California Dems reverse course, restore bill making child prostitution a felony
By Kenneth Schrupp
The Center Square
California Democrats reversed course, partially restoring a bill making soliciting children for prostitution a felony after national outrage over their initial gutting that even stripped its author, a Democrat, from the bill.
“For adult offenders at least three years older than the minor, prosecutors will have new tools to bring felony charges,” said Assembly Public Safety Committee Chair Nick Schultz, D-Burbank, in a statement. “When the adult offender is within three years of age of the minor, solicitation remains illegal and a misdemeanor.”
Despite support for the original bill from California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, Democrats previously voted to strip Assemblywoman Maggy Krell, D-Sacramento, of authorship of Assembly Bill 379 and remove the felony provisions. Schultz had previously said he would instead “host info hearings on the issue in the fall,” rather than maintain the felony provisions.
The amended bill, which still makes loitering to solicit prostitutes of any age a misdemeanor, passed committee and seems to address concerns raised by other Democrats that the original version would not have been “smart criminal justice policy.”
“Sending an 18 year old high school senior to state prison for offering his 17 year old classmate $20 to fool around isn’t smart criminal justice policy,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, on Bluesky. “Yet that’s what some people are effectively advocating for in this misleading debate.”
Wiener sponsored Senate Bill 357, a bill that decriminalized loitering to commit prostitution, arguing that the then-status quo contributes to “discrimination on the basis of gender, race, class and perceived sex worker status – in particular, targeting Black women and members of the transgender community.”
AB 379 is considered a response to SB 357, since which vast swathes of California have become open prostitution zones, with a 40-block area of South Central Los Angeles now covered by hundreds of prostitutes.