john school

I had the privilege of attending the “john school” or Prostitution Diversion Program at the 77^th precinct in Los Angeles this last Saturday. The program began in 2008 by two retired LAPD detectives under the belief that education is more powerful than punishment. That if these men who have been arrested for soliciting prostitution only knew what was really going on and all the dangers involved – they would make better choices in the future. Since the program began in July of 2008, 1,533 men have gone through the program and only 4 have been repeat offenders.

I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into the training. To be honest, my fear was that the school was going to be very shame-based. But it was delightfully refreshing. I walked away with such hope, inspiration and encouragement for what this program is doing and what more we can be doing to help the men of Los Angeles.

This program educated, challenged, encouraged and inspired (at least me! But I think the men that were there as well). The men were treated as decent humans who would make better decisions if only they had the information to make those decisions. On one of the breaks we were talking to a detective who was telling us about some of the past men they have come through the program. One man was in a moment of extreme loneliness and depression after his wife of 40 years had just passed away a couple weeks before and he got caught. I think we often jump to the conclusion that these men are gross and misogynistic. But I think you’d find that a lot of these men have a much larger and tragic story that we most often don’t consider. 

Throughout the day the johns ask questions, they answer questions, they’re involved and even engaged in laughter at different parts of various lectures and presentations. The presenters really know their stuff – and they don’t pull their punches – but they also treat the johns as intelligent men who are capable of thinking through the consequences next time to make better decisions since they now have the information.

I go through the whole day below, each speaker that came and what they talked about. If you care to read in more detail – keep going!

On Saturday’s training there were 23 men present, of various ethnicities. I counted 8 wedding rings in the room and guessed the ages ranged from early 20’s to early 50’s. Their current situation was explained to them. You were ARRESTED for prostitution, but not CONVICTED – and that’s how it’ll stay on your record if you complete this program and successfully stay clean for one year of probation after completing this program.

“We’re not here to discuss if prostitution should be legalized. We’re not here to point fingers. We’re here to help you make better decisions. You’re risking your life, health, reputation and your family’s life and health. If you go back out on the street, you WILL be arrested.”

Not everyone is eligible for john school. A man cannot have prior arrests for prostitution, drugs or violent crimes on his rap sheet and must be willing to submit to an HIV blood test. Each john shells out $600 to cover the cost of the class. And if they keep clean for their one-year probation, no conviction goes on their permanent record. IF, however, they are to solicit a prostitute again and get caught – they would go to jail immediately.

The day was packed full of highly qualified, entertaining and informative speakers on a variety of topics. The day starts with an explanation of HIV testing which is required of each man that goes through this program. Throughout the day, each man is asked to leave the room one by one and go out to a mobile station parked outside to get tested. They will get their results immediately.

The first speaker was Lt. Rick Shields to give the police perspective. He explained that years ago there were hundreds of prostitutes out on the street corners, but those numbers are declined due to the internet, out call and in call services, backpage, newspapers, etc. The game is changing and how we must respond is changing. He discussed some of the sting operations that the police have going which most likely resulted in these men getting caught and sitting in this room! He framed it all as an overarching community problem – prostitution impacts our churches, schools and neighborhoods in ways we don’t think about. Represented by the simple fact that many of these women are FORCED in this and what we don’t see are the killings, fights and rapes that place. He also reminded these men that a majority of the women they are soliciting are actually under aged although they might tell you they are 18. And if you get caught with a girl under 18, even if you claim you didn’t know – that’s an automatic felony!

The youngest girl arrested (for LT Shields) on the streets in Hollywood for prostitution was 11 years old. The oldest was 69 years old.

Next a city attorney representative, Sonja Dawson spoke. She started by making it clear that her job was to prosecute them! But at the same time, they were supportive of this program because they realized that they could not arrest their way out of this problem. She explained the specifics behind getting arrested for prostitution, the penal codes. She also took the time to explain what would happen if they violated probation or had a second (or third!) offense.

Next was Jason Dawson from the Public Health Administration to talk about HIV and AIDS awareness. Let me tell you – THIS is the sex education we need in high schools! Terrifying. He explained all the science behind what HIV and AIDS actually are as well as many of the statistics from LA, giving many different gender and ethnic statistics.

