LINCOLN — The days of fines and probation for crimes linked to sex trafficking are coming to an end in Nebraska.
State lawmakers last week passed a bill that dramatically increases penalties for those who create the supply and demand for human trafficking. A minimum of one year in prison is likely for panderers and solicitors in such transactions. If children are exploited, both the pimps and johns could spend the rest of their lives in prison.
One of the most significant bills of the 2017 session also marks a major achievement for state senators, law enforcement officials and women’s advocates who have worked for more than a decade to reveal the extent of an invisible crime and take steps to eradicate it.
No votes were cast against Legislative Bill 289, sponsored by State Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln. Still, a couple of senators raised a key question: Will harsher penalties for human trafficking make a difference?
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“As a general rule, where there is a demand, a supply will develop,” said State Sen. Paul Schumacher of Columbus, a former prosecutor. “It may be a bit of a deterrent, but a solution it probably isn’t.”
Advocates and experts say they are unaware of research that would show whether tougher punishments produce a noticeable drop in trafficking activity. While more scientific studies on human trafficking are being done, it’s still a growing area of research, one said.
But supporters of the bill, which awaits an expected signature from Gov. Pete Ricketts, also argue that the risk of significant prison time will almost certainly curb trafficking. And the legislation makes an important statement that Nebraska will no longer slap wrists when it comes to the exploitation of humans for sex or labor, said Meghan Malik, trafficking program manager for the Women’s Fund of Omaha.
“It’s child rape,” she said. “We’re talking about children being raped multiple times a day, being beaten by their traffickers, being moved around and isolated. To think those individuals only could have gotten probation for that is unimaginable.”
Each month in Nebraska, 900 people are sold for sex, often more than once, according to a report by the Human Trafficking Initiative. The report stated that almost 400 of those are considered at moderate to high risk of being trafficked.
The report also showed that Nebraska’s commercial sex market skews toward children and minorities. One in five people is advertised on websites with phrases indicating that she or he is young. And African-Americans make up half of all individuals sold for sex in Nebraska, despite representing just 5 percent of the population.
“The average age when a child is first commercially trafficked and exploited is 13,” Pansing Brooks said.
Because those forced into sex slavery have historically been treated as prostitutes — defined as adults who willingly sell sex — helping policymakers understand what human trafficking is and that it exists in Nebraska was a challenge, said Al Riskowski, who worked on the matter when he was director of the Nebraska Family Alliance.
“It was hard, even for legislators, to comprehend the extent of the problem in Nebraska,” he said. “That was the first obstacle to overcome.”
Amanda McGill Johnson of Omaha, a former state senator from Lincoln who sponsored key trafficking legislation during her time at the State Capitol, remembered how 38 lawmakers voted for a bill in 2006 that would have allocated $1.5 million to services for women getting out of prostitution. But because the women were called prostitutes instead of trafficking victims, then-Gov. Dave Heineman vetoed the measure as an “objectionable” use of tax dollars. Support trickled away, and a veto override failed.
McGill Johnson and other senators began working on the issue and gradually building support for bills to help victims. One measure started a volunteer task force to help define the extent of trafficking in the state. Another bill in 2013 — quickly signed by Heineman — increased penalties for those who sold children for sex. The same bill also made it so that children could no longer be charged with prostitution, recognizing that no child has the capacity to choose to sell herself or himself.
The Legislature adopted a similar bill, sponsored by Pansing Brooks, that gave adult victims of sex trafficking immunity from prostitution charges. That change was important because women arrested for prostitution often relied on pimps to bail them out of jail, which made it even more difficult to break away from the trafficking cycle.
Pansing Brooks and McGill Johnson said the fight against human trafficking got a boost when Attorney General Doug Peterson made it a key issue after taking office in 2015. Peterson has devoted full-time staff to combat trafficking and started a task force that has provided training to more than 600 law enforcement personnel and service providers.
Such training is critical so police and prosecutors can take effective action against traffickers and buyers. In addition, it’s important to immediately address the needs of victims, who can be essential to obtaining convictions.
Now with the passage of LB 289, the state has made the punishment more closely fit the crime, supporters said. And the bill has taken aim at the patrons of commercial sex.
“I absolutely think we need to put pressure on the demand side,” McGill Johnson said. “If people weren’t out there looking to purchase sex there wouldn’t be an industry built up around it.”
Under current law, most offenses tied to sex trafficking carried no minimum penalties. The most severe punishment is one to 50 years in prison for trafficking a minor under 16 or using force to traffic a minor.
Those same crimes now will come with penalties of 20 years to life. Trafficking or soliciting an adult victim will be punished with a sentence of one to 50 years.
Someone convicted of pandering now is looking at probation or a maximum of four years in prison. Under the new law, pimps will face one to 50 years.
The new penalties are among the most severe possible for human trafficking, Peterson has said.
“That penalty is in measurement to how much we value the violation against our communities,” he said.
Equating the crimes of trafficking and soliciting while enacting longer prison sentences are trends in both the federal government and the states, said Shea Rhodes, director of the Villanova Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation.
A former prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, Rhodes said she believes the harsher penalties more properly fit the crimes. And she believes the movement to help the victims of sex trafficking can help law enforcement conduct effective investigations.
But there is scant research to suggest that tougher punishments will deter people from engaging in highly profitable criminal enterprises.
“I’m not even sure the penalties are something that’s going to work, but I’m hopeful,” she said.
Crysta Price, a researcher at Creighton University and co-director of the Human Trafficking Initiative, said that as with most complex problems, policy shouldn’t be viewed as a one-and-done fix.
“It’s easy to dismiss legislation on the grounds that it won’t completely solve a problem,” she said. “LB 289 is one piece, an important piece, to a set of policy solutions.”
While the bill primarily focuses on punishing offenders, it also includes several pieces intended to help victims feel confident about coming forward and assisting in prosecutions.
“Victims are more likely to disclose information about their trafficking experience with law enforcement if they’re confident that they’d never have to see the trafficker again,” Price said.
Dave Lemoine of Omaha thinks the new penalties will work. The former FBI special agent successfully investigated a network of sex traffickers in Billings, Montana, in 1999, before the term was in wide use.
The investigation included local police, but because Lemoine was involved, the cases were prosecuted in federal court, and the 10 traffickers received prison terms ranging from 10 to 20 years. Had they been charged under the Montana law at that time, they would have been out after six months.
But in 2001, Montana enacted much more stringent penalties for trafficking and soliciting. By the time he left Montana in 2005, Lemoine said trafficking activity in his area was practically nonexistent.
He testified in support of the Nebraska bill at a public hearing. He applauded lawmakers for getting it passed.
If it were up to the retired agent, those penalties would be posted on signs at every highway and bridge coming into Nebraska.
“I think it’s a good bill, but it’s only going to be as good as we publicize it,” he said.
joe.duggan@owh.com, 402-473-9587