May 13--Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday approved a plan to develop a new live-in treatment facility designed to keep out the pimps who prey on foster children but allow the minors to come and go from the facility.
The unanimous vote follows a two-month heated debate about whether county facilities should be able to prohibit children who are at risk of being lured or coerced into sex trafficking from leaving.
On one side of the debate were those who say the state should act like a responsible parent to stop children from leaving these foster care facilities to meet the pimps who have become adept at psychological manipulation and physical control, and the johns who pay for sex with the children.
On the other side are those who say that locking up children mirrors the confinement that predators subject them to, and will ultimately fail to cure the problem.
The county will work to develop an unlocked facility with enough security procedures to keep pimps out, but which will also allow the youth to leave if they wish.
"If they really want to leave, they can leave, but we want to discourage it by giving them a real opportunity to heal," Supervisor Sheila Kuehl said in an interview.
Supervisor Don Knabe, who advocated for a locked facility, cited a recent case of an 11-year-old girl who recently left a foster care group home to return to her pimp and work at an event where men paid to have sex with her.
Knabe's spokeswoman, Cheryl Burnett, said he "is pleased that we are moving forward, but he remains frustrated that he continues to hear that our ability to protect these girls is limited."
County staffers are analyzing available public and private facilities as a site for the new center. Possibilities include rehabilitating the closed MacLaren Children's Center in El Monte or one of the probation juvenile detention camps.
The supervisors established a three-month deadline for a detailed plan.
Over the past year, county officials have trained police officers, prosecutors and other workers to no longer arrest such youth and place them in juvenile hall on prostitution charges. Instead, they have been told to consider the young people victims and call a child abuse hotline so that the youths could enter foster care for protection and treatment.
About 100 minors still are locked in juvenile detention facilities on prostitution charges because the new training is in the initial phases. But the system is increasingly diverting those arrested on prostitution charges to the county Department of Children and Family Services, and the agency believes that up to 300 of its current foster children have been victims of sex trafficking.
