old cousin who was also named Carlos, and needless to say, completely traumatized this young boy who had never violated me or anyone else simply because he shared the same name in common with a vile predator who was sex trafficking children as young as two years old.

The focus then became my mother's immigration status, not my abuse. We fled to New York and the fear and instability only deepened my vulnerability to trafficking. At a teen, I cycled in and out of the foster care system.

At age 17, as dependent of juvenile court, I tried to adjust my immigration status, but I was denied due to the prostitution and lottery charges in my record, which stemmed directly from my trafficking, I was detained and placed in deportation proceedings.

Only a lawyer I connected with by sheer miracle who fought for my right to a D visa, was able to successfully appeal the ruling. Supporters of criminalization will say it helps traffic kids, but I was one of those kids and what happened to me during my exploitation was horrific.

But what happened while I was incarcerated was equally as harmful, if not worse. Thank you all.

Thank you all very much for your testimony and thank you for sharing your story. I can imagine it does not get easier the more that you share it, but I thank you for having the courage and being with us today to share that perspective. Colleagues, we have about five minutes.

Are there any questions for any of the panelists? Assemblymember Rodriguez.

For Chief Ellis. Chief, what feedback have you received from. Business owners, residents, and community groups with visible sex work in their neighborhoods?

So we. We do our best to reach out to the community. You know, weekly. Personally, I. Weekly we go to different community meetings, receive phone calls, council meetings. I'll be spoken to by members of the community.

The number one issue I receive feedback on from the community that they want the Police Department or all of us to fix is human trafficking, the visible human trafficking on Holt. And that affects people that live here, business owners on Holt and the surrounding areas. It's the number one issue for me that I receive feedback on.

Another question. Are there documented links between open air sex work and increases in other crimes such as violence, narcotics, or gang activity?

Yes, there are. We're actually doing some abatement work on Hold Avenue with motels. We've had everything from murders to other crimes committed at these motels with links to prostitution and sex work.

Supporters of my bill AB63, highlight new protections. No arrests solely based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Do you believe those safeguards are sufficient to. To prevent any profiling?

I'm sorry, can you repeat that question?

Okay, so supporters of my bill AB63, highlight new protections. No arrest solely on. Based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Do you believe those safeguards are sufficient to prevent profiling? Profiling.

Yes, I do.

And last, how effective are current partnerships with victim service providers, shelters, and outreach teams?

I'm sorry?

How effective are current partnerships with victims, service providers, shelters, and outreach teams?

I can speak to Pomona on that. We have several CBOs, nonprofit groups that help us. If we come across someone who wants services, they will get it in Pomona. And that is based on partnerships we have with CBOs in the community.

Thank you, chief.

And thank you, Assembly woman, for your questions. Any other questions from the. Yes, Mr. Lackey.

Yeah, my first one would be to. Excuse me to Chief Ellis. When conducting these sting operations, I was wondering if you include social welfare professionals to join you. For example, if you went into a massage parlor, do you have potential language interpreters, social workers, or maybe even victim advocates at all? Do you ever include them?

We do. We have partnerships with county representatives that. That are available to our officers daily. They're actually embedded with us. And we also have several ways to communicate with folks that may not speak English. Translation services.

Appreciate hearing that. And my next question has to do with the DOJ presentation. I'm hoping that we're not relying solely on hotline for data. Are we relying on solely on the hotline because there's problems with reliability, underreporting and skewed data and that kind of thing?

No, we're not. And I am aware of what you're bringing up regarding that particular data.

That's also good news. Thank you.

Thank you. Assemblyman, any other questions from the dais? I only have one question. I want to thank both of my colleagues here. You asked the questions that I was going to pose to two of our panelists. So with the last minute or so we have, I'd like to direct my question to Jess Torres.

From your perspective, what can policymakers do to avoid re victimizing and marginalizing survivors?

Do you mean re victimizing them in terms of using the criminal legal system?

Yes.

I think my colleagues have said it time and time again, we can use preventative measures and public health approaches to fix the issue before. I think the best intervention is prevention.

And if someone happens to find themselves in this situation, it's because they have needs that are not being met in essentially, those needs are systemic failures that we have not been able to support that person or family with. So I think that those are the best ways to address the issue.

And I glean from the comments you provided today that the other thing we can do is involve survivors in the conversation as we form policy.

Yes. Thank you so much for naming that.

All right. Thank you, everyone. That completes our second panel onward we go to our third and final panel of the day. Panel number three is entitled Sex Work Related Crime Crimes in the Courtroom.

We have representatives from the Riverside County District Attorney's Office, the Coalition Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, and I believe we have a Member of the defense bar here as well as you all. Come up and take your seats. We'll do as we've been doing, starting on my left. If you briefly introduce yourself to the.

To the Committee and then we'll start and you'll each have an opportunity for an opening statement.

Good morning. My name is Shalon Joseph. I'm Special Counsel to Public Defender Ricardo Garcia, Flower, Lake County.

Good morning. Leela Chappelle with the Coalition Abolish Slavery and Trafficking.

Perfect. And you all sat exactly where I need you. This will work. Great. So, Mr. Robinson, we'll begin with you. Yes, thank you.

Good morning, Chair Schultz and Members of the Assembly. My name is William Robinson and I serve as a Managing Deputy District Attorney at the Riverside County District Attorney's Office. Thank you for the opportunity to provide information regarding AB63 and how it could impact law enforcement's efforts to address human trafficking.

Human trafficking is an intricate issue with unique and ongoing challenges such as battling myths and overcoming misconceptions, such as the belief that prostitution is a victimless crime. It's crucial to educate jurors and judges to dispel these myths and present a comprehensive picture of the dark side.

