H.E.A. 1270, P.L. 144
Effective: §§1 & 33-34 effective March 19, 2018, §§2-32 effective July 1, 2018
- Section 1 requires the commission on improving the status of children in Indiana to study the topic of what specific authority a law enforcement officer has in order to take custody of or detain a child in certain situations where the officer believes a child may be a victim of human trafficking and who is potentially a child in need of services.
- Section 34 urges the legislative council to assign to an appropriate interim study committee the task of studying the topic of human trafficking in Indiana involving law enforcement, creation of programs, and review of the penalties for human trafficking crimes in the criminal code.
- Section 33 adds an exemption for the transfer or receipt of reasonable charges and fees for adoption services provided by an attorney licensed in Indiana from a profiting from an adoption offense.
- Changes the human and sexual trafficking statute by: (1) reclassifying the term “human and sexual trafficking” to “human trafficking”, which includes the offenses of labor and sexual trafficking; (2) creating separate offenses for labor and sexual trafficking and renaming certain crimes; (3) removing the element of force from forced labor, marriage, prostitution, and participating in sexual conduct; (4) removing involuntary servitude from the human trafficking statute; (5) removing from the sexual trafficking statute the element that a solicitor must know that a person is a human trafficking victim before committing the offense; and (6) adding elements tocertain human and sexual trafficking offenses.
- Expands the rape shield statute to include victims of human trafficking and certain other offenses.
- Adds an element to the defense of prosecution under the offenses of sexual misconduct with a minor and promotion of sexual trafficking of a younger child.
- Prohibits certain defenses to a prosecution of making an unlawful proposition.
- Section 32 requires law enforcement to notify the Department of Child Services of a possible child trafficking victim in certain sexual offenses.
- Provides a defense to the crime of maintaining a common nuisance if: (1) the charged offense involves less than a specified quantity of marijuana, hashish, hash oil, or salvia or involves paraphernalia; and (2) the person does not have a prior unrelated conviction for maintaining a common nuisance.
Read the bill at: https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2018/bills/house/1270