Tag: Office of Child Advocate

House Committee advances bill to protect trafficking victims from prosecution

A bill meant to make it easier for sex trafficking victims to avoid being prosecuted for prostitution is advancing through the Missouri House.

Representative Mary Elizabeth Coleman presents House Bill 397, the first bill of her legislative career, to the House Committee on General Laws. (photo; Mike Lear, Missouri House Communications)

Missouri law makes it an affirmative defense for a minor charged with prostitution to have been acting under coercion at the time of the crime.  Under House Bill 397 it would be an affirmative defense that the defendant was under the age of 18.  It would also allow a person guilty of prostitution while a minor to apply to the courts to have records of that crime expunged.

“Right now not all of our laws treat victims as victims,” Jessica Seitz with Missouri Kids First told the House Committee on General Laws.  “This, right now, is essentially a loophole where a young person can be charged with prostitution when they’re a victim of trafficking, and this can be even more traumatic.  Arrest and prosecution can further traumatize a victim which prevents victims from seeking assistance.”

The bill is sponsored by freshman state lawmaker Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R-Arnold).

“This is a common sense provision in the first part of the bill that says if you can’t consent to a tattoo or to have your ears pierced, that you cannot consent to prostitution,” said Coleman.

Coleman told the committee it can be difficult for minors to prove coercion because trafficking victims have often been forced to abuse drugs.

“By the time that she’s arrested it’s difficult to untangle and prove force or coercion because at that point she may be paying off fines and paying off her drug use,” said Coleman.

The bill would also add some offenses related to child abuse and sex trafficking to the state law’s definition of “pattern of criminal gang activity.”  Advocates say the frequency of trafficking operations being conducted by gangs has increased in recent years.

Office of Child Advocate Director Kelly Schultz spoke in support of that provision.  She told the committee about the handling of a case when a child in the state’s foster system was found to have been trafficked.

“Somebody actively recruited that child, somebody advertised that child, somebody got them a hotel room, and somebody enforced payment.  Johns weren’t just willingly throwing money at young kids to have sex.  Somebody was enforcing the payment as well.  It was very much an organized crime,” said Schultz.

Schultz stressed to lawmakers that in a 2013 nationwide raid by the FBI, about 60-percent of the children recovered were involved in the child welfare system and many had open foster care cases.

“I always tell the public these children are our responsibility, but when I’m talking to you guys I am being very literal.  These children – 60-percent of them – are literally our responsibility,” said Schultz.

The committee voted unanimously to advance the bill.  It is scheduled to be considered Monday by another committee, and then it could go before the full House for debate.

House votes to override governor on four budget items; Senate takes no action

The Missouri House voted to override the governor’s vetoes of four items in the state operating budget that became law in July.  The Senate has opted not to take up those items for consideration, so the governor’s vetoes will stand.

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick proposed the overrides of five vetoes the governor made in the state’s budget. The House voted for four of those overrides. (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

The House voted to override Governor Mike Parson’s (R) vetoes on line-items that support juvenile advocacy units in the Kansas City and St. Louis offices of the state public defender; time-critical centers for heart attack and stroke patients in Missouri hospitals; independent reviews by the Office of Child Advocate of local offices that serve troubled youths; and the oversight of grants to organizations that serve the deaf and blind.  The four items totaled more than $785,000.

House budget leaders said those items will be brought up for consideration when the legislature meets again in January, for the start of its regular session.

The House voted only on five budget items during its annual veto session, which began and ended Wednesday.  On the fifth budget item, $50,000 for grants to law enforcement agencies for the purchase of tourniquets for officers, the House fell short of the constitutional majority needed for an override.

Money for inspections of state-certified heart attack and stroke trauma centers

House Budget Committee Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick (R-Shell Knob) said after the governor vetoed money to fund inspections and certification of time-critical trauma centers for heart attack and stroke patients, his administration then said those inspections would be conducted anyway.  Fitzpatrick said he wants to see the inspections continue, but for them to be funded by pulling money from parts of the budget not intended for them violates the role of the legislature in the budget process.

