Law Enforcement Support for Immunity Bills Across the Country

Law enforcement leaders across the country have expressed public support for immunity bills similar to A.255 (Gottfried)/S.2233 (Sepulveda). To follow are excerpts from their statements.

San Francisco, CA, 2018

The San Francisco Police Department and the San Francisco District Attorney enacted a city wide immunity policy in 2018 known as the Prioritizing Safety for Sex Worker Policy. They went on to support the passage of the statewide California bill that passed in 2019. 

San Francisco DA George Gascón (D) said: “If we fail to prioritize this population’s health and safety they will not come forward and work with law enforcement as witnesses and victims of violence. Ultimately, unreported crimes and criminals pose a threat to everyone’s public safety.” 

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott said: “This policy underscores our commitment to providing services to all victims. We understand that many times sex workers are themselves victims of predators and human traffickers. Our policy is written in the spirit of encouraging sex workers to feel safe coming forward to law enforcement, with the knowledge that they will be treated with respect and their concerns will be taken seriously and investigated.”

Oregon, 2019 

Aaron Knott, on behalf of Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum (D), stated: “…this speaks to a truth that, if you find yourself the victim of sex trafficking, that fact instantly forces you to have committed a crime and that becomes one of the biggest barriers to escaping your victimization. Any time you call the police, theoretically in the process of reporting what happened to you, you’re also confessing to the crime of prostitution. Where this bill takes another step however is it recognizes that in some cases those able to best recognize victimization in that community will be involved in that community and we want them to have the ability to take care of each other without facing the fear of consequences. And this is not all just about trafficking. Individuals that engage in sex work are an inherently vulnerable population that has trouble accessing justice for exactly that reason. You make a phone call talking about how badly you were beaten, how badly you were robbed, if you are also inherently confessing to a crime, it takes away that incentive to make the call. So this is another step in a victim-focused approach to this area of crime. The person who’s being trafficked may not have much of an awareness of the formal legal dynamics of, ‘if I make this call and I say that I was trafficked and that’s then found credible by the law enforcement officer, or if it isn’t, that there’s a prosecution that I’ll be able to demonstrate that I was coerced sufficient to stop the state which would require them to believe me and not to believe somebody else,’ they’re up against a trafficker or pimp telling them over and over again, ‘if you make this call you will go to jail. I won’t go to jail.’” “When I first started working on this issue about a decade ago, a trafficking victim that reached out to share her story with me was a woman who had been trafficked down on 82nd as a teenage girl and she was violently assaulted by a john and she reported that to a police officer, and his response was, ‘you’re a prostitute, what am I supposed to do? What do you expect?’”

Vermont, 2021

David Scherr, testifying on April 21, 2021, on behalf of Vermont Attorney General T.J. Donovan (D), stated: “When we talk about public safety, ultimately we’re talking about keeping people safe. We believe this is an important change and innovation to make sure that people who need public safety services are able to access them. So we support this, we think this is an important move forward. We agree with the way in which it’s been designed in terms of borrowing from the good Samaritan law that was passed with respect to people involved in drug usage…we are believers in this method of dealing with public safety. We think it’s an important innovation and we support it.”

Montana, 2021

Brian Thompson of the Montana County Attorneys Association testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 13, 2021, stated: “This is something that prosecutors do not want to prosecute. They don’t often feel that it’s in the greatest public interest to be prosecuting persons who are maybe engaging in prostitution but being victims of sexual assault. We want those crimes of sexual assault reported in these situations. We think this safe harbor provision is an important and good change in the Montana criminal code.”

Nebraska, 2021

Tracy Scherer, lieutenant in the Omaha Police Department’s Child Victims and Missing Persons Unit, testifying in front of the Judiciary Committee on February 5, 2021: “I have experience investigating sexual assault, sex trafficking, and other crimes of violence. Victims of such crimes experience a high level of trauma, have historically been disbelieved and often have difficulty trusting any officials, supportive services, or others whose intentions are to help. The suspects of such crimes often instill fear, make threats, or have control over their victims. These victims are often the scapegoats for the actual suspect. Victims are made to carry contraband, open bank accounts or participate in illegal activities at the manipulation and control of the suspect. Because of the multitude of factors, victims of violent crimes are reluctant to report, assist, or participate in investigation and prosecution of their perpetrators. The immunity from arrest provided in this bill already exists in practice in other situations. For example, suspects who are found to be in possession of controlled substances and don’t have other charges tied to a victim are often offered the ability to provide information relating to their suppliers, other distributors and members of drug organizations in exchange for relief of arrest, prosecution for possession of controlled substance. Such practices allow police to find bigger drug operations’ distributors instead of simply arresting the user with a small amount of controlled substance. This practice is typically reserved for drug offenses, only limiting the ability of police officers to gain trust and rapport with reluctant victims. This bill is in line with such practices and affords officers the ability to use techniques in similar situations when gaining the trust of a victim is difficult. We believe having it in statute will go further toward victims being willing to use this as an option because of the complex trauma of trafficking victims, as well as distrust for systems and outside agencies. I often feel an experience better illustrates the narrative. During November of 2020, two parties were stopped in Omaha along Interstate 80. The adult male driver and a 17-year-old female passenger were both interviewed. The female was well known to officers and has been the victim of sex trafficking for the last three years. Previous disclosures of sex trafficking have always ended with her refusal to cooperate with prosecution or further investigation. On this day, the female had a significant amount of methamphetamine located in her underwear. The 17-year-old reluctantly told officers the methamphetamine belonged to the driver, her boyfriend, who had been trafficking her and another girl out of a motel room in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Upon further investigation, this victim further disclosed that her boyfriend had just strangled her and she was afraid of him. Officers decided not to arrest the 17-year-old for the possession of narcotics and have instead worked to build rapport with her. After several interviews and efforts to build rapport, officers have been able to identify not only two of her traffickers, but several of the parties responsible for paying to have sex with her and continue to work towards arresting and prosecuting these offenders. Thank you for allowing me to speak to this. I believe that this bill is not out of line with what is already in practice and will assist us with gaining the trust of survivors to actually come forward when they’re victims of such crimes.”