Myriad new state laws focus on child protection
There is a definite focus on vulnerability in several new California laws that were passed last year and took legal effect on January 1.
We are confident that our readers across Southern California will routinely applaud that focus and attendant effort of state legislators to protect individuals who are at the greatest risk of being harmed by a select population of wrongdoers.
Those wrongdoers are criminals, specifically, dangerous predators who take advantage of children by sexually assaulting or otherwise abusing them. The tactics they employ are many and varied, ranging from psychological coercion and manipulation based on a child’s trust to verbal threats and undisguised physical assaults.
That behavior is, of course, abhorrent and must be resolutely identified and punished, both to protect victims in given cases and to send the strongest message possible to would-be and actual perpetrators that society regards their behavior as flatly taboo and will not condone it.
Pursuant to that aim, a number of new statutory enactments took legal effect from last Friday. Collectively, they seek to provide greater protections to persons who are at comparatively high risk for being sexually abused.
That means minors, of course, which can encompass even juveniles who are relatively close to the age of majority and already college students. One enactment now permits officials of college campuses in California to discipline and even expel a student who commits an off-campus sex-based crime (which can often target an adolescent peer).
Another law now imposes a duty on state high schools to provide classroom instruction regarding sexual assault prevention and the concept of affirmative consent.
Myriad other laws were also enacted. They include new policies aimed at expanding protections against sexual abuse in K-12 learning centers and a legal bar against any adult in an authority position (such as a teacher or coach) who seeks to argue that sexual conduct with a minor was consensual.
Serving clients throughout the Greater Los Angeles and Southern California area, we represent victims in a variety of civil litigation cases. If you or a loved one has been injured, turn to an experienced Los Angeles personal injury or sexual assault lawyer.
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