SF's Proposition K: Changing the Landscape for Sex Workers
http://www.truthout.org/103008LA
Next week, San Francisco voters will vote on Proposition K, which
would prohibit the use of public funds to enforce laws criminalizing
prostitution, and mandate that police investigate crimes against sex
workers. The passage of Proposition K would change the landscape for
sex workers in San Francisco in critical ways.
First, by removing police officers' power to arrest sex workers,
it would reduce sex workers' vulnerability to all of the abuses of
that power sex workers currently experience: police profiling and
harassment, sexual harassment and assault, rape, and extortion of
sexual favors under threat of arrest by police officers, and
entrapment.
Second, as a public statement that sex workers deserve the same
protection from violence as any other person, it would reduce sex
workers' vulnerability to violence at the hands of community members,
employers, clients, partners and family members. If this proposition
is passed and enforced, not only would sex workers' vulnerability to
police violence be decreased, but people who do sex work or trade sex
for survival needs would also be less likely to have to take greater
risks to avoid police attention, and would no longer be forced to run
the risk of arrest when trying to report a violent crime committed
against them.
The assumption that criminalizing prostitution reduces its
prevalence, or even more absurdly, helps those engaged in the sex
trade, is fundamentally flawed. Prostitution arrests help no one,
especially not the people arrested. Not only is arrest itself
traumatic and often violent, it drives sex workers into a broken
criminal justice system and comes with a host of collateral
consequences. Sex workers who have been arrested may face the loss of
their mainstream jobs, adverse impacts on their immigration status,
eviction from their homes, or even problems retaining custody of
their
children. All of these factors may force them to return to the trade,
if only to be able to pay fines and legal costs, or because their
criminal record precludes them from securing other employment. Most
people, when asked why they engage in sex work, cite money as the
reason. Criminalization and arrests do nothing to address the lack of
living wage alternatives to prostitution, which should be the real
goal of anyone seeking to reduce its prevalence. In fact,
criminalization is expensive, both for those arrested and for the
city. One thing about Proposition K is that it gets right to the
heart
of the matter - the pocketbook - by prohibiting use of public funds
to
enforce laws against prostitution, it diverts money away from
criminalizing and arresting sex workers and makes it available for
more effective efforts to keep everyone safe and secure. These are
compelling reasons, but the most compelling reason to stop arresting
sex workers is to decrease their vulnerability to violence.
"Revolving Door," a report from the Sex Workers Project (SWP),
found that 27% of New York City street-based sex workers interviewed
had been subjected to police brutality. In "Behind Closed Doors," the
second report released by the SWP, 14% reported violence at the hands
of the police. Sex workers described being thrown on the ground and
stepped on, having food thrown at them, and being kicked hard enough
to require a hospital visit. One sex worker interviewed for a 2005
update to Revolving Door described a police officer who routinely
threatened sex workers with violence, telling them: "You are not
going
to jail tonight, you are going to the hospital."
These patterns are not isolated to New York: A 2007 D.C. study by
community organization Different Avenues found that one in five
actual
or perceived sex workers surveyed who had been approached by police
indicated that officers asked them for sex. Most indicated that this
had been a negative or humiliating experience. A 2002 Chicago study
found that 30% of exotic dancers and 24% of street-based sex workers
interviewed who had been raped identified a police officer as the
rapist. Approximately 20% of other acts of sexual violence reported
by
study participants were committed by the police. It is clear that
giving police the power to arrest sex workers increases, not
decreases, their risk of sexual violence.
Police harassment and police violence against sex workers let
others know that if they prey on sex workers, they are unlikely to be
apprehended. Indeed, sex workers routinely report that they cannot
count on police to protect them. One sex worker quoted in "Revolving
Door" described her efforts to report violent crimes to the police.
"If I call them, they don't come. If I have a situation in the
street,
forget it. 'Nobody told you to be in the street.' After a girl was
gang raped, they said 'Forget it, she works in the street.'" In
Behind
Closed Doors, 46% of the sex workers interviewed had experienced
violence in the course of their work, and 42% had been threatened or
beaten for being a sex worker. Sara, a respondent in the report,
describes a client "who came in and had a knife ... I was cornered
and
I was about to be attacked and raped ... I didn't go to the police
because it would be coming out about what I've been doing." These
types of experiences are heightened for transgender women who are or
are perceived to be in the sex trades, who experience additional
discrimination and abuse by law enforcement officers based on their
gender-nonconformity.
Current law enforcement efforts to police sex work have failed to
eliminate prostitution. In fact, sex workers who are arrested are
more
likely to keep engaging in sex work in order to pay legal costs and
because they are precluded from engaging in other employment by their
criminal records. In other words, it is a largely ineffective use of
public funds. Moreover, arrests increase, rather than decrease, sex
workers' vulnerability to police and interpersonal violence alike,
making them largely ineffective in "protecting" sex workers and
trafficked persons from violence and abuse.
As pointed out by Proposition K, existing laws against assault,
battery, kidnapping, forced labor, rape and sexual assault can and
should be used to address violence against sex workers and trafficked
persons without criminalizing sex workers and subjecting them to the
violence of law enforcement. Suddenly, Proposition K starts to make
fiscal and social sense rather than seem like a far-fetched idea.
Prostitution arrests make up only a small number of the charges
brought against people involved in informal sexual economies. Sex
workers in San Francisco are also charged with solicitation,
loitering, and "nuisance" offenses, and could also be vulnerable to
more serious criminal charges, including promoting prostitution. This
means that Proposition K will not entirely eliminate sex workers'
vulnerability to arrest or to police and interpersonal violence.
However, the passage of Proposition K would be a critical first step
toward reducing sex workers' vulnerability to violence in San
Francisco.
Next steps must address the arbitrary use of vaguely worded
"quality of life" offenses and other crimes to accomplish the same
result. And, most importantly, we must do the deeper work of changing
the cultural perceptions of sex workers while increasing economic
opportunity for everyone. All members of our society are deserving of
human rights and a life free of violence.
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
