SB 110-HUMAN TRAFFICKING/SEX OFFENSES  2:13:43 PM CHAIR FRENCH announced the consideration of SB 110. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI, sponsor of SB 110, stated that this bill seeks to close a gap. Under current law, it is a class A felony to compel someone to travel to Alaska for prostitution, adult entertainment, or forced labor. However, it is not a violation of the Human Trafficking Act to transport someone within the state for the same purposes. Because the law only addresses human trafficking across state lines, it essentially discriminates against Alaskan residents. The evidence indicates that huge numbers of young girls, Native girls in particular, are being recruited from small Alaska villages to the state's larger urban areas to become prostitutes. He noted a letter in the packets from the chair of the Alaska Violent Crimes Compensation Board stating that in the last few years the board had received 23 claims from Alaska residents for compensation for trafficking. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI provided some statistics. One in seven children will be runaways before age 18. One in three teenagers on the street will be lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home. Thirty percent of shelter youths and 70 percent of street youths are victims of commercial sexual exploitation according to the American Journal of Public Health. The average age of entry into prostitution for girls in the U.S. is age 12- 14, and it's younger for boys. Research indicates that there are a disproportionate number of Alaska Native girls and women engaged in prostitution. SB 110 puts in-state human trafficking on par with trafficking across state lines. 2:17:24 PM CHAIR FRENCH asked for a motion to adopt version M committee substitute (CS). SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI moved to adopt CS for SB 110, labeled 27- LS0646\M, as the working document. CHAIR FRENCH objected for discussion purposes. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI explained that the proposed CS seeks to address some of the concerns the administration had with the bill last year. As a compromise the CS says that to be considered human trafficking, a person must be moved over 100 miles within the state. The penalties were also increased from a class A felony to an unclassified felony. Another new provision makes it a higher penalty if the victim is under age 18 and four years younger than the trafficker. Specifying the four-year gap in age was to avoid capturing people in a dating relationship, a 19 year old and a 17 year old for example. 2:19:46 PM DOUG GARDNER, Director, Legislative Legal Services, Legislative Affairs Agency, introduced himself. CHAIR FRENCH highlighted the new provision addressing the age difference in Section 2. He said he and the sponsor understood that as the single most serious crime, it would be human trafficking in the first degree. MR. GARDNER offered to make the necessary changes. CHAIR FRENCH asked if he could see the gist that a predator relationship would be a more serious offense than the relationship that might be encompassed by what is now human trafficking in the first degree where someone is age 19 and someone else is age 17. MR. GARDNER replied he understood what the committee wanted to do. CHAIR FRENCH confirmed that the committee would wait for the new CS before taking any action on the bill. 2:22:24 PM SUZANNE LA PIERRE, private attorney, Anchorage, AK, said she had worked on the trafficking issue for about two years and she believed that several points may have gotten lost in the discussion. She explained that prosecution was only one of three prongs for approaching the trafficking issue. The others were prevention and protection, and Alaska laws have gaping holes in those two categories. For example, neither current law nor this bill provide a safe harbor for children under age 18 from being charged or prosecuted for prostitution. She emphasized that Alaska law needed a more victim oriented approach for situations of forced labor and commercial sex, including a comprehensive plan to provide victim services. She further suggested that the bill should have restitution provisions and provide a private cause of action for victims of all types of forced labor trafficking. She highlighted that there were both supply and demand issues regarding prevention. She suggested cutting the demand by expanding the definition of trafficker to include a patron in a commercial sex exploitation situation and increasing the fines. Then put the money in a designated trafficked victims' fund. Also, patrons who have been charged with commercial sex exploitations should be required to attend an educational program, and they should be publicly shamed. On the supply side, she suggested increasing education and work opportunities in the villages so individuals would not be compelled to relocate to urban areas. MS. LA PIERRE encouraged the committee to look at model legislation and work in partnership with organizations that work on this issue. 