Arizonans Approve Life in Prison for Sex Trafficking a Minor
Arizona Proposition 313 has passed. This is bad news, no matter how much the ballot measure’s backers portrayed it as a simple measure to indicate that “children are not for sale.”
Obviously, selling children is already banned, federally and in Arizona. And the specific crime that Prop 313 is concerned with—sex trafficking of minors—is already illegal at the state and federal level, with heavy prison sentences for those who disobey.
Proposition 313, which institutes a mandatory life sentence for this crime, passed with more than 60 percent of the vote, per the Associated Press. But this measure will mean more injustice in Arizona, not less. It could even mean more injustice for victims of sex trafficking.
What “Child Sex Trafficking” Means in Arizona
In Arizona, sex trafficking someone under age 18 can already mean life in prison under some circumstances. The crime generally comes with a mandatory minimum sentence of between 7 and 13 years for a first offense, and a possible sentence of 21 to 27 years imprisonment. One or more previous felony conviction for anything ratchet up the mandatory minimums and the potential sentences, with up to 50 years a possibility. The only circumstance in which child sex trafficking can result in a lesser sentence is when the crime involves “engaging in prostitution with a minor who is fifteen, sixteen or seventeen years of age” in a situation where the perpetrator couldn’t have plausibly have known the minor’s age.
The wide range of sentences under current law reflects the wide range of conduct that falls under the rubric of child sex trafficking—a crime that, in the U.S. at least, seldom looks like Hollywood or Washington portrays it. In most cases that get prosecuted, it involves teenagers—and, in many cases, teenagers willfully engaged in prostitution.
For those charged, ignorance of a minor’s age is not generally considered a defense. Nor is the fact that a perpetrator may themselves be a trafficking victim.
And while force or coercion may be involved, it’s not a necessary component for a conviction. One can violate Arizona’s child sex trafficking law by—among other things—”causing a minor to engage in prostitution,” “permitting a minor who is under the person’s custody or control to engage in prostitution,” “providing a means by which a minor engages in prostitution,” “enticing, recruiting, harboring, providing, transporting, making available to another or otherwise obtaining a minor with the knowledge that the minor will engage in prostitution or any sexually explicit performance,” or “engaging in prostitution with a minor.”
The law targets not only people forcing or coercing minors into prostitution, porn, stripping, or similar activities but anyone who merely knows a minor is engaging in such activities and fails to stop them. It also targets driving a minor to a location where they will engage in prostitution, or doing anything that enables the prostitution of a minor, if the state determines someone “should have” known the minor’s age.
These parameters give law enforcement broad leeway to go after friends of any minor selling sex; people who don’t condone what they’re doing but are trying to help them do it safely; people who think they’re facilitating or engaging in prostitution with an adult; and sex workers who, even unknowingly, work alongside someone under 18. It could also be used to go after minors aiding each other in prostitution.
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