Then Heather Northover came and gave a presentation of STDs….with pictures. Again, if this was incorporated into more of our sex education, I can’t help but think more teens would stay away from sex…FOREVER! (just kidding…only kind of). STDs cost $16 billion in health care each year. And HIV can run up to $40k annual to treat. At one point she asked each man to look around the room and then asked “how comfortable would you be having sex with someone after they’ve had sex with everyone in this room?” That’s basically what’s going on when you have sex with a streetwalker, you just don't think about it because it’s their job. Sex workers are 10x more likely to have STDs and inconsistent condom use.

Then we had a lunch break, which was really ill-timed since we had just looked at a ton of penises with STD’s.

The afternoon, to me, was the most powerful part of the training. I know not everyone who solicits prostitution is a sex addict. And the training is not implying that either – but bringing in several men from sex addicts anonymous was really powerful. I think it gave freedom to relate to the stories of those who suffer from addiction to find yourself in their stories and be able to get the help you need. I won’t share any of the details of the stories that were shared, but know that they were raw, vulnerable, gut wrenching and powerful. There were lost jobs, divorces, revoking of professional licenses, loss of property, lost children, having to register as a sex offender, and many more. Their truth telling was so powerful, it really conveyed the human experience: fear of mortality, fear of failure and a deep seeded desire to be loved, wanted and needed.

Their biggest suggestions:

1.     Go to meetings

2.     Meet with a sponsor

3.     Have a support group you meet with (out of SAA) that you talk to about life and challenges

4.     Cold call others within SAA so you can ask how they are

5.     Share your story: it is only through authenticity and vigorous honesty that you can get freedom.

They then had Dr. Barbara Pavlo come in and talk about some of the brain science behind addiction and specifically sex addiction. After that they had an ex-prostitute from the area (she had worked one of the tracks After Hours works on for 15 years!) speak to the men about a prostitutes perspective. And the day ended with a community member talking about the impact prostitution has on the neighborhood. She brought up many things I had never thought of before! It was really moving.  

I was encouraged by humanity on Saturday! Those that came together to present this amazing program, retired LAPD officers Art and Bill who have put this program together and continually improved it over the years. Their belief that the men of Los Angeles can make better decisions. The passion of the community members, the vulnerability of the men from SAA who came to share their stories and let those in the training who may also suffer from addiction know that they are not alone.

Everyone deserves a second chance. Thank God for grace. Thank God for community members that do what they can to educate, challenge and love those who had a moment of weakness. And for those it wasn’t a moment of weakness for, who dare to repeat – they’ll pay the consequences! The dark underbelly of prostitution in Los Angeles is a difficult thing to get your mind around – but this program is doing a great job getting the word out there.

I Know I'm Going To Hell

What have we as a church been teaching theologically that makes women in prostitution believe they can’t talk to God? That makes them believe they can’t ask for help in the midst of a rough situation? What is the theology we’re communicating that makes these women believe they have to have their lives cleaned up in order to earn God’s ear and grace and forgiveness before he’d intervene in their lives and situations?

Just last month I was sitting across the table from a woman in her early 20’s. She sat nervously pushing her food around her plate, avoiding eye contact and bouncing her leg up and down. She asked me repeatedly “do you think I am going to Hell?”

I met a young woman out on the track the other night, she couldn’t have been older than 17. She was terrified of her situation, hopeless and wanting help but felt too far gone. When we offered prayer she responded with nervous laughter and told us that she didn’t want to be a hypocrite.

I was talking to a lovely woman who has become a very dear friend to me over the last few years the other day and she began recounting a very dangerous situation she had managed to break free from – with many scrapes, bruises and a couple broken ribs to tell the tale. A john had grown increasingly violent and started to strangle and beat her. And in that moment, she told me, “I wanted to cry out to God to help me, to save my life. I wanted to pray, God just don’t let me die like this! But I knew he would never hear me. After the life I’ve lived…there is no way God would still hear my prayers or let me into Heaven.”

What have we as a church been teaching that makes each of them so convinced they are going to hell – that they are beyond redemption? That they don’t even deserve the ear of God anymore, that he is so far removed from them, he no longer desires to hear their voice?