Prostitution and human trafficking victims are often subjected to blame, stereotypes and prejudice. This could deter them from cooperating with law enforcement and make it challenging to build a criminal case against pimps, panderers and human traffickers. Many victims, due to coercion or fear, may be uncooperative with law enforcement.

The so called rules of the game that traffickers impose on victims stipulate that they should never cooperate with authorities. Since the repeal of California's Loitering with Intent statute under penal code Section 653.22, there have been unintended consequences.

Human trafficking and prostitution has increased in California, so much so that pimps and human traffickers are even coming to California knowing there are less consequences here.

Pimps and traffickers have been empowered by the repealing of penal code Section 653.22 because law enforcement has been stripped of of the ability to intervene and offer services to help them escape the life. California consistently reports one of the highest rates of prostitution and trafficking in the United States.

Nine out of 10 trafficking cases in the country involve sex trafficking and those numbers are consistent in Riverside County. Riverside County has seen fluctuations in human trafficking cases in recent years during the Covid 19 pandemic.

Cyber tips coming into the DA's office from the National Center for Missing and exploited children increased 110% from 1,245 in 2019 to a stunning 2,692 in 2020 and nearly 4,000 so far this year. In several jurisdictions, including my own in Riverside County, our police and sheriff's departments have observed increases in open air prostitution activity.

Officers have expressed that without loitering provision. They cannot make contact with potentially exploited individuals unless a solicitation or completed act occurs which has been increasingly difficult. Consequently, Riverside County agencies have had to rely more heavily on task force coordination, online investigations and warrant based approaches rather than street level loitering enforcement.

Now I'd like to give you some statistics from Riverside County regarding the investigations that we have done post the repeal of the law. And so the Riverside Police Department in 2025 conducted a runaway teens investigation that led to human trafficking arrest after officers located two juvenile victims. The Vice Unit emphasized coordination with service providers for trafficking victims.

In Riverside County we have the Riverside County Anti Human Trafficking Task force who in 2024 and 2025 have conducted investigations. For example, in June of 2024 a Lake Elsinore operation resulted in 15 arrests and the identification of five victims.

The task force also participated in a series of county wide brothel and massage parlor raids in late 2024 resulting in four arrests. On November 27th of 2024, a search warrant served by the Riverside County Sheriff's Unit in partnership with the Anti Human Trafficking Task Force followed an anonymous tip about suspected prostitution.

This case reflected ongoing reliance on warrant based enforcement rather than street level contacts. In 2024 and 2025, the Marietta Police Department conducted a 2024 sting operation that resulted in five arrests for solicitation and emphasized demand reduction strategies tied to trafficking prevention.

In July of 2025, the Marietta Police Department and the Anti Human Trafficking Task Force ran a joint operation targeted or targeting online demand consistent with regional shifts towards digital investigations. In addition to the work done by the Riverside County Anti Human Trafficking Task Force, there are also countywide operations which are done in Riverside County with multiple agencies.

In the summer of 202513 arrests for SOL solicitations have happened across Riverside County regarding an operation that was conducted in August of 2025among local multiple local agencies. With respect to this operation, the focus remained on identifying traffickers and supporting victims rather than routine street level arrests.

Although Riverside County doesn't have a blade like San Bernardino and LA County, the proposed law would give law enforcement an easier lawful reason to stop a person who appears to be conducting prostitution, typically on the blade. Pimps are not out on the street doing anything to get business from Johns.

It is the victim walking the street obtaining business which makes it very hard to identify pimps and traffickers. The proposed law would allow law enforcement to easier contact potential human trafficking victims and possibly identify their pimp or their trafficker.

While it is true that many human trafficking victims do not want contact by law enforcement and do not want prosecution.

Just because they don't want to be contacted or want to do their chosen work in peace doesn't mean it's best for society or for those victims who are being forced or emotionally manipulated into sex work by a pimp or a trafficker.

AB63 proposes to restore that authority with new procedural safeguards such as documentation of service offers and prohibition against arrest based solely on identity characteristics. From a prosecutorial perspective, this could possibly provide a framework for early engagement and possible victim identification.

From an operational standpoint, the absence of a loitering with intent law has changed how officers approach suspected trafficking victims. Under current law, contact generally occurs only after solicitation has taken place. For potential trafficking victims, this can delay intervention. However, reintroducing such authority also raises questions about training, consistency of application and avoiding the risk of disproportionate enforcement.

This bill's documentation requirement that mandates that officers record service outreach before any arrest could strengthen accountability and assure ensure rather that intervention efforts are properly documented. At the same time, it would require agencies to develop clear procedures, tracking mechanisms and coordination with local victim service organizations.

If AB 63 is passed, it would be important that there is trauma informed training for law enforcement so that human trafficking victims don't feel harassed but instead feel supported even when they don't want help.

One minute sorry, one minute remaining.

Thank you. In closing, AB63 presents both potential benefits and challenges. On one hand, it could provide law enforcement an earlier point of engagement with individuals at risk of exploitation exploitation. On the other hand, it would require careful oversight, officer training and clear policies to ensure that enforcement aligns with trauma informed and non discriminatory practices.

As prosecutors, our focus remains on ensuring that any statutory framework allows for effective identification and prosecution of traffickers while safeguarding victims from further harm. It is possible that the proposed that the legislation can strengthen our fight against human traffickers.

However, the operational considerations oversight training requirements in the Bill are also very important and are necessary to best balance public safety, equity and victim protection. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation today. Next we'll hear from our representative from the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office.

Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to present to the panel on behalf of our public defender, Ricardo Garcia. We appreciate the invitation to address this important issue. In California, nearly 9 in 10 reported human trafficking cases involve sex trafficking. Over time, the share of trafficking cases that involve sex exploitation has increased.

