At the heart of San Francisco’s Mission District, one road is jampacked with sex workers and pimps, pressuring city officials to put up blockades as residents have complained that they no longer feel safe, especially at night.

Local leaders claim human trafficking and prostitution are rampant in the Golden State after a new criminal justice reform was implemented which the reform’s author said aims to protect transgender women from being unfairly targeted by law enforcement.

Sex Workers In Abundance?

In a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen said, “It’s absolutely out of control and dangerous — not just for the sex workers but for the community.”

“From the window right there, I’ll see three [people] ganging up on a girl,” one San Francisco resident told the Chronicle while pointing toward a bay window that overlooks an intersection. “They’ll be hitting her.”

“I call the cops; no one comes. There’s nothing I can do,” the unidentified woman said.

Not just in San Francisco

The issue isn’t isolated to just San Francisco. This problem of an overload of sex workers also exists in other major cities such as Los Angeles and Oakland.

Pimps in Oakland have reportedly stationed sex workers outside a Catholic grade school, where parents said they walk their kids to school past women wearing next to nothing – or even naked.

“It’s every day, during all periods of the day,” mother Rosa Vargas told ABC 7. Vargas claimed that pimps have even followed Vargas down the street on a couple of occasions. Some of the prostitutes look very young and are likely underage, according to residents and local leaders.

The culprit?

Police departments and Republican leaders in the state are pinning the blame for the overt prostitution on a new law that went into effect on Jan. 1. Senate Bill 357 repealed a previous law that banned loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution.

“California Democrats’ policy of legalizing crime is creating more victims by the hour,” GOP Assembly leader James Gallagher said in a statement.

“Under Democratic rule, families and businesses are moving out, while human traffickers are moving in,” Gallagher added. “It was clear from the get-go that this law would encourage and enable human trafficking, but that was an acceptable result for the lawmakers who backed it.”

Los Angeles police said the law is “definitely” handcuffing them from cracking down on prostitution. Under this reform law, they can only make arrests if a suspect admits to prostitution, which they said is a rarity, Fox News Digital reported.

The police asserted that with bolstered prostitution rings robberies follow, shootings, aggravated assaults, and other crimes. Many of the pimps are gang-affiliated and take no issue with beating women or going after rival pimps who try to poach one of the workers, they said.

The Oakland Police Department maintained that the new law “now hinders officers’ enforcement across the state.” More freedom for sex workers?