Last time I checked, I was told each time I cheated, or lied or had lust in my heart or was gluttonous – I was free to turn back to God again and again and again. So why do we make certain sins unredeemable and DIRTY. I think that’s the difference. A life of prostitution, and those who are trapped in it whether it is their choice or not, is so taboo, something we can’t even really address or talk about from a pulpit so they are alienated. If their sin is so dirty we can’t even TALK about it in church, no wonder they think it’s too severe for God’s ears.

But Christ, by his death and resurrection – and even before that by his life on earth as a human – has redeemed these women – they are made in his very image, the imagio Dei. The baptism of Jesus paints a picture of our identity in God. Christ’s worth was not based on his merits, work, miracles or anything he did during his ministry on earth. God declared him “my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11) before he had a chance to do anything, good or bad, to base the formation of his identity on. The fact that Jesus got baptized at all shows incredible solidarity with us as sinners. Baptism signifies repentance, and Jesus, the only human being who did not need to repent, identifies with humanity in its brokenness. He is not ashamed of us and is proud our identity is in him

Jürgen Moltmann in his book “God in Creation” says it well when he says, “What is evil only emerges in the light of what is good, in the same way sin can merely pervert something which God has created, but cannot destroy it. Sin is the perversion of the human being’s relationship to God, not its loss” (p. 233).

So the next time you talk to someone about the accessibility of God and their possibility of going to Hell (which may or may not exist – but that’s a conversion for another day :)) think about the implications you are having. I realize that most who have this conversation or make this accusation are doing this out of a deep deep love for God and desire to see someone living their life in a way that is evident of no sin. But there is a bigger picture at play: addictions, systemic abuse, oppression, manipulation, violence, etc. And we would do well to show grace in the face of all of these things, to show love above anything else and to leave eternal damnation to God. For we would not want to prohibit any attempt these men and women make to reach God by intimidating them that he’d never hear them in the first place. The church should be the place that radically loves.

And for anyone reading who may think that they’ve fallen too far and no longer have a right to the ear of God: no matter what you do, ever, you remain in the image of God. Nothing can take that away. Into God’s image you were created, and sin can only pervert that not take it away as long as God continues to adhere to it. And I believe in a mighty faithful and loving God that won’t let go of you, no matter how unloved and unredeemable you may feel you are. Just reach out – he’s there.

Consistency

She just stood there and wept. Tears running down her cheeks. She’d reach up to gently wipe them off only to have more instantly reappeared.

She began sharing about her addiction. Drugs and alcohol. And the insurmountable obstacles she faces in her life.

It's not so easy to just enter a rehab program, she tells us. Addictions are dark and heavy - so dark that she was willing to leave her three children. "WHO does that," she cries. She hates herself and the choices she has made. But she has to have the drugs and alcohol to turn the tricks and feels trapped. She feels like every car she gets into might be her last - she never knows which john might be dangerous and hurt her, or even kill her.

But at the same time, she knows the Lord and cries out to him. While other girls simply took a gift bag and walked away quickly from us, she stayed and chatted for almost a half hour. “If humiliating myself and humbling myself by crying and being a fool is what it takes for God to get my attention, then I am going to sit here and cry and receive prayer.” She believes God is real and every time she runs into us feels he is calling to her, pursuing her, but she just lacks the strength to make the changes she needs to in her life and face the obstacles holding her back. She prayed with us that one day the Lord would make the taste of alcohol horrible to her lips.

We prayed with her. We cried with her. We embraced her. We let her know that being a slave to your addictions is powerful and horrible and difficult. And we don't want her to deal with it alone. We want to walk with her - even before she's ready to go into a rehab program.

“Even though you might not see my life changing what you are doing is changing me. Just to know that someone cares enough to come out here for us, nobody does that, not even our families.”

It’s not a word for word quote, but it’s close. She told us last night that she’d been out on that track for three years and that we’d been there with her all those years. And she was grateful.

Consistency. Sometimes it’s the most powerful thing you can do – more powerful than any statement you could make or advice you could give. It is a really long road to recovery. These women have learned not to trust people in their life, so we have learned to be consistent in building a relationship with them week after week and week and year after year.