The California Department of Justice notes that victims of trafficking are often young women 99.4% of sex trafficking victims are female in Los Angeles County. Localized prevalence studies show concentrations of sexual exploitation and demographic breakdown, pointing to how the problem is not evenly distributed geographically.

Nationally, safe harbor laws that redirect minors from criminal prosecution to service systems are increasingly viewed as a better model for responding to commercial sexual exploitation of children. These data points help show both the magnitude of trafficking in California and the existing movement towards decriminalizing safe and implementing safe harbor approaches.

When we prosecute minors and individuals who are trafficked, we reaffirm the traffickers control and silence victims. Traffickers commonly threaten victims with law enforcement, telling them that if they go to the police they would be arrested and law enforcement following through on that on those threats only deepens fear.

The fear that the victims have and the controls that the traffickers have over the victims arrests reinforce the coercive control traffickers exert, making victims less likely to escape, disclose or cooperate. This is especially true in California where many victims are foreign born and have precarious immigration status, so they fear that detention may be magnified.

Victims are critical witnesses especially for proving coercion, force fraud or facilitation of networks. If they face criminal charges themselves, their credibility to testify can be undermined. A punitive response distracts prosecutorial resources and attention away from traffickers and toward low level individual offenders.

In California, task forces show effectiveness when they can focus on traffickers and arresting victims would dilute that focus. A criminal record, even a misdemeanor prostitution, carries lifelong consequences and limits unemployment, housing, licensing, immigration and public benefits. That record can hinder victims abilities to rebuild their lives, making them more vulnerable to re exploitation.

Convictions on their records almost guarantees that they will continue in the cycle of abuse because it limits their ability to have gainful employment, limits their access to certain professions. Arrest and detention can re traumatize victims or trigger ptsd, impeding participation in trauma informed programs.

We have seen here in Pomona with a pilot case that we are we are doing in collaboration with the Pomona Police Department that diversion does work for victims of trafficking.

We offer a 12 to 18 month diversion program focused on treatment where we offer victims individual counseling, trauma informed counseling for human trafficking victims, financial literacy, career assistance and job placement. Each survivor was given the tools to be financially self sufficient upon graduation.

As a result of that program we have seen one person become a united flight attendant, another person get their LVN and now is working on getting their rna. There are documented success stories if we follow a model of public health support approach to trafficking and like our esteemed long Beach City Council person testified to earlier.

The public defender's office does support a public health approach to trafficking. Another area I wanted to focus on is that with our young people who are trafficked, oftentimes we see them being pressured to commit crimes that they are prosecuted for, as in the youth's juvenile system.

And then at the same time, simultaneously, they're listed as victims against their traffickers in adult felony cases.

This duality of being a defendant in one system and a victim in another system also enhances the problem that we're seeing when we're retriggering victims of trafficking by making them face charges in the juvenile setting and then be a victim testifying against the trafficker in the adult setting.

I'd like to thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. And now to you.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I've got a few slides, but I won't take too much of your time with them. Wonderful. Like I said, I'm Lee LaChapelle. I am with the Coalition Abolish Slavery and Trafficking. We are the nation's largest comprehensive service provider. We provide services for survivors of sex and labor trafficking.

We've been in Los Angeles 25 years providing those services. Before I got into policy, I was our crisis response emergency program manager. I managed that program. That's the nation's largest crisis response program throughout the height of the pandemic.

And that's what I've done my entire career is that 24,7 emergency response for human trafficking survivors, but also sexual violence and domestic violence. This is kind of what I've always done. So I hear a lot of the concerns today about what do we do for folks who really do need that help.

And I hear that everybody in this room really just wants to see people that are safe in their bodies, their homes, their communities. And I'm glad that we are all on the same about that at cast.

One of the main problems that we see for human trafficking survivors in Los Angeles is that they are criminalized at incredibly high rates. So in 2016, we did a survey of our national survivor network.

Those are survivors who are, you know, they have moved past that initial point of trauma and they are advocates in their own right, working together. And we found that 90% of the survivors in our network were criminalized while they were trafficked. So while they had a trafficker, they were arrested, charged, and not identified.

And most of the things that they were arrested for were sex work related crimes. And that was not just prostitution. That was also solicitation. That was also loitering. That was also pimping, pandering, and trafficking. Why were they also charged with things like pimping, pandering, and trafficking?

That's because sex workers or survivors sometimes work together to keep each other safe and are misidentified as offenders. Frequently there is not a clean division between who is a victim, who is an offender, who is a buyer. Law enforcement don't have kind of magic goggles to see who is who in the moment.

And oftentimes victims are not easily identifiable to those that are working in the streets. We also, there was a survey that was done by Polaris in 2023, and this was a much, much larger pool of people. This was about 500 survivors, you know, across the country.

They found that 40% of survivors had a criminal record, and 90% of that 40% reported that those arrests were the direct result of their exploitation. So a smaller pool were had a criminal record. But the vast majority of them, again said that those arrests were the direct result of their exploitation.

In both of these surveys, we found about 90 to 100% of folks said that those criminal records created substantial barriers to their healing. These barriers were emotional, right? Being arrested and incarcerated was traumatizing. But they also said that these were logistical barriers that they could not get passed on their own.

These criminal records, regardless of whether they were the actual result of their trafficking and they could prove that meant that they could not get a stable job, they could not live in certain types of housing, they could not get certain benefits, they weren't eligible for certain types of immigration, which meant they were vulnerable to being trafficked again.

They could not build stable lives even if they wanted to. So they were continuously punished even after they were able to leave.