“The governor vetoed all the people and all the money for that particular program and my opinion is once you do that, you can’t fund that program,” said Fitzpatrick.  “That is going to come to a head in January.  It is going to be an issue and it will get dealt with in a different way.”

The top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, Kip Kendrick (Columbia), agreed.

“I don’t know exactly how that program moves forward if the line’s been vetoed and the two [full-time employees] in the program have been vetoed.  We want to see the program move forward, but also how does the program exist if it doesn’t have a line and a place in the budget … I don’t want to see any of the services disrupted or interrupted, but that being said we need to make sure that we’re handling things appropriately.” said Kendrick.

Money for Office of Child Advocate review of local abuse investigations

$100,000 for the Office of Child Advocate would pay for two people that St. Charles Republican Kurt Bahr said would conduct a thorough review of how child abuses cases are processed.  He said the office needs those two additional staff members to keep up with that extra work.

“We are making sure that we’re taking care of kids in the foster care system, we’re making sure that any charge of child abuse is being looked at and is being processed correctly so that the system works for the most vulnerable in our society,” said Bahr.

Money for oversight of grants to organizations serving Missouri’s deaf and blind

The $45,000 for the Missouri Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing would pay for a person to oversee grants to organizations serving the deaf and blind.  That position was created as part of House Bill 1696 passed in 2016, which was sponsored by Representative Lyle Rowland (R-Cedarcreek).  He said those grants have been fully funded for the past two years.

“In our world today we want all moneys from government to have accountability, and we need to have a person in place in that commission that oversee this money, can answer questions, can develop the [requests for proposal], to allow this to take place to help the deaf, blind community,” said Rowland.

Shrewsbury Democrat Sarah Unsicker said the person currently overseeing these grants has a number of other jobs and is overwhelmed.

Representative Kip Kendrick (photo; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)

“People who are deaf/blind need additional services including language acquisition, communication assistance, and help with activities of daily living.  The Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing is not equipped to deal with these specialized needs of this population by themselves and needs this staff person to assist with these needs,” said Unsicker.

Money for public defenders for juveniles in Kansas City and St. Louis

Fitzpatrick said the $487,000 for juvenile advocacy units in the St. Louis and Kansas City offices of the public defender system would ensure that the constitutional right to counsel for juveniles in those regions would be met.

Bahr said those juveniles need proper defense attorneys to keep them from entering a “prison pipeline where they end up becoming a far larger cost onto our society as perpetual inmates.”

Representative Ingrid Burnett (D-Kansas City) said as a teacher she worked with elementary school children both before and after these public defender units for juveniles existed.

“The difference between the outcome for these children is staggering,” said Burnett.

Kansas City Democrat Barbara Washington said she has personal experience as a juvenile offender, and said the importance of juveniles having representation cannot be overstated.

“I sit here today because I had an attorney.  I sit here today because my parents could afford an attorney and I can state today that no one else who was incarcerated with me at that time was even able to graduate from high school, and that was because at that time there was not a public defender system totally dedicated to juvenile offender,” said Washington.

No hard feelings from the House toward the governor over budget vetoes

Both Fitzpatrick and Kendrick said the attempts to override Parson’s vetoes did not signal a battle between the House and the governor’s office.

“The governor came into office in June and basically had one month to review the budget at the same time he was trying to assemble his team.  I think that unfortunately there were some things they didn’t get the full picture on and had to make some decisions before they had all the information,” said Fitzpatrick.  “We’ll continue to work with the governor.  This is not intended to be an issue that is supposed to disrupt the relationship.  It’s just a part of the process.”

Kendrick was not critical of the governor, even regarding the veto of funding for time-critical trauma center inspections and the procedural issues surrounding its continued funding.

“Everybody makes mistakes, right?  We all make mistakes.  Sometimes you’ve just got to own up to the mistake that you make … I don’t think Governor Parson wanted to see this program disappear.  Soon after I think he realized that it’s an important program obviously not just to us here in the building but to everyone around the State of Missouri,” said Kendrick.