Police believe Senate Bill 357 has helped cause widespread prostitution on the streets of California.
A controversial new law has police officials outraged.
“New state laws make recovering trafficking victims more difficult while emboldening their traffickers,’ San Diego police chief Dave Nisleit said. “Your law enforcement officers are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to human trafficking.”
Nisleit was referring to Senate Bill 357, a piece of legislation which repeals provisions related to “loitering with the intent to commit prostitution.” Nisleit’s comments came when San Diego leaders were celebrating an investigation into both prostitution and human trafficking. The investigation resulted in 48 arrests. It also rescued numerous children including a 13-year-old girl.
“It needs to be repealed,” Nisleit said of SB 357. “We’re talking about a young lady who, by the age of 13, has fallen victim to this. How many more victims do we need to have in sex trafficking before we realize this is not a good law? We can address the disparities in a different manner.”
The investigation was conducted from Jan. 9 to Feb. 10 by the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force. It focused on areas infamous for sexual exploitation.
GOP Assembly leader James Gallagher warned that SB 357 would have deadly consequences.
“California Democrats’ policy of legalizing crime is creating more victims by the hour,” Gallagher said in a statement. “Under Democratic rule, families and businesses are moving out, while human traffickers are moving in. It was clear from the get-go that this law would encourage and enable human trafficking, but that was apparently an acceptable result for the lawmakers who backed it.”
Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener authored the legislation. He argued that this new law would prevent the police from unfairly targeting transgender women.
“[The previous law] allowed police officers to arrest a person, not based on what they did, but based solely on how a person looks,” Wiener recently said. “So, an officer could arrest someone because they were wearing tight clothing, high heels and extra lipstick.”
San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan celebrated that the investigation helped save a 17-year-old girl and her pregnant 21-year-old sister.
“This means day and night, safeguarding people, safeguarding their dignity, demanding that people stop buying people for sex,” Stephan said. “Demanding that traffickers not threaten a pregnant woman and her 17-year-old sister and force them onto the street to prostitute, while pregnant. Unacceptable – will not happen in San Diego County.”
Stephan slammed SB 357 – saying it undeniably made the streets of the Golden State less safe.
“Do you know that the traffickers and the buyers were boasting on social media that because of the decriminalization new law that they just openly sell human beings for sex on our streets? Not in San Diego County,” Stephan said.
Despite the onslaught of criticism, Weiner has stuck by his bill.
“The police’s hands are not tied,” Wiener said. “They can arrest people for soliciting, they can cite vehicles that are stopped in the middle of the street, they can arrest ‘johns,’ they can arrest pimps.”