And when we look at our own data, I pulled this because, you know, one of the big things about the way that we address human trafficking from this criminalization lens is that it's not just ineffective and harmful, it is expensive. It is the most expensive way to address human trafficking.

What we found from our social services and housing data over just kind of the last four years is that survivors with criminal records required about 864% more service hours than our survivors who had not been criminalized while they were trafficked. And that kind of, on average ended up being about $12,500 more per client per year.

And that's because we have to either work around these criminal records with these clients, or we have to spend a lot of resources doing something called vacature.

Or kind of pursuing other legal remedies with clients to clear these criminal records and do these really lengthy processes or we have pay for a policy position which I would love to get rid of one day.

I'd love to be out of a job where I don't have to do any policy work because we're all on the same page and it's easy breezy. I'd love to work myself out of that job where we have to do bills like our Bill this year, which you gave a lovely shout out to Assembly Member Schultz.

Our Bill AB938, which was to expand those types of legal remedies, vacature and affirmative defense for survivors, which California is a little behind at the moment. It's not available to all survivors, unfortunately.

So there are still many survivors where even if they can prove that that criminal charge is a direct result of their trafficker, they are not eligible. And so they have to live with that charge forever for their whole entire lives, even if they can prove that the trafficker forced them to do that.

So right now we have traffickers that are weaponizing our legal system. They're weaponizing law enforcement. They want survivors to get arrested and be charged because those criminal records are the easiest ticket to make sure that they can keep trafficking someone, because criminal records are a life sentence for survivors.

And so what we know at CAST is that criminalization, the way that we are kind of moving forward and trying to prevent human trafficking through this kind of legal first approach, it doesn't prevent human trafficking, it perpetuates it.

And the way that we know that is when we look at other issues, it's similar to the way that we've tried to address homelessness in California. We understand. We understand deeply. I mean, I live in Oakland. I live right off of International, which is another common thing that you might hear.

It's another common thing where there's lots of activity. It's one of those other areas you might hear about commonly that we've gotta address it, we've gotta move this. But that's a lot of what criminalization does, is it sends a lot of expensive resources into an area.

It does a lot of criminalization of the people there, and it moves what happens, but it doesn't address any of the root causes.

So the people might be temporarily moved, but because we have not invested in their lives and we have not given them any resources, those people might temporarily move, but they might come back very quickly to another area, or they'll be there again in just a few moments.

But the conditions of criminalization perpetuate human trafficking and they deepen the vulnerabilities that people experience.

And so until we really get to the root causes and we address homelessness, health care, we address, you know, immigration systems, we really take care of our people and we invest the resources and allow them to take care of each other, we are not going to see this change. California has the toughest laws.

We have the most intense criminalization of the sex trade. That is what the United States has out of any model. We already have it and it is not working. So we can really learn from some other models and we can really move the needle when we decriminalize a lot of these things and invest our resources into people.

Thank you very much for your presentation, colleagues. We have about seven minutes. Now would be the time for questions. Would anyone like to get us started a comment? Okay. Assemblymember Rodriguez?

Yes, I know a lot has been brought up today about immigration. I just think it's important to explain a tool law enforcement uses to help human trafficking immigrant victims. There's a T visa program.

Only law enforcement can assist the victim with this expedited program to assist the victim immigrant have lawful status to stay in our country and also to find legal employment. A T visa solely for human trafficking victim. And it can only be issued by law enforcement. Which goes. Yeah. Which, you know, goes hand in hand with my Bill.

Wonderful. Thank. Thank you very much for that note. Yes. Important tool for prosecutors. I'm sure Assemblymember Crell could tell us a lot more about that if you were here today. Assemblymember Lackey.

Yeah, I have a question then a comment to the District Attorney with regard to AB379 and vertical prosecution funding. Is that a problem?

I'm sorry, Assembly, Assembly, Was there funding.

Associated with vertical prosecution as it relates to AB379? I don't believe there was.

I don't believe there was either.

And would that minimize its ability to be effective?

Yes.

So that remains to be a concern.

I would hope, and I would like to say that to the public defender, that since I've been in the Legislature, we've worked on a number of legislative remedies as it relates to this particular problem with trafficking, that anytime we have a person that's involved in trafficking, as long as they're their crime was misdemeanor, diversion is an option.

And if they, if diversion is practiced, there is no record. That's. That's a reality. There would be no criminal record. That would be part of that process. Also we have made it possible that being sex trafficked is a affirmative defense and could be subject to dismissal.

So we're working on these issues since I've been in the Legislature, and I think that these are realities, that we need to cooperate, we need to be understanding, and unless there's a violent felony participation, those options remain on the table.

Thank you. That is correct. We do have those options. We would like to see those options be utilized more through what you just said, cooperation. Because even though the public defender is asking for diversion doesn't mean the court or the prosecutor is going to agree with that grant of diversion.

Also, we oftentimes see that even people who say that they are being trafficked, some sometime that there's credibility issues, the prosecutor doesn't believe that the person is, in fact being trafficked, and that puts the burden on us to show or prove that the person is being trafficked.

So while I agree with you 100% that you are creating remedies for the situation through diversion that will be helpful to traffic victims, I also agree with you that we have to cooperate with one another in order to see those remedies through.

Thank you. All right. Thank you both. Any other questions? All right, very briefly, let me start with you, Mr. Robinson. In terms of prosecuting a person for loitering with intent, what are some of the challenges that you face as the prosecuting agency in carrying that case to completion and securing a conviction?

Well, we're in a situation as prosecutors where, you know, we are currently seeking out investigations and prosecutions of traffickers and pimps. In Riverside County, we have really made a great effort to minimize the number of prosecutions for prostitution because we've recognized in Riverside County that, you know, prostitution is not a victimless crime.

