Honorable Joe Moody, Chair, House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence
FROM:
Jerry McGinty, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB1004 by Shaheen (Relating to the prosecution of the offenses of trafficking of persons and compelling prostitution and to certain consequences of compelling prostitution.), As Introduced
The bill would expand the conduct constituting the offense of trafficking of persons to include trafficking a person with certain disabilities and causing them to engage in certain prostitution conduct. The bill would remove the state of mind requirement for the offenses of receiving a benefit from participating in a venture that involves certain prostitution related trafficking or child trafficking or engaging in sexual conduct with a person trafficked relating to certain prostitution or with a trafficked child under certain conditions. The bill would expand the conduct constituting the offense of compelling prostitution to include a person knowingly causing by any means a person with a disability to commit prostitution, regardless of whether the actor knows the person is disabled at the time of the offense.
Expanding the conduct constituting an existing offense may result in additional demands upon state and local correctional resources due to a possible increase in the number of individuals placed under supervision in the community or sentenced to a term of confinement.
In fiscal year 2022, there were 161 individuals arrested, 11 individuals placed on adult community supervision, 1 individual placed on juvenile community supervision, 40 individuals admitted into an adult state correctional institution, and no individuals admitted into juvenile state correctional institutions for trafficking of persons and compelling prostitution offenses. It is unknown if the conduct of these offenses related to the trafficking of certain disabled individuals.
It is assumed that any impact on state correctional populations or on the demand for state correctional resources would not be significant.