2:27:47 PM QUINLAN STEINER, Public Defender, Public Defender Agency, Department of Administration (DOA), stated that his comments on SB 110 were a matter of record, but he wanted to reiterate some concerns about unintended consequences. SB 110 not only brings the human trafficking statute to an in-state issue, it also broadens the definition by including the word "entice." He opined that this was a different concept than the terms "compel" and "induce" that were in current statute. That term is not well-defined in this area and could broaden enforcement to an unintended degree as well as subject it to constitutional challenge, he said. CHAIR FRENCH referred to page 1, [lines 12-13] that says a person commits the crime if he or she "compels, entices or induces" another person. He pointed out that the verbs were all modified by the second half of the clause that says those things are done to engage in sexual conduct in the state by force or threat of force or deception. He asked if that affected his analysis. MR. STEINER said the unintended consequence is created when "enticement" is put alongside "deception." Force or threat of force are clearly wrongful, whereas deception can cover a wide range of statements around the activity of labor and sexual conduct, not all of which is defined in statute. CHAIR FRENCH pointed out that the current statute makes it a crime to compel or induce someone by deception. MR. STEINER said inducing and compelling are the kind of elements that would involve causing somebody to do something that they were not seeking to do or would not otherwise do. Enticing does not have that component. It may be somebody asking about the terms of doing X activity, so there would be an exchange of information. That is a demonstratively different set of circumstances than compelling or inducing. Although the difference is subtle, it can have a profound impact on how these cases can be prosecuted. MR. STEINER highlighted the difficulty between Sections 1 and 2 that was discussed earlier. CHAIR FRENCH confirmed that would be fixed. 2:33:16 PM DR. REGINA CHENNAULT, representing herself, Anchorage, AK, stated support for SB 110. She said she was a trauma surgeon and the physician member of the Violent Crimes Compensation Board (VCCB), and had seen young boys and girls and women from around the state who were enticed, induced and deceived with promises of a better life into going with an abductor. These victims are lured in and they end up in the emergency room with significant, lifetime injuries. Once they leave the ER, they are coerced into going back out on the street to sell drugs and themselves so they can give money to the organizer of the ring. 2:35:57 PM ANNE CARPENETI, Assistant Attorney General representing the Criminal Division, Department of Law (DOL), said DOL testified on this bill last year to make the committee aware that these acts were prohibited under the current promoting prostitution statutes. Inducing someone who is under age 18 to engage in prostitution is already an unclassified felony, and that crime does not have the additional element of trafficking. She reminded the committee that the prosecution has to prove each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked which statute she was referring to. MS. CARPENETI replied AS 11.66.110 is promoting prostitution in the first degree, and subsection (a)(2) prohibits promoting prostitution if the victim is under age 18. AS 11.66.110(d) states that a person convicted under subsection (a)(2) is guilty of an unclassified felony. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if there was an enticement section. MS. CARPENETI answered no; it includes inducing or causing a person under age 18 to engage in prostitution. Referring to AS 11.41.360(a), she said she reads "to compel, induce or entice another person" to modify the phrase "coming to the state" and "by threat, force, or deception" to modify once they are here engaging in sexual conduct, adult entertainment or labor. She said that's why there are two Acts; they modify conduct in two different ways. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if she would agree that the current human trafficking laws only address trafficking across state lines. MS. CARPENETI said yes, and then reminded the committee that testimony last year from Detective Lacey indicated that child victims generally were not enticed to go to Anchorage by a promoter of prostitution. They went to visit family, were abandoned for some reason and then became victims. CHAIR FRENCH noted that the bill packets contained a PowerPoint that Detective Lacey prepared. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI asked if there were laws on the books regarding adult entertainment or compelling someone for labor in the state MS. CARPENETI offered to follow up with the specific citations. SENATOR WIELECHOWSKI emphasized that SB 110 was much broader than the existing laws regarding adult entertainment and compelling a person to work across state lines. He asked if it was accurate to say that there is not a law on the books that deals with those situations in-state. MS. CARPENETI agreed that was correct. 2:43:04 PM CHAIR FRENCH announced he would hold SB 110 in committee awaiting a new CS.