https://www.ocregister.com/2020/01/10/its-time-to-decriminalize-sex-work-and-focus-on-actual-crimes/
Politicians across the country have declared a war on human trafficking, but the tactics police departments are deploying aren’t catching the real criminals. Instead, they’re tearing apart families, terrorizing communities and ruining lives.
Sex workers and survivors of human trafficking are asking for legislation that will make all of us safer. We are advocating for the full decriminalization of commercial sex work between consenting adults.
Decriminalization removes criminal penalties for adults who engage in consensual sex in exchange for money or something of value.
Decriminalization, as opposed to legalization, does not create new regulations, while maintaining existing laws against public indecency, violence and trafficking.
Decriminalization does not encourage rape, trafficking, domestic violence or kidnapping, but it does improve health and safety by taking the oldest profession out of the black market. Rhode Island decriminalized indoor prostitution between 2003 and 2009.
According to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, this contributed to a 30 percent decline of reported rapes against women and a 40 percent reduction of female gonorrhea cases.
But sex work remains the subject of negative media and law enforcement attention.
Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, is a 78-year-old widower who is currently facing federal charges for allegedly paying a 45-year-old legally licensed masseur in Florida to massage an especially delicate part of his body. Months of undercover police work, hidden cameras and multiple raids revealed Florida law enforcement’s obsession with Asian massage parlors, but no evidence of human trafficking.
Kraft got caught up in a “John sting,” an easy way for police departments to appear as if they are doing something to combat sex trafficking. These often high-profile raids rarely result in trafficking prosecutions, but rather prostitution or solicitation charges for the consenting adults caught in the act.
In Kraft’s case, multiple law enforcement agencies spent months pouring over hidden camera footage and rummaging through the trash of almost a dozen massage parlors.
After an elaborate raid, multiple police departments threw themselves press conferences characterizing themselves as saviors. As part of this highly choreographed rescue operation, officers handcuffed 19 women, all of whom they depicted as sex slaves in the media, before bothering to speak to them.
The women were threatened with multiple felony charges unless they cooperated with police. Officers assured the public that they had broken up an international human trafficking cartel. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is no evidence of trafficking, or violence, or coercion. This was not a rescue operation. Police officers raided almost a dozen immigrant-owned businesses, traumatized at least 19 adult women and publicly humiliated hundreds of men, one of whom happens to own a football team. These raids are happening all over the country.
But politicians aren’t advocating for better victim’s services; they’re asking for more arrests. Legislators throughout the country are trying to increase raids on massage parlors, increase surveillance at hotels and make men like Robert Kraft register as a sex offenders.
Sex workers know that cracking down on consensual adults in the sex industry won’t make any of us safer. We know what prohibition does to markets. Suppression creates black markets where career criminals thrive. Any gun-rights advocate or pro-choice voter understands that making something illegal doesn’t make it go away, only more dangerous. We should be policing predators, not prostitutes or their patrons.