As I mentioned in my comments, prostitutes or sex workers are dealing with a wide variety of circumstances, many of which are very difficult. Often they're compelled by pimps to do things that they would otherwise not want to do.

And so with respect to challenges in prosecuting loitering with intent for prostitution, it is challenging, given that dichotomy, where we are trying to work with ourselves, victims of prostitution to further investigations and prosecutions against pimps and human traffickers. But also, you know, there's a lack of cooperation oftentimes with sex workers and prostitutes.

They don't want to cooperate for a wide variety of reasons that have been discussed here. And so the challenges lie in the interactions on the street between police officers and prostitutes or sex workers, their level of cooperation, or the lack thereof.

And then also, you know, our agency's efforts to try to make sure that they're recognized as victims in most instances so that we can further our prosecutions against pimps, panderers, and human traffickers.

Thank you very much. My next question is for our representative from the public defender's office. There is data that suggests that loitering Charges, especially in Los Angeles County, have been dismissed at rates higher than other sex work related offenses charged by our local prosecuting agency.

From your experience, is that an accurate portrayal and do you have any thoughts on why that might be a trend that we're witnessing?

I have not looked at the data, but I'm happy to pull it and review it and give you a more thorough answer. But I haven't pulled the data to see that trend to be able to answer you in this hearing today, but I'm happy to get back to you with that information.

All right, perfectly reasonable. Thank you. Last question for our representative from cast. I know you touched on this, but I just thought this would be a nice way to sort of encapsulate the conversation. How does a trafficking victim's arrest or conviction impact their ability to escape a trafficking situation?

Absolutely. And something else I wanted to mention is that there are, there are lots of reasons when someone is escaping that they might not want to do so through law enforcement. And there are many other options for folks. So at CAST, I mentioned, you know, I ran the 24 hour emergency response hotline and crisis response program.

And last year less than 1% of our calls were facilitated by law enforcement. Mean 1% of calls. Either law enforcement called us to assist them or we called law enforcement to come assist us with that. Survivor escaping 75% ish of our calls are survivors calling themselves.

The rest are either Good Samaritans, community members, or other nonprofits who need our help assisting someone with their escape from that situation. Survivors are usually the experts in the safest way to get out of their situation.

And the vast majority of the time is not that they really need armed help in extraction, though that is the case in some cases that we really do need somebody who is armed to like help extract someone. The vast majority of the time is that they just really need somewhere to go.

And that is what we are lacking in Los Angeles County is beds. We need beds. And we are at an extreme lack of actual places to put people. We earlier this year had a survivor named Linda Moran who in Pacoima called 911, told 911 that she was a sex trafficking survivor and needed help.

They responded and shot her in the chest. She died. This is the reality that survivors are faced with when they want to work with law enforcement. This is what ripples through our community of sex trafficking survivors. This is the reality that survivors are dealing with.

I have worked with so many survivors who have told me that when they work a track, they have been raped by Law enforcement, they have been sexually assaulted by law enforcement. This is the reality that survivors are living in.

And so when all I'm ever asked in the Legislature is how can law enforcement intervene more or how can law enforcement arrest more people to give them services?

It's a question that I struggle to answer sometimes because it's just not the most pressing problem that survivors come to me with is how could law enforcement talk to me more? You know, that's not their primary concern. Their primary concern is staying alive and then like getting into services. This is their primary concern.

And so I like want survivors to report to law enforcement if that feels comfortable for them or if that's something they want to do. And I've helped so many survivors do that. I've connected so many survivors to law enforcement and help them get their case where they want it to be.

But many more survivors just weren't comfortable because of, you know, what they've been through. But, you know, what we have been able to do is make sure that their primary needs are met and then connect them to law enforcement to report that.

And that's really where we see these cases get to the correct place is when they're base needs are met, then they can do that. And if they are criminalized, we are never going to be able to get that case to prosecution.

But if we can make sure that they're seen as a victim in the eyes of the law first and they're not criminalized, then that's where we're going to see successful partnerships.

Thank you all very much for your presentation and answering questions. You're welcome to step down from the presentation area, folks. We're going to go to the second to last segment of our hearing today. Now is the time for public comment. I'm going to ask everyone to line up on this side of the room, single file.

When you deliver public comment, you'll come up and use the podium here, right in the center of the room to ensure that we can get to everyone. And just remembering that we do have to be out of this space by noon, everyone's going to have a maximum of 1 minute to address the Committee.

I will ask you if able to keep it closer to 30 seconds, but you will have up to a minute. Mr. Ironside here will throw up the one minute cue card. And so we ask that when you see that you do, wrap it up and allow for the next speaker. With that, we'll take our first public commenter.

Please feel free to tell us your name and then you're welcome to begin.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. It's so great to see you guys again. My name is Jessica Gonzalez and I am here today in strong support of AB63. This bill is deeply personal to me because I am a survivor of human trafficking.

And for years, I was forced to solicit on the streets, controlled, abused and living in fear. During that time, I was arrested multiple times in multiple places in addition to Pomona, including three times in one week by the same vice officer. And that third arrest, something different happened.

The officer looked at me and said gently, this is our third time picking you up. Can I connect you to resources to get you out of this life? At that moment, I wasn't ready to say yes.

But that small act of compassion, her taking a moment to see me as a person instead of a criminal, planted a seed. Months later, when I was finally given an opportunity to enter a human trafficking specific housing program, I remembered that officer's words. I knew that there were resources out there. That knowledge gave me hope.

My journey wasn't easy. Change didn't happen overnight. But because of people who believed in me and programs that provided real support, I've now been sober for three years. I've completed a nursing school program, and today I work as a human trafficker. Thank you for your time.

