Gavin Newsom and Scott Wiener’s canyon of despair – Latest News
Figueroa Corridor is one of California’s most infamous intercourse markets. Here, prostitutes collect, evening after evening, promoting intercourse acts.
Last yr, members and associates of a gang have been indicted after allegedly trafficking adults and minors — together with foster youngsters — alongside the hall and branding them with tattoos.
This was all of the predictable consequence of public coverage.
In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law decriminalizing loitering with intent to commit prostitution. When he signed the invoice, Newsom steered it might help would cut back the harassment of ladies.
Figueroa Corridor is one of California’s most infamous intercourse markets. Here, prostitutes collect, evening after evening, promoting intercourse acts. Carlin Stiehl for CA Post
In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law decriminalizing loitering with intent to commit prostitution. When he signed the invoice, Newsom steered it might help would cut back the harassment of ladies. AFP through Getty Images
We went to Figueroa to see the outcomes for ourselves. As we walked the hall, noticed the intercourse market and rode together with a former LAPD vice cop, one factor turned clear: On Figueroa, human flesh is massive business — one thing state leaders seem to have no need to change.
The scene stretches throughout virtually 4 miles of sizzling, dusty cement. Nearly nude ladies cluster firstly of aspect streets simply off the principle highway. Lines of automobiles slowly cruise alongside, apparently hoping to buy.
Pimps both oversee the prostitutes themselves, on a close by cellphone, or via employed low-level watchers. Sirens blare continually, however officers usually simply roll on by.
Stephany Powell, a former sergeant in an LAPD Vice unit and former govt director at Journey Out, a Los Angeles–primarily based nonprofit serving human trafficking victims, rode with us alongside the hall.
The scene stretches throughout virtually 4 miles of sizzling, dusty cement. Nearly nude ladies cluster firstly of aspect streets simply off the principle highway. Lines of automobiles slowly cruise alongside, apparently hoping to buy. Carlin Stiehl for CA Post
“Statistically, the average age of entry for human sex trafficking is between the ages of 12 and 14 years old,” she mentioned. “We’d see 14-, 15-year-olds that were out on the prostitution tracks. We also would see 25-to-30-year-olds . . . some of them had been out on the streets on the prostitution tracks since age 13. And in those cases, nine times out of 10, they had a trafficker.”
Figueroa has been a sex-trafficking den for many years. But current coverage adjustments have made the hall more durable to police. In California, it had been a crime to loiter with the intent of committing prostitution since a minimum of 1995. Patrol officers may use this law to curtail the road market — and stop, determine and rescue trafficked minors.
That started to change in 2016. That yr, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 1322, prohibiting minors from being charged with solicitation of and loitering with intent to commit prostitution. The law was arguably well-intentioned, reflecting a perception that trafficked youngsters shouldn’t be handled as criminals.
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But that wasn’t enough for the state’s progressives. In 2021, state Sen. Scott Wiener sponsored SB 357, a invoice that will totally decriminalize loitering with intent to commit prostitution. A trio of the state’s strongest progressive establishments — the Anti-Defamation League, the ACLU’s California chapter and Equality California — rallied behind the invoice, which handed in 2022.
Newsom signed the invoice in July of that yr. He referenced “transgender adults,” seemingly endorsing LGBT activists’ view that the loitering statute had criminalized “walking while trans.”
“Black adults accounted for 56.1% of the loitering charges in Los Angeles between 2017–2019, despite making up less than 10% of the city’s population,” Newsom wrote. “To be clear, this bill does not legalize prostitution. It simply revokes provisions of the law that have led to disproportionate harassment of women and transgender adults.”
In 2021, state Sen. Scott Wiener sponsored SB 357, a invoice that will totally decriminalize loitering with intent to commit prostitution. Pod Save America / YouTube
Since the law’s passage, nonetheless, Figueroa has more prostitutes than it did earlier than. More minors are apparently being trafficked, too. The law itself is driving these trends.
Before SB 357, police officers may use a lady’s apparel and conduct to find out that she was loitering to commit prostitution. Once that conduct was decriminalized, prostitutes started carrying hardly any garments — and law enforcement discovered itself helpless to control the intercourse commerce.
SB 357 has additionally enabled traffickers. In the previous, a patrol officer may arrest a loitering prostitute to get her off the streets and encourage her to testify towards a trafficker. Today, law enforcement has to make use of resource-strapped undercover items to focus on traffickers one-by-one.
The state of affairs is so dire that the federal authorities intervened. In August 2025, First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli spearheaded the area’s first-ever RICO human trafficking case towards the vicious Hoover Criminal Gang. Essayli’s workplace charged six members and associates of the Hoovers with varied crimes, together with intercourse trafficking of minors, money laundering and sexual exploitation of a youngster.
On July 1, a federal follow-up operation took down one other 10 suspects, together with the operator of a seedy motel, who was charged with “financially benefiting from the Hoover gang’s sex trafficking operation.”
When he signed SB 357, Gavin Newsom steered that the new law would help cut back harassment towards ladies. What it enabled as an alternative is a wave of crime, struggling and abuse.
Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow on the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the creator of America’s Cultural Revolution. Kenneth Schrupp is an investigative reporter at City Journal.
