The Public Press’ latest print edition cover story, on California’s uncoordinated attack on the problem of human trafficking, has been picked up in a variety of media since the publication of the special team reporting project in the Spring 2012 edition: “Force, Fraud Coercion: Human Trafficking in the Bay Area.” The project was produced in collaboration with New America Media and El Tecolote, San Francisco’s bilingual newspaper. Last week Public Press reporter Jason Winshell was interviewed on KPFA Radio by producer Anthony Fest. Winshell’s lead story showed that four years after a high-profile state task force issued a study, many of its recommendations for better laws, funding and coordination among agencies have yet to materialize.
Category: Public Safety
Posted inEducation, Human Trafficking, Law & Justice, Public Safety
Weak state law, lack of police savvy frustrate attorneys who prosecute traffickers
This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
While California prosecutors mostly agree that the state’s human trafficking laws need strengthening, they also suggest that failure to recognize the crime itself remains a greater impediment in the fight. State law is still relatively new. Assembly Bill 22 of 2005 created penalties specifically for human traffickers. But some attorneys say it has not been much help.
Posted inHuman Trafficking, Labor, Public Safety, Social Justice
State labor agencies slow to coordinate with law enforcement on trafficking cases
This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
Despite a strongly worded recommendation from a California-wide task force four years ago urging labor standards officials to look for signs of human trafficking, state and local investigators say there has so far been little coordination or direct follow-up with law enforcement or organizations supporting victims. The task force, which was disbanded in 2007 but is reconvening throughout this spring, outlined the need to identify and rescue victims — as opposed to deporting them in the course of routine labor enforcement sweeps.
Posted inElections, Human Trafficking, Law & Justice, Public Safety, Social Justice
California voter initiative would strengthen penalties for traffickers
This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
A California group dedicated to stopping human trafficking is hoping to take its fight directly to voters this fall. In January, the nonprofit advocacy group California Against Slavery began circulating petitions to get a measure on the November 2012 ballot to strengthen the state’s human trafficking laws. The measure is called the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act, and the campaign has mobilized hundreds of people around the state to collect the 800,000 valid signatures required for the measure to make the ballot.
Posted inHuman Trafficking, Public Safety, Social Justice
How an infamous Berkeley human trafficking case fueled reform
Advocates for increased prison terms say 10-year-old sex trafficking case changed conversation
This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press. (Read in Spanish at La Opiñon/Impremedia. Leer en español en La Opiñon/Impremedia.)
Lakireddy Balireddy shocked the Bay Area a decade ago when investigators discovered how the Berkeley landlord transported young women and girls from India for sex. He served eight years in prison. His case still inspires reformers who want to put human traffickers away for longer.This year’s campaign to get tougher anti-trafficking laws on the November ballot as a voter initiative is the latest attempt to deal with what proponents call the unfinished business of legal reform.
Posted inCity Hall, Government & Politics, Human Trafficking, Law & Justice, Media, Neighborhoods, Public Safety, Social Justice
Bay Area agencies improvise tactics to battle trafficking
With little guidance from state leaders, local police, nonprofits fight for scarce funding
This special report appeared in the Spring 2012 print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
Across California, local agencies have been left to scramble for limited resources and improvise strategies to fight human trafficking, a problem whose scope has yet to be defined with reliable numbers. A high-profile state task force studying California’s human trafficking problem made 46 recommendations in October 2007 but set up no mechanism to monitor progress. Attorney General Kamala Harris has begun picking up the pieces this year. But without clear guidance from the state, nine regional task forces sprung up to devise their own solutions. Their efforts have been supported mostly by federal grants. But as the funding rules become more stringent, the groups at times have been pitted against each other for resources.
Posted inPublic Safety, Transportation
Bike theft on the rise at BART stations
Jay Fraser knows what it’s like to lock a bicycle at a Bay Area Rapid Transit station and return to an empty rack. Fraser is a research analyst for the Administrative Office of the Courts in San Francisco and has commuted by bike for 20 years, 10 of them in the Bay Area. He had a bike stolen at the Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre BART station and a seat stolen at the Walnut Creek station. Like Fraser, hundreds of other commuters have parked a bike at a BART stop and returned to find it gone or stripped of parts.
Posted inLaw & Justice, News, Public Safety, Social Justice
Fight brewing over historic California plan to close last 3 youth prisons
California, often a trendsetter, could make history if it approves Gov. Jerry Brown’s bid to close all state-run youth prisons and eliminate its state Division of Juvenile Justice. Much depends, though, on whether the state’s politically influential prison guards, probation officers and district attorneys can be convinced — or forced by legislators — to agree to Brown’s proposal. That won’t be an easy sell, due to both public-safety arguments and sure-to-surface haggling over just who pays to house juvenile offenders.
Posted inGovernment & Politics, Public Safety, Social Justice
Advocates launch campaign to get anti-trafficking bill on state ballot
A campaign to get a new measure on the November ballot that would increase penalties against human traffickers in California launched Wednesday in San Francisco. The campaign, announced on National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, requires 800,000 signatures to make it into the state ballot. The California Against Sexual Exploitation (CASE) Act would increase prison terms and fines for human traffickers (up to $1.5 million, which would go to fund victim services), remove barriers to prosecute child sex traffickers, require convicted sex traffickers to register as sex offenders and disclose their Internet accounts, mandate training for law enforcement officers, and prohibit the use of the sexual history of trafficked victims in court.
Posted inPublic Safety
Police catch kidnap suspect after monthlong human trafficking investigation
UPDATE 3/14/12: Charges against Trammell were dropped.
The arrest last week of a suspect in a violent San Francisco kidnapping capped a monthlong investigation headed by human trafficking and domestic violence officers from the Police Department’s revamped special victims unit. The case, police officials said, is one of the first fruits of a new collaborative approach emphasizing long-term investigations by officers across disciplines. The pursuit involved human trafficking investigators, who as recently as last summer were instead focusing much of their energy on arresting prostitutes on the street, leading some critics to say their efforts were counterproductive because they punished abuse victims.