Sorry to interrupt, but thank you for your time. All right, next speaker, please.

Good morning or good afternoon Committee. My name is Stephanie Cepeda and I too am a survivor. I came here to the City of Pomona when I escaped from my pimp and I had a long history of child trafficking. My mother was my first pimp.

And all that to say is that I'm here to support AB63, Assembly woman Michelle Rodriguez. I also am the founder and Executive Director of Project Resilience who provides a strong street outreach and prevention and education. And I just want to say that to please look into other resources to support survivors so there could be healing and transformation.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is Jahan Izhar. I'm the owner of the Stage Global here in Pomona. We're a dance and fitness training studio that has been recognized by the State of California, Louisiana County and the City of Pomona for our contribution to community enrichments.

We're located a few blocks from Holt Boulevard and we have never had the police reach out to us regarding our opinion and demands regarding sex work on Holt Boulevard. I'm here as a representative of the hundreds of marginalized and vulnerable people in our community that we serve to advocate for decriminalization.

In support of all the evidence brought up by the speakers today from the ACLU and from cast, I would like to add that policing women and LGBTQIA plus people and viewing us all as people who engage in sex work, either as criminals or as victims, puts harmful stigmas on us all.

The message it gives to the public is that controlling our bodies is what makes society safer, which is not true. This is a silvery slope to us all losing our autonomy.

And regardless, thank you very much for your comment. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good morning. My name is Lisa Jordan. I'm a doctoral candidate at the University of Redlands, a mother and active Member here in Pomona. I'm here as an advocate for harm reduction and decriminalization. When sex related crime and human trafficking is discussed, it's crucial that we separate consensual sex sex work from exploitation, consensual adult sex work from exploitation.

Treating them as the same issue creates more harm than safety.

Scholars Belinda Brooks, Gordon, Max Morris, Tesla Sanders recently brought a vast body of evidence, as well as many of the panelists today, spanning 12 countries, four continents, and over 20 years of research, finding a clear and consistent argument that decriminalization of consensual sex work is the best strategy to reduce harm.

Their work also reveals a serious problem in our current system. As they write the survive. The survey results demonstrate a disturbing trend of sex workers feeling alienated and distrusting of policy and courts. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is Jennifer and I'm a resident of Pomona. I am just here to say how disappointed I was when Michelle won the election last year. And. It'S. I don't think police are the answer. And I see that you're very deep in their pockets.

Police should not be the only ones to be able to give the people the visas. It should just be something that everybody can give them. That's something for your AB63 to consider. So, yes, shame on you for voting no on voting against SB627, the no secret Police Act.

And that was to stop ICE and anybody really from masking and not identifying themselves. And under capitalism, this will always be a problem. Capitalism is a system of exploitation. Yep, I'll wrap up.

Thank you for your comment. That's your time. Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello, my name is Kelly Leduc and I am the client care coordinator and lead instructor with Everyone Free offices are located here in Pomona, but our support system is all across the nation and all across the state. Of California. We are working with the local with Pomona Superior Court Public Defender's office.

We are part of their diversion program. That flight attendant went through our program. I do believe that we've got to address the needs housing. We're running out of places to put these women. It's a desperate fight to find places to put these women. It's a desperate fight to find services for them. Our services are wraparound services.

All of our program. We have case management for lifetime and the program is all classes on Zoom and that is for all across the nation. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.

Next speaker please.

Hi, my name is Amber. I'm a resident of the local area and I'm a young woman who experienced sexual assault and experienced blame, stereotypes and prejudice at a psych hospital. And it was actually the social workers and law enforcement officers who were the best people around me.

And it was the doctors, nurses and volunteers who were cruel and blamed me for what I experienced. So instead of criminalizing sex work and people experience sexual assault, I want to emphasize improving mental health services and vetting the doctors, nurses and volunteers, especially at psych hospitals. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker please.

Hi, my name is Tatiana Salazar and I am an advocate for decriminalizing sex work. And I would like to make something abundantly clear that there needs to be a distinction distinction between human and child trafficking and consensual sex work. Unfortunately, there is an overlap.

But rather than criminalizing adult sex workers who are consensually involved in sex work, but rather holding accountable the human traffickers, predators and individuals, men as stated by the Pomona Police Chief who are soliciting young girls and teens for sex. I would also like clarification on what holding accountable means to DOJ Representative.

What I would like to see is prosecution of these traffic traffickers and predators as an individual whose sex work adjacent, I would I want to seek community based programs that aim to help girls, women and individuals from the LGBTQIA + community and individuals who have been forcibly put into sex trafficking as well as ways to support and protect consensual adults who have chosen sex work as a career path and not further criminalize and villainize these individuals.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker please.

Thank you. Committee. My name is Sarah Patterson and I'm the manager of government affairs at the City of Long Beach.

For the Committee we 'd like to present, as mentioned by our esteemed councilwoman, a memorandum that was a cross departmental response to human trafficking between city manager, Public health, community Development, economic development, Police Department, city prosecutor, Emergency response and financial management.

Address titled addressing human trafficking and public safety concerns on Long Beach Boulevard in North Long beach for your consideration and review while you look up for legislation. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your comment. Next speaker, please.

Thank you. Excuse me for the way I look. I've been really busy this morning, but I had to rush down. Thank you, Assembly Woman Rodriguez, for bringing this forward. It's about time. I commend you. I commend our Pomona Police Department. I am one of the council women of the City of Pomona, District 4.

We have prostitution alive in my district. East Holt is rampant. It's even traveling down to West Holt. I commend every who's really working hard on this situation. It's real. We are being attacked by many, many unbelievable things going on in the City of Pomona on our streets. And the Academy, Village Academy is in my district.