I pray consistency for you in 2014. In whatever area of your life you need it. May you be faithful, even in the smallest of things, and trust the Lord to do his good work.

Christ with us, Christ before us, Christ in us.

This post first appeared on The Salt Collective

Sitting in the Pain and Darkness

It's one of the harder conversations you'll have out on the track. The ones that seem to have no hope. The ones that end in tears.

Running into a smiling face that you see week to week is both joyous and heart-breaking. Joyous because we love building relationships with the women out on the streets and it is a gift being able to see them multiple times and hear more bits and pieces of their story. Heart-breaking because each time we see them out on the track means one more week they've been trapped. One more week they've been a slave to the obstacles and lies in their life.

We saw "Sixty" on Friday (not her real name). And I love running into her. She always has the biggest hug waiting for me and a huge smile on her face. But this week was slightly different. She greeted me with that same hug and smile- the slight scent of alcohol on her breath - as she told us to "hurry up and pray for her so she could get on her way." But then she became deflated. She said she was sick of it all and wanted out.

"I'm serious. When have you ever heard me say this before? I mean it. Get me out of here."

My heart rate livened. I became excited. And I became hopeful that perhaps this was the night. I offered to call some places for her right there. We'd sit down on the curb and make calls all night until we found her a safe place to go, but she was discouraged by that. "You mean I have to call places? I might have to wait? I have to do intakes? I don't have all night to just sit around and hope something works out."

And so that was that. I was sad, but I know it's frustrating. I know when you are discouraged and at the end of your rope any small obstacle in your way feels enormous - but my heart ached in that moment that Sixty wasn't quite ready to take the steps to get free. And there was nothing I could do but sit in the pain and the darkness with her. To  listen to her talk about the thoughts that go through her head in her darkest moments of wanting to take a handful of pills so it'll all be over. Of her pleas that I would make up a false complaint and call the cops so she might have a few nights of relief behind cell bars away from it all. 

And these are the moments it is the hardest. It is difficult to just stand in the chilly stillness and be present. And it is maddening to eventually have to walk away. Knowing that God loves this woman more than I ever could and he is working a bigger picture that I am only a small part of, but feeling like the only thing I am doing is abandoning her.

We spent last night as an After Hours outreach team talking about our fears, and the fears of the women we meet out on the track - and how many of those fears stem from our inability to grasp and truly believe our identity in Christ as his beloved. Loved. Enjoyed. Before we did anything. Because when we don't fully grasp our worth - it is hard to fight for even our own lives. 

I'm making calls and looking up places that might not have long waiting periods. I'm hoping the next time we meet Sixty will be in a space where she is more willing and able to fight those obstacles in her life. But until then, I pray. I wait. I weep. And I trust the God who finds her worthy beyond compare to come to her aid when my efforts are insufficient. 

The Already....But Not Yet

Last night out on the track it was Good Friday. And I couldn't help but think about our interactions with the girls in light of this significant night. This significant moment we stop to pause and allow ourselves to lament. To cry. Sunday is coming, yes, but it is not here yet. We are left with the tension of despair and darkness and hope and gratefulness. Kingdom Come. They say it is "already, but not yet" - and most days it just feels like not yet, because the "already" is so hidden. 

And this is what our girls face on a daily basis. They live on Friday night. They live in the despair and darkness of the defeat of death, and it is up to us to bring the power of the resurrection. To let them know that Sunday IS coming. That things can be different. That death is defeated and the Kingdom has come…and is coming.

But we have to be willing to sit with them in the darkness. In the pain. Not everyday can be Sunday. Friday and Saturday had to come before. And I think we are uncomfortable with those days. We don't like to hear about the mother who is out on the track because she just has to buy her kid some diapers and formula. We don't want to hear about the girl who is out on the track because she tried to get away several times before but her pimp found her every time. We don't want to hear about the young lady who is on the track because dad is in jail, mom is on drugs and she's got siblings at home to take care of. We don't want to hear about the young mother who is out on the track because her 9 month old got cancer and she has to find a way to pay the bills. Those stories make us uncomfortable. We want to jump to the success stories. To making it all better and offer solutions. It is hard to just sit in the pain. To cry with someone. And to realize all you have to offer them is hope.

