New Jersey Assembly Advances a 10-Bill Human Trafficking Package: Tougher Penalties, No Statute of Limitations — the Senate Is Next
The package passed the Assembly on October 29. It grows out of a state investigation into trafficking in the massage industry, and out of investigations that recovered nearly 100 suspected victims and produced 71 arrests.
The New Jersey Assembly has passed a package of 10 bills aimed at giving law enforcement more tools against human trafficking, advancing the measures on October 29 and sending them to the state Senate. The bills include requiring the attorney general to review statewide investigation policies, eliminating the statute of limitations for certain offenses, and increasing penalties — among them, in Assemblywoman Carol Murphy's words as reported, enhanced penalties for being a patron of prostitution, which she called a critical way to decrease demand for the industry.
Part of the package answers a specific New Jersey record. Some of the bills respond to the State Commission of Investigation's report two years ago on human trafficking in the massage and bodywork therapy industry — Assemblywoman Ellen Park is a sponsor of those measures — and the legislation, numbered in the report as including A1406, would require a formal review of how trafficking investigations are run across the state.
The scale behind the bills is in the enforcement numbers the Attorney General's Office has announced: criminal investigations around New Jersey led to the recovery of nearly 100 suspected human trafficking victims and the arrests of 71 people. Nothing in the package is law yet — each bill must still pass the Senate before it can reach the governor's desk — but the Assembly's vote makes this the session's central anti-trafficking vehicle, and the Senate calendar is now the file to watch.
