Leniency for crimes against children is California’s ugliest trait
Hudson Crozier
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It’s not often that you hear crying in a legislative chamber, but what happened in California’s state capitol yesterday certainly made it excusable.
Human trafficking victims reportedly sobbed after watching the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee block a bill that would make the trafficking of children a “serious felony.” All six Democrats and one Republican on the committee voted against it, putting it up for “reconsideration” next year, while two Republicans supported it.
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Making this crime a serious felony would put it on par with rape and murder in California, bringing a life sentence or execution to those who specifically traffic children. What is there to reconsider?
When you sell children into slavery, you have no idea where in the world they could end up or what the extent of their exploitation will be. Victims may be raped several times a day for years on end, used for sadistic sex abuse material, forced into labor, or have their organs harvested against their will. Starvation and beatings, sexually transmitted disease, and forced abortions are also common in the lives of trafficked individuals. Casting children into that criminal network authorizes whatever form of hell is unleashed on their life from that day onward.
California’s attorney general has admitted that the Golden State is already a hotspot in the United States for human trafficking compared to most states. If officials insist on avoiding the death penalty for criminals, they should at least be comfortable with locking up the worst people on the planet for life.
For now, this is too much to ask under California’s approach to crime. The dominant liberal “reform” mentality demands endless introspection and reluctance before punishing anything, including horrific crimes against children. Investigative reporting from last year uncovered how Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) reforms were setting thousands of child molesters free within a year of their convictions. Many of them sodomized or continuously abused their victims. One man convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child served two days plus probation.
And let’s not forget the atrocious 2020 state law that made it optional to put adults on a sex offender registry if they have gay sex with a minor. State Sen. Scott Weiner, the bill’s author, said it’s about “equality” because the law treats other sexual acts with a minor the same way. The legislature has never considered it a priority to simply make the registry mandatory for both sets of rapists. What’s important is that the lives of “queer” rapists “aren’t getting ruined because of this discrimination,” Weiner argued.
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If one can judge the values of a society by what it punishes most harshly, California does not value the dignity and well-being of children highly enough. Nevertheless, even Weiner had enough sense to vote for the child trafficking bill, along with every state senator, unanimously. I would love to hear the latest social justice argument that makes House committee members think they are more enlightened.
Hudson Crozier is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.