Hope.

It is so powerful. But Hope with Faith is even better. Hope that is built on nothing less than Jesus love and righteousness. On Christ the solid rock, I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. 

Praying for the grace and ability to see the "already" while holding out hope for the not yet.

Irresistible Jesus

Last night's outreach was fun. We were able to talk to around 20 girls or so, and have some good conversations, but what I remember most about the night is how irresistible Jesus is. I'll just share one story….

There were two girls standing on one corner. We approached N* first, she was polite and took a bag but when we asked her if she wanted any prayer she was very adamant that she did not. So we moved on. 

We then talked to M* who was standing on that same corner just a few feet away. She was very open to chatting with us. She very much wants out of prostitution, she is tired and sad and beaten down. But knows that it is a battle within her own mind that is keeping her trapped where she is. We offered to pray for her and she eagerly accepted (Actually, I think she asked us for prayer before we could even offer it!). 

In the middle of our prayer for her, another woman we see quite often out on the streets, L*, walked up shouting "My girls!!!!" She ran to embrace us and join in our prayer time. Seeing us all embracing on the street and praying together, N* walked over and said, "okay, um…I want to pray to, I want prayer!"

It was a beautiful and holy moment. 

The woman who didn't want to engage with us and was very resistant to prayer couldn't resist it any longer when a community of people came together on a dim street corner to pray. When M* was vulnerable enough to acknowledge her weaknesses and need for God, it enabled N* to do the same. When L* was free in her excitement of seeing us and joining in our prayer, it enabled N* to do that same. It was a holy moment. Christ was irresistible, and he met N* in her resistance, hesitancy and vulnerability. 

Red Hope

There's a girl I keep thinking about. I've met her several times out on the track, but two weeks ago was the first time she's spent any time really opening up or talking to us. I'll call her "Red."

I can't get Red out of my head because of how defeated she is. And how helpless I feel to assist her in any way, to give her hope or to make a difference in her situation. I feel defeated for her and wish so desperately I had more comfort to give, or more eloquent words, or better answers. But life is shit for her. And it is scary. And it really feels impossible.

Red has tried running away from her pimp two times before, and each time he has found her. Once, she made it three month and thought she was free, but he showed up one day ending the elated freedom she thought she had found. She had gotten rid of her cell phone, deleted all online presence and moved across the country. HOW did he find her? She still has no clue other than his interconnectivity with others involved in trafficking all across the U.S.

Having to listen to her tell us that there was no way we could ever possibly help her was maddening. It was depressing. And I froze in the moment. All I could do was acknowledge how impossible the situation feels and even sounds, but confess that deep within my heart I believe in a God that is bigger and can conquer even that which is impossible. She smiled a little at that and said, "I guess one day it'll work out, it just has to be the right timing, and I don't think that's now. But I'll try again someday."

I hope she will. I am inspired by her resilience, confidence and persistance. She is a fighter -and despite her impossible circumstances, she believes freedom can one day he be hers. She just has to fight both an internal and external battle with defeat each day in an effort to get to that place. I pray for Red everyday. She is vibrant and has a life of things waiting before her. She has our number, and I hope she'll call it when she feels that timing is right again - because I believe in my gut that God loves her deeply and passionately and will come to her rescue when she is ready to try again.

Will you pray with me that Red finds the courage to try again and that God would meet her with freedom and protection?

When is enough, enough?

I saw K on the street this last weekend. It took until about half way though our conversation, when she mentioned her last name actually, for me to remember having met her about two years ago. Two years. Two years and she's still out on the streets. Drunk. High. Wandering around, not making any sense.

I guess I'm not surprised. She was there long before we met her two years ago - and she very well may be out there for many more years.

But it was the conversation I had with her the other night that has stuck with me and made me think and rethink about that exchange.

She told me that she knew God. She gave her life to Him - she did the whole thing. But she's still here. NOTHING has changed. And she's tired. So that's it. She gives up and she's just hoping it is enough. Because she's tried to be a good person but there's only so many times a person can get knocked down before they can't take it anymore. "I better be going to Heaven, cause I don't know what else to do. And I've got nothing else to give."

