Once the constitution is amended, I assume the legislature would then define the specifics of the "additional penalties."

Since this is done under the umbrella of protecting "children," I wonder what the definition of children is.  In the statistics published about Children Killed by Handguns, the definition is up to 25 y/o.  That is also the definition used back in the Missing and Murdered Children case.  I'm don't know the definition in the various Child Pornography statutes.

Are going to vote yes on this referendum, I want to know exactly who is in charge of the Safe Harbor Fund, is it a private company appointed by the state? Does the spill over go into the states general fund?  

I wonder who can actually answer those questions?

It sounds like a source of income to provide for the welfare of endangered or homeless children, but the money would probably go into the general fund.

When something like this goes into the State Constitution, it allows the Legislature to establish the penalty for a crime already on the book, thus taking the authority of determining the sentence in any case away from the judge or jury, and it can weigh the plea that prosecutors seek, basically short-circuiting the judicial system like traffic or parking tickets do.

Two economic things.
First, when money is needed, there can be a sweep.
When it's not needed right away, enforcement can be ignored, at least in selected districts (probably poor or minority neighborhoods), so the "crop" can grow for harvest when they need the money.

Child exploitation is something to fight against, so is public nuisance and restricted zones. But this feel-good proposition addresses none of this as a priority. In fact, it encourages a certain amount of growth.

The other thing is the situation allows for selective enforcement and using suspicion of sexual misconduct as a reason to stop and harass anybody at any time. Probably it would focus heavily on the LGBT community, and any attractively dressed woman.

I'd be all for an effort to keep streetwalkers from taking over a corner at the edge of the high school sports field, or give Vice effective tools to put child porn plants out of business, but this this ain't that.

So I'd vote No.

I would indeed Vote No on this, but I'm also voting No on Prop 53 on the California ballot. That initiative has much of the same kind of issues even though it has nothing to do with the sex industry or Child Shelters.

Here's the aspect of this question where GaG cannot possibly agree with someone like me:

When the people of a state put themselves into a state of indebtedness that must be repaid by a small section of the populace, certain conditions must be met before it can be considered in any imaginable way fair.

The crux and focus of Prop 53 is a traffic congestion problem and a bond issuance to pay for resolving it. So, to it simple, this is an abstraction of the problem.

The initiative wants to let the voters, instead of the legislators, decide whenever bonds are issued to pay for major upgrades in certain areas. To make this palatable to voters, the revenue to buy back the bonds and pay the interest will come from toll fees instead of raising taxes.

So it goes like this: We have a stretch of freeway that gets too much traffic and the daily congestion makes the commute unbearable. We need to build an additional route, a road toll through a tunnel and a toll bridge across a river. The revenue from the tolls will pay off the bond debt.

So voters of the entire state will be asked to decide if we should issue the bonds. No tax increase if they vote Yes. But the only people who will pay the tolls are the people who live and work in the area and make the commute on a regular basis (and the one-off traveler passing through). People living nowhere near this stretch of freeway figure this is a very painless deal. But the very small minority living in the immediate area think the tolls will be a very costly imposition.

Now, the commuters are indeed the ones who benefit, so (as I'm sure GaG would say) it's only right that they should bear the cost of alleviating the traffic crush.

If the Legislature took this view into account, they could get feedback from the communities directly involved and their concerns could be taken into account as to what the toll fees should be, if both a tunnel and a bridge are necessary, if not, which of the two would best serve the drivers, to what extent will the routes disrupt businesses or residents in the area, and other issues. But the voters of the state at large have no reason to take any of this into account. Their decision will be less informed.

So I think it's a poor way to handle this type of state business decisions. I'm voting No.

The GA initiative also affects a very small section of the state, taking none of their concerns into account, while decided by the voters of the ENTIRE state. To make it worse, the GA initiative is designed to beg for a YES vote by appealing to what's best for the kiddies, taking sentencing discretion away from the judge (hence giving it to the prosecutors and the lawmakers--something probably not considered by the majority of voters), and framing a set of conditions wide open to police corruption and citizen harassment