DA's Office Gets $200K to Fight Human Exploitation and Trafficking

The James Irvine Foundation honored five recipients of the 2015 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards at a luncheon in Sacramento Thursday. The awards recognize innovative leaders advancing breakthrough solutions to critical issues facing California. Each recipient’s organization is awarded $200,000 to advance his or her work, along with additional support.

One of the 2015 award recipients is Nancy O’Malley, Alameda County District Attorney and the head of an office that leads the state in human trafficking prosecutions. In 2005, DA O’Malley created the Human Exploitation and Trafficking (H.E.A.T.) Watch program, the first of its kind in California and the first to operate within a public prosecution office in the United States.

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H.E.A.T. Watch brings prosecutors, investigators and victims’ advocates together to address the needs of those who have been exploited, while working to ensure their exploiters are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. A 2012 report from the California Attorney General stated that O’Malley’s office has prosecuted 46 percent of all human trafficking cases in California.

DA O’Malley is committed to extending the impact of her work. “We need a meaningful and substantive dialogue among law enforcement, public welfare, juvenile justice and other leaders to chart a course for how California’s public systems should best handle and care for victims of human trafficking and abuse,” she says. “By coming together, working collaboratively and providing a comprehensive response, we will save lives and we will be more effective at preventing child sex trafficking.”

“I am deeply honored to be recognized by The Irvine Foundation and will use this award as an opportunity to create an Institute devoted to ending the sexual exploitation of children,” states Ms. O’Malley. “The Institute will bring together a group of committed leaders from diverse backgrounds that will examine the status of our state’s response to human trafficking and create an evidence-based guide for policy makers, elected leader and communities to adopt in the fight to end human trafficking of children across our state.”

The James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards recognize Californians who are advancing innovative and effective solutions to critical state issues. The Foundation provides each award recipient’s organization with $200,000 to support his or her program work, and assists in sharing their promising approaches with policymakers and practitioners.

--Information from the County of Alameda; Patch file image