I told her I thought she was. Maybe you would have said something different. But I honestly believed it. She gave her life to God - and it's been a shit life since then. Doesn't that go against everything we preach to people? We tell them to give their life to God and he will turn it around! But it doesn't always work like that. Sometimes, life is just hard! Sometimes, God just walks with you through the pain. But I am beginning to realize more and more that it take a whole lot of practice to recognize God in the midst of that pain and hurt. It is easier to self medicate.

All I could say to that woman was God LOVES you, just as much as the day you decided to love him. And he's never left you. You're frustrated, and you want to give up on the whole thing and hope it was good enough - well, it was. But don't give up, cause God won't give up on you. I know it sucks out here, but no one understands abandonment, mockery, loneliness and judgement like God.

I didn't say all of that. I wish I had. All I said was "I think you are. God loves you. Don't give up on yourself." But she wasn't really with it. She just shook her head and got more and more frustrated.

In Gary Haugen's book "The Good News About Injustice" he talks about the simple concept that his friends "knew that they could never understand the deepest part of me if they didn't have some understanding of the hard things I had seen." This was such an easy concept for me to grab onto. And then he related it to God. We can't truly understand the deepest parts of God until we have some understanding of the hard things God has seen. And God sees EVERYTHING! God knows the deepest pain of each individual heart.

I think I understood God just a little bit better after last weekend. Wanting so badly to help and love K, her wanting desperately to receive it as she clung so tightly to my neck in a hug she didn't want to let go of, while at the same time saying she was better off alone and didn't need love or help.

God loves you despite your frustration and resistance, K. And you have done enough. Don't try or run anymore. He's right there. Just hang on to that hug.

Vote YES on Proposition 35

By: Jen Cecil and Julia Speck

As Maxine Doogan made her case for “no” on proposition 35 in the LA Times and in speaking to the California Joint Senate and Assembly Public Safety hearing, she claimed that she was advocating for the decriminalization of prostitution where in fact she is arguing for the legalization of prostitution, two very different agendas. Legalizing prostitution is not the answer, Melissa Farley, author of Prostitution and Trafficking in Nevada, spent 13 years studying legal prostitution in 10 different countries. She says, “Women in legal prostitution from Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the Netherlands experience the same physical and emotional violence as other women do in countries where prostitution is illegal. Whether prostitution is legal or illegal, women in prostitution want to get out of that life and have a safe home, a job that pays enough to live, and receive adequate medical care.” (Farley, 2007).

Maxine Doogan who works as a prostitute by choice and Represents the Exotic Service Providers Legal, Education and Research Project is a very rare minority in this industry who fails to consider the realities that victims of trafficking face. Men and women who are trafficked are NOT prostitutes, they are prostituted by their perpetrators. Farley in her book Prostitution, Trafficking, and Traumatic Stress puts it well when she says “In Prostitution, the conditions which make genuine consent possible are absent: physical safety, equal power with customers, and real alternatives. Until it is understood that prostitution and trafficking can appear voluntary but are not in reality a free choice made from a range of options, it will be difficult to garner adequate support to assist the women and children in prostitution who wish to escape but have no other economic choices.” (Farley, 2003). The reality is that human trafficking is taking place in your backyard, the women and men on the streets of Los Angeles, San Diego,San Francisco and other California cities are primarily American citizens who have not been protected by our legal system.

The City of Citrus Heights summarizes what this measure is achieving well: “This measure makes several changes to state law related to human trafficking. Specifically, it (1) expands the definition of human trafficking to include sexual trafficking, (2) increases the punishment for human trafficking, (3) imposes new fines to fund services for human trafficking victims, (4) changes how evidence can be used against human trafficking victims, and (5) requires additional law enforcement training on handling human trafficking cases. The measure also places additional requirements on sex offender registrants.”

