3 months ago
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(NewsNation) — Recent quality reports astir the sex-trafficking of minors successful a notorious Los Angeles red-light territory person circled backmost to a California legislative betterment that critics and observers accidental has resulted successful unintended consequences.
In July 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the “Safer Streets for All Act” (SB 357), which barred constabulary from arresting suspected prostitutes who loiter successful public. Proponents of the measurement said the law, which took effect successful 2023, would extremity harassment of suspected enactment workers, including transgender women, frankincense cutting down connected the targeting of females and minorities.
At the time, Newsom — a Democrat wide seen arsenic a 2028 statesmanlike contender — said the authorities was meant to halt the “disproportionate harassment of women and transgender adults,” but helium didn’t regularisation retired aboriginal legislative reappraisal to mitigate “any imaginable unintended consequences.”
More than 3 years later, bombshell articles suggest those unforeseen results whitethorn person arrived.
LA red-light territory is known arsenic 'Kiddie Stroll'
In an investigative portion published this month, The New York Times elaborate the prevalence of scantily clad, underage enactment workers being trafficked successful L.A.’s notorious South Figueroa Street corridor. That country of the metropolis is known besides arsenic “the Blade” and by the nickname coined by section prosecutors: the “Kiddie Stroll.”
The insubstantial said galore of the girls are erstwhile foster children recruited by traffickers from radical homes, either by conning them done little romances oregon by brutalizing them up front.
Under the California instrumentality change, the NYT said, uniformed officers tin nary longer circular up suspected prostitutes with the intent of recovering a insignificant among them. Officers alternatively indispensable fishy that each miss is underage, a near-impossible modular erstwhile the loitering females are wearing big attire and makeup.
The New York Post, which did its ain exposé, said SB 357 prohibits constabulary from approaching a trafficked insignificant based connected however they are dressed, adjacent if that insignificant is wearing lingerie.
Minor girls, foster kids targeted for prostitution: Officials
Stephany Powell, a erstwhile L.A. sergeant successful the vice part and anti-trafficking advocate, told the Post the California instrumentality alteration ended up sending signals to pimps to “work those girls adjacent harder.”
Federal prosecutors successful August announced racketeering charges against members of a South Los Angeles transgression pack who “largely controlled enactment trafficking and prostitution successful Figuero Corridor.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office said pack members focused connected insignificant girls and young women.
“The exploitation of susceptible women and children done enactment trafficking is 1 of the astir heinous crimes our nine faces,” Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said successful a quality merchandise announcing the charges. “The victims successful this lawsuit — galore of them minors, runaways, oregon from the foster attraction strategy — were preyed upon by individuals who sought to nett from their pain.”