It is a very, very hard thing to see, seeing young girls being approached. And also I was also approached by a pimp, believe it or not. So it does exist. And I'm glad that we're moving forward on this and I am ready to help you.

I to do what is necessary to work together and get this problem solved. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment, Councilwoman. Next speaker, please.

Hello. Thank you for letting me speak. My name is Reagan. I am here representing the Stripper Workers center, the Stripper Co Op and The Equity Strippers NoHo, which was the group of strippers that unionized in Los Angeles in 2023.

I just wanted to say that for me and for all of my colleagues, the only way forward is decriminalization. I believe that there will come a time when decriminalization happens in this country. And as a society, we will look back on this time and wish that we had seen that sooner.

And that is the only way to truly help victims of sex trafficking. And I want to, as others have pointed out, to clarify once again that there is a very clear distinction, although there is overlap, there is a distinction between consensual adult sex work and the and sex trafficking for adults and victims.

And as we move forward, we need to make sure that we recognize that as a Member of the sex work community, it's very important to me. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next Speaker.

Good morning. I'm Kevin Mentz and the Police Chief of the Chino Police Department here with my other colleagues, police chiefs throughout the region. Thank you, Assemblymember Rodriguez, for your commitment to public safety and to keeping Our community safe.

We share the same sentiments that Chief Mike Ellis spoke about this morning. At the end, we're really wanting to keep our community safe in this. We believe this, this Assembly Bill will help us to do that.

It will give us another tool, another resource of what has been spoken about specifically by Chief Ellis in really trying to help this problem. So thank you once again.

Thank you for your comment, Chief. Next speaker.

Good morning, Mr. Speaker and Mr. Chair and Assembly Members.

But anyway, on behalf of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department and Sheriff Shannon Dykis, we just wanted to thank Assembly Member Rodriguez and we're proud that she represents portions of our county and strong support of Assembly Bill 63 going into next year's legislative cycle and appreciate everything you do. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is Rita Lopez. I am a resident of Pomona. I am in support of your Bill. It is past time we hold men accountable. I have spent the last three years holding my sex trafficker accountable. I was sex trafficked in the 1990s while in college.

AB 2777 did not help me as I needed to file civil charges against my sex trafficker and the statute of limitations long past. What we need is to be listened to by speaking about my sex trafficker. I lost. He lost a big promotion, but unfortunately he achieved another.

He is now the President of San Bernardino Valley Community College. Yes, a sex trafficker is the President of a community college where half of the population are women that are 18 or 19, which is what he likes. Which was what he liked about me. So we need to be listened to by people of leadership.

I have spoken up at public meetings. There are three news articles written about what I've spoken up about.

That's your time.

I'm sorry, didn't listen to me.

Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Next Speaker.

Hi, my name is Matthew Lyons. I'm here on behalf of the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership. We'd like to thank Assembly woman Rodriguez for introducing this bill. On behalf of the Partnership, we strongly support ABC and we strongly support this process. We believe that public hearings like this will only make this bill better.

And so we thank the leadership of the Public Safety Committee as well as the leader of the Assembly for bringing this to the Sangamra Valley in Pomona specifically so that we can. So you can hear from the public and we can craft a better bill.

With that said, again, we strongly support the bill on behalf of the 31 cities we support, as well as the diverse businesses that are part of our membership. But my takeaway today is that this hearing will also build a better bill.

And one thing that comes to mind is a survivor Centered diversion program similar to our mental health program. And I hope that we have a survivor centered diversion program and fully fund it through appropriations.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

Good morning. My name is Camille Ramos Beal. I'm the proud principal at Village Academy on East Endenholt. I'm joined by my colleagues who are also Pomona residents. It's very clear that this is a very complex issue and we appreciate the evidence based resources and suggestions that are being made.

And it's clear as well that the only way forward is for us to work together. Having said that, it sounds like a long path to get to the end goal here, but we just ask for your mindfulness and help in keeping our.

Among the most vulnerable population are our youth and the young people who attend our schools every day and have to walk through that experience. So we ask that whatever can be done to mitigate those experiences while we're working through this bigger problem would be very, very much appreciated by our community. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Deborah Martin and I'm a City Council Member for the City of Pomona. First of all, I want to let everybody know I appreciate today. This is very important for our community. Our Assembly Member. I support your bill 100%. We have such a huge problem on Holt Boulevard.

I represent the other half of Hope Boulevard that my colleague was speaking about. And it is so impacted with prostitution, drugs, gangs. It is so dangerous. I'm representing right now, our community. I'm the voice for everybody that has been asking the Police Department, Assembly Member Rodriguez, to do something because it's that bad. We have.

And you can drive down Hope Boulevard and you can see at least 30. At least 30 prosecutors.

Sorry, that's your time. Thank you for your comment.

Naked. I'm sorry, but this is.

Thank you for your comment. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is Aries Sierra. I am born and raised in Pomona. I am obviously for the decriminalization of sex work here in the United States. The only real comment I would like to make is that we are under the shadow of one of the most prolific human traffickers that we have ever experienced in human history.

And I would like to see that our local government create an actual relationship with the community. Because what I have witnessed here today is a total mistrust from local to our national government. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker, please.

Hello, my name is Lorraine Canales. I'm a City Council Member, also a previous educator in the City of Pomona. And I'm hoping to implement a safe zone for our schools. I did work at Village Academy, and many times I had to go pick up girls to come to school because they were often asked to be.

To get in a car. They were often asked to join their organization. That's what they called it. And so I'm hoping that we can create a safe zone in our school district to protect our children who are having to face this every single day.

