SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A woman who was 16 when she ambushed and killed her former pimp in a Southern California motel room has been granted clemency by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Sara Kruzan, now 32, was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole for the 1994 shooting death of George Gilbert Howard. Prosecutors said Kruzan was no longer working for Howard when she killed him.
Calling her life sentence "excessive," Schwarzenegger on Sunday commuted Kruzan's sentence to 25 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Police also rescued 69 child prostitutes as part of a three-day nationwide crackdown on the sexual exploitation of children. NBC's Chris Jansing talks with Kristen Anderson, from the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children, and investigative crime reporter Michelle Sigona.
California's governors don't often grant clemency or parole to deserving prisoners because there is little upside - but much political risk - in doing so. If all goes well, the governor has done a small good deed that few people will notice. If anything goes badly and the released prisoner returns to crime, the decision becomes a political albatross that can ruin a politician's career.
So we understand why so many governors have offered so little mercy to those who have made mistakes in their earlier lives. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued just seven clemencies and affirmed four parole board release decisions. But the current governor looks like a paragon of mercy compared with his predecessor, Gray Davis.
So when we say that Sara Kruzan, who was sentenced to life without parole at the age of 16, is up against long odds with her clemency petition, we mean that Kruzan's odds are very long indeed. Still, we urge Schwarzenegger to grant her petition. He won't find a more compelling case before he leaves office.
An explosive new report out of the U.K. has estimated that at least one in ten women in prostitution in the country are victims of human trafficking. It also found that at least 15% of migrant women in prostitution are forced or coerced into the trade and up to 40% of them may be exploited just shy of slavery. These findings could help blow the lid off the notion that exploitation and trafficking in commercial sex is rare.
The report called Setting the Record, which was released this week by the Association of Chief Police Officers of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, used a sampling extrapolation method to estimate the number women in prostitution and the number of human trafficking victims in England and Wales. The results? They found that out of the 30,000 or so women in prostitution in the country, around 2600 are trafficking victims, or just shy of 10%. In addition to those women who are trafficked, researchers found 9600 other women they deemed "vulnerable," meaning they showed some signs of trafficking and faced cultural or financial factors preventing them from exiting prostitution, but they tended to have day to day control over their activities. Taken together, these estimates indicate that as much as 40% of women in prostitution in the U.K. lack some control of their situation and are at high risk for or in current situations of slavery.
As with any study trying to count human trafficking, this one has some flaws (which the authors readily own). First of all, the study focuses exclusively on organized, off-street prostitution, leaving out any potential trafficking victims in other forms of prostitution, including closed ethnic brothels. Second, the analysis of trafficking appears to have been applied primarily to the 17,000 migrant women in prostitution, leaving out any native trafficking victims. And finally, as with most similar studies of human trafficking, the report only provides estimates based on extrapolated sample data, not actual numbers of victims. Setting the Record has, however, been significantly more transparent about methodology for studying trafficking than many other prominent report-makers. U.S. Government .
We met our goal of $10K in the month of July! Now your generosity this month will be doubled by an anonymouos donor. Thank you so much for your faithfulness to Street's Hope!
We are almost there! Please let your friends and family know about this great opportunity to double their money in helping Street's Hope. Then please come and celebrate with us this Saturday night... live band, dancing, silent auction, door prizes, and more! See below for all the details.
In anticipation of meeting this month's challenge, we are planning a celebration Saturday, July 31st sponsored by the Denver Fun Network and benefiting Street's Hope.
TROPICAL NIGHT IN THE HIGHLANDS
SATURDAY NIGHT JULY 31ST Doors Open at 7:00PM 2215 W. 30th Ave (Asbury Bldg)
Dance to a Variety of 70's, 80's, & 90's music by Tommy & Paul LeRoux (members of Nacho Man band) on an Air Conditioned Dance Floor!
A very faithful and generous donor has anonymously given Street's Hope a $10K matching grant for the month of July.
If we raise $5K in July, we get $5K from this donor. If we raise $8K in July we get $8K from this donor. If we raise $10K in July, we get $10K from this donor.
Please help us maximize this wonderful opportunity by giving generously to Street's Hope this month!
