BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1414 into law to increase penalties for those found buying children for sex.
- Video explains the impact of SB 1414
- The bill makes it a felony for adults soliciting, attempting, or engaging in sex with a minor under 16 years old.
- Offenders with a 10 year age gap must register as sex offenders and could face up to 3 years in county jail.You may remember a story we did on Senate Bill 1414 back in April.
That bill aimed to create harsher penalties for people who buy children for sex, and on Thursday that bill became a law.
Odessa Perkins, human trafficking survivor and key witness in the creation of SB 1414, says a lot has changed since she experienced sex trafficking as a child.
"It has been a crazy up and down roller coaster," Perkins said.
Perkins has advocated for a new piece of legislation, Senate Bill 1414, to help survivors like her.
SB 1414 makes it a felony for adults who are soliciting, attempting, or engaging in sex with a minor under 16-years-old, punishable by up to 3 years in county jail and requires those with a 10 year age gap to register as sex offenders.
"If you climb on top of a child, if you sell a child that is under 18 years old, you deserve to be in jail," Perkins said.
Committee meetings in April resulted in controversy when a motion by Senator Nancy Skinner resulted in an amendments which removes 16 and 17-year-olds from the felony charge.
16 and 17-year-old minors were added back into the bill with an extra requirement.
The prosecutor must prove they were victims of human trafficking, which Odessa Perkins, a human trafficking survivor opposes.
"They took the 16 and 17-year-olds out like all children don't matter, and all children do matter."
The bill was met with controversy again in early August when the Department of Finance opposed the bill, saying the potential for mass incarceration could be too costly for the state.
"California has successful remained below the court-ordered prison population cap and has even made strides towards closing prisons, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars of annual savings; however, increases to the population threaten the state's ability to continue making progress in rightsizing California's prison system," a representative for the Department of Finance, said in the committee meeting.
The Department of Finance estimated putting additional offenders in prison as a result for the bill would cost upwards of $10,000 per prisoner, which Senator Shannon Grove says didn't compare to the lifelong impact on a child.
"We're talking about buying kids for sex, traumatizing them for the rest of their life. The social things that they'll need in order to get over that traumatization that took place when they were younger, that's far more expensive than putting perpetrators in prison," Grove said.
Despite the opposition, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill on Thursday, making it a law in California.
"We see the bill being signed and I screamed," Perkins said.
Perkins says passing this bill into law shows sex trafficking survivors their stories matter, and she says she'll continue to advocate for other survivors like her.
"Buyers and traffickers beware," she said. "We will not rest until every single child is saved."
You can read the full bill here.
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