Doogan omits one of those very important aspects of Proposition 35 in her arguments against it, that of mandatory education for law enforcement. As supporters of the proposition and those who fight on the front lines for victims of sex trafficking in California, we can tell you that this is one of the most important steps we can take as a state to protect victims of trafficking. Many victims are still being treated as criminals because of a lack of education, Proposition 35 will change this. What we need to work towards is abolishing, not legalizing prostitution. While Doogan may have made the choice of prostitution herself, she is in the minority.

Another argument made by Doogan is that longer prison sentences won’t keep perpetrators from committing the crimes in the first place. Although there currently may be no correlation between life imprisonment and a drop in sex trafficking crimes, we would argue that giving them softer punishment is not the answer. And we are not even sure that is what Doogan is arguing for. If harsher prison time and fines do not work - what does she want to implement?  Raise the punishment to the death penalty? Castration? What is the “data and evidence-based policy” sentencing she is referring to?

But more importantly, she has again missed the purpose of the proposition on this point. Proposition 35 demands longer sentences for traffickers to protect the victims from retaliation. As it stands today, if the trafficker is convicted at all they are usually back on the streets in just a few short years (or less) and the victim is at risk once again.

Doogan states in her second point that “it expands the sex offender registry and, in so doing, converts it from a useful tool to help police and residents track the whereabouts of potentially dangerous sexual predators into a list that includes non-sex criminals, including traffickers who extort money." I am not sure how she gets away with calling human traffickers "non-sex criminals," I would like to know where the data is to prove that these traffickers have not been sexually involved with the victims in some form along the way. And I absolutely would want to know where each and every man and women that has bought, sold and abused a child or adult sexually for profit is located. How does this not make sense? How is this cluttering a system rather than making it more useful?

She goes on to argue that if she were to give money to her son for his college tuition, he could be charged as a sex criminal and be put in the database for life, this is not true. According to Sharmin Bock in a piece regarding the CASE Act he said, “Prop 35 is narrowly tailored and specifically states that there must be criminal intent to violate the law...Human trafficking is a brutal and clearly delineated crime that involves and requires proof the criminal intent (called mens rea) to exploit another human being for profit. PROP 35 is not something that could ever be triggered by mistake. Prop 35 does not impact prostitution involving consensual adults. There are laws on the books against prostitution, but Prop 35 only covers cases where traffickers profit from the sexual exploitation of a child or the forced exploitation of an adult.”

What is important about this piece of legislation is that it focuses heavily on California State law. Federal law in this area is quite strong (as some opposed to this proposition have pointed out!) But as the CASE Act would let you know, “The federal law against human trafficking, called the ‘Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000’ (TVPA), applies only to federal cases, which are required to be tried in federal courts, by federal prosecutors. Each state is responsible for enacting its own legislation to handle cases within the state.” California is responsible to have legislation for the crimes that happen in our state, and Proposition 35 is taking a step in the right direction to make this happen.

When compared with current state laws (see chart below found on the CASE Act website) you can see that California has drastic improvements to make to be at the federal level.  Not to mention the great leaps that need to be taken to protect minors who are trafficked without force (I think we can all agree that a 14 year old is not able to legally, certainly not emotionally, consent to prostitution) and to appropriately prosecute and sentence repeat offenders of trafficking.

This proposition also seeks to create laws to help in the tracking of internet use. It would require sex offenders to provide information regarding internet access and identities they use in online activities. As someone on the front lines of this fight, we can tell you that a high percentage of sex trafficking is moving off the streets and boarders and onto our computers. Making criminals disclose their internet information is a move in the right direction.

We think it is a no brainer to vote YES on Proposition 35, but you obviously have to weigh the arguments for yourself to decide what you think is best. We hope we have answered some of the questions you might have and explained some of the more difficult parts to understand about the legislation. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have more questions.

YES! on Prop 35. Together we can make a difference in the lives of trafficked victims.

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Jen Cecil and Julia Speck work with After Hours Ministry, a street outreach to men and women who are prostituted. Their work with these individuals makes them passionate about the upcoming election and especially the opportunity that is before us as a state with Proposition 35. This article was written to give you their perspective regarding the proposition and some of the opposition towards it.

Shame

The "shame" technique. What do you think? Is this right? Will it be effective? Is this the best way to curb the demand and help the men caught up in this industry struggling with sex addiction (whether they are remorseful of it or not)?