There was one incident where I actually was cleaning an area across the street from the school with our students. The women came up to my students and said, oh, thank you for cleaning our area. And I said, please, you know, let's not address our students.

And the response from my student to me was, it's okay, miss, we're used to this. And I turned around, I said, please don't ever say that again. Do not get used to this. This is your community. You have a voice. Please speak up. So, thank you, assemblymember. Thank you for your. For your time. Thank you. Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Good morning. My name is Myrna Hachison. I'm with the Long Beach City Prosecutor's Office. I'm here on behalf of the elected official, Doug Halbert. On behalf of our office, we'd like to thank you all for taking. Taking the time to see this as a serious issue. And that's really what it is.

The Blade in Long Beach is thriving, but we are proud in our office to say that we are spearheading two diversion programs, the Lead program and the DSP program, both of which offer these victims beds. zero, I believe one actually. I apologize, Offers them beds. Both offer mental health services, both offer psychiatric services.

And this is something that we're very proud of, and we would love the opportunity to talk with all of you about and really kind of work together with local and state law enforcement about. Okay, thank you so much on behalf of the community.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is Violeta, one of the miners who had to walk on hold as when I was a minor. I can tell you your Bill is not. Is actually going to bring minors and women, Trans women especially, more at risk.

And for the sex work, the only possibility we have is to bring a legal framework for it and zoning to actually allow that free legal framework to come into practice. Without that way, we're just Wasting our time here. I'm sorry, we're talking about different things. How much time anyways? Yeah, I mean, what are we doing?

We could be feeding the girls out there right now. They're cold. Right. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker, please.

Hello, good afternoon. My name is Anel. I also work on Holt Avenue. I also exchange my time, energy and services for pay, as all of us in this room do. I am the Director of Healing Justice at Gento Organizada, which has done a lot of work on this.

I think it's very obvious that the answer is not for the criminalization. I heard, like a power struggle, right? And I heard Lacey ask, what about the Johns? I heard Rodriguez ask, is this correlated to violence? This is all correlated to lack of services, basic human needs, housing, housing, food, security, amongst other things.

And I think that's what we need to focus on, the resources along with healthcare services, mental health services. And the money is there, right? Upton Sinclair talks about how a man cannot understand what his paycheck depends on. Look at other systems. The resources are there. They just need to be redistributed differently.

Another thing is that this is a problem that impacts women, queer folks, black and brown. And there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 people, majority white men making decisions and the AS needs to change.

Thank you for your comment. Next speaker, please.

Good morning, Public Safety Committee, and thank you for this hearing. I. I also want to thank the presenters for presenting all sides. My name is Jocelyn. I live in Pomona. I understand the need for support for victims and survivors as well as holding those responsible accountable. But I'm also hoping for more community involvement with everyone.

That's including government, local law enforcement and residents all working together. It's really hard to explain to your child what's going on on Holt. I want to shop and eat there, but it's tough when this is happening. Why do people come to Pomona for these activities? I don't see corridors like Holt in the nearby cities.

I appreciate everyone working on these issues, but let's keep the momentum going and remember to consider everyone in our community. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. I see that completes public comment. I want to thank you all. We do have closing comments from Members of the Committee up here, but I just want to thank you all. It's hard to be the guy trying to keep everyone on track.

So I apologize if I had to interrupt you or cut your comment short, but I wanted to make sure we had time for some closing remarks with that colleagues we have about nine minutes. I'd like to first turn it over to our speaker, Robert Rivas, for brief remarks.

Yeah, well, I will certainly be as brief as I can. And, you know, first, I want to thank all of you for making the time to be here. I want to thank those who provided some public comments. I want to thank those who agreed to be on these panels.

I think the information, you all made some very strong points. I also want to thank our chair for working to organize this hearing morning. I want to thank him for his leadership. He certainly is chair and leads one of the most challenging committees in the Legislature and public safety, and this is just his first year.

And so I want to thank our chair for that. I want to thank Assemblymember Rodriguez for working to organize and to host this very important hearing and discussion. I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Lackey, for making the time to be here and for always showing leadership and bringing so much experience to these discussions.

Clearly, this is now the end of my or close to the end of my seventh year in the Legislature. This is a state where there's no shortage of problems and challenges.

We all agree that we have a housing crisis in this state, state, the worst of the nation, but for decades, we can't agree on where to build the housing or how to build it.

And I mention that because this is a legislation in recent years that has done a lot of work to ensure that we're protecting trafficking survivors, that we're protecting trafficking victims. And I think all of us have, have served in local government as a county supervisor for eight years.

And it's always, always ensuring that our local law enforcement has the resources and the tools to do their job.

And so certainly what we struggle with at times in any issue is finding that public policy balance, in this case, ensuring that we are doing everything necessary to tackle this human trafficking problem, that we're protecting victims and survivors, all the while ensuring that law enforcement has the tools to protect our communities and our residents.

They could do their jobs.

And I think certainly no one, no one in our Legislature, no Democrat, no Republican, no one wants to encourage this very visible and this strong presence that currently exists of this problem related to sex work and prostitution, human trafficking, as was stated by Chief Alice, the example here in Pomona that exists in the district I represent up north in the central coast of California, this issue that is interfacing with children, walking to school, that's impacting small businesses, that directly impacts our economy.

We understand that this is a problem, and that's why I appreciate the Work that was done to organize this hearing by Chair Shultz. A commitment from my colleagues to be here to listen and to better understand this problem. We know we have work to do. Is it going to be easy? No, it's not going to be easy.

But our commitment is to find that pathway to ensure that we have that balance and that the work we do in Sacramento reflects the problems and challenges you are experiencing here on the ground. And so, again, appreciate everyone being here, making the time to offer testimony and to be a part of this process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.