Increase safety - sex workers could work together in a supportive environment. Police crackdowns break up safety networks. Street workers are forced into isolated areas and are at greater risk of attack. Brothel-keeping law makes it illegal for two or more sex workers to work together. Decriminalisation promotes safety because sex workers can collectively assert their rights to better working conditions. Claims that violence, particularly trafficking, can be reduced by criminalising clients are disproven by a 2014 Vancouver study which found that “criminalisation and policing strategies that target clients… profoundly impacted the safety strategies sex workers employed.”

Example: A sex worker was murdered in Ilford on the 28 October 2013 in the wake of a policing operation which resulted in over 200 prostitute cautions being issued to women in the area over the last year, and many arrests for loitering and soliciting. Police raids involving 200 officers in Soho in early December 2013, resulted in sex workers being dragged handcuffed in their underwear onto the streets in front of the media and evicted from the relative safety of their flats.

Enhance health - sex workers could access services without discrimination. Aggressive policing and the stigma attached with sex work makes it harder for sex workers to negotiate condom use with clients and access health services. Possession of condoms is still used as evidence of prostitution.

In Australia, laws regulating sex work vary from state to state—from
decriminalization to legalization of only licensed brothels to criminalization
of all prostitution, including brothel, street-based, and private sex work.
Researchers have assessed whether different legal contexts affect the
delivery of health services and occupational health and safety outcomes
among sex workers.16 One study found that decriminalization is associated
with the greatest financial support for sex worker health programs and
the best access to brothels for outreach workers. Better financial support
means greater capacity to conduct health outreach in the evening, an
important feature because the evenings are often the busiest times for
sex workers. Condom access and rates of use among sex workers are
also higher in New South Wales, where sex work is decriminalized, than
in other jurisdictions. In addition, when sex workers are able to work in
collectives, they can organize health services for themselves, which are
likely to be more respectful and more frequently used than other non
sex worker-led services.17 Removing criminal penalties against sex work
also facilitates partnerships between government and sex workers in
addressing health and safety issues in sex work. Collectives are generally
more difficult to organize where sex work is criminalized and criminal laws
are harshly enforced.

 Furthermore a UN study concluded that legalizing sex work would help to reduce the spread of STD's such as HIV/AIDS

Example: The Royal College ofNursing has consistently voted by over 90% of its membership is in favour of decriminalisation on the grounds of health and safety. Following decriminalisation in New Zealand, sex workers have demanded that employers provide better health and safety rights at work.

Provide legal recognition - sex workers are workers like other workers. Sex workers would be entitled to improve their working conditions, get a pension, form and join trade unions.

Example: workers forced underground are more likely to be exploited as they have no legal recourse. The International Labour Organization recognises sex work as work, and self-employed sex workers as legitimately employed. The Communication Workers Union and the GMB support decriminalisation.

Protect immigrant sex workers - vulnerable victims of raids and exploitation. Police raids are often justified in the name of saving victims of trafficking. But while immigrant sex workers face arrest and deportation, genuine victims rarely get help.

Anti-trafficking organisations have put themselves in the idiotic position where they have to use violence and human rights violations against the women and girls they say they are rescuing, so they can prove there has been a crime, in spite of the denial and the uncooperative attitudes of the alleged victims.

Example: Police raids on sex workers flatsin Mayfairin 2012 saw immigrant women’s flats closed whilst other people just got a warning. Legal Action for Women’s complaint to the police documented how Romanian and Thai women suffered racist bullying and abuse and were threatened with deportation.

Help end the hypocritical stigma attached to sex work - it brings violence and discrimination. Criminal laws against sex work intrude into people’ssex lives and are a form of state control over women’s bodies. Consenting sex should not be a crime. Gay sex was decriminalised in England in the 1960’s, why not consenting sex where money is exchanged. Distinctions between sex work and other forms of labour are oftenmoralistic. Virginia Woolf condemned the “brain prostitution” practised by academics and others. Many people feel that poverty is the immorality thatmakes prostitution themost viable choice for so many people. 

In many countries, harsh application of criminal law ensures that a large
proportion of sex workers will have criminal records and will be put
in jail or police lock-ups at some time in their lives. Sex workers are
particularly susceptible to physical and sexual abuse in prisons, pretrial
detention facilities, and police lock-ups, with dire health and human rights
consequences.20 In addition, being a former prisoner with a criminal
record is a deeply stigmatized condition; the intersection of this stigma
and the stigma already associated with sex work is a heavy burden. In
some parts of the United States, for example, people convicted of sex
work-related crimes are registered as “sex offenders” and must carry
documents identifying them as such. They are then ineligible for public
housing and other social services and are greatly impeded from finding
non-sex work employment.

Example: The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Prostitution and the Global Sex Trade which recently recommended the criminalisation of clients, chose as its secretariat the notoriously homophobic Christian charity, CARE. 

DECRIMINALISATION OF SEX WORK WOULD:
Recognise sex workers’ contribution - most sex workers are mothers supporting families and communities. Many sex workers in the US are mothers,mostly single mothers, supporting families in the face of rising unemployment, benefit cuts and sanctions, lowering wages, homelessness and debt.

Example: “My daughter has a disability and when I was ill social services paid someone $1000 a week to care for my child -the work I do for free. A percentage of what they pay a stranger would make life so much easier and I wouldn’t have to go into prostitution. But because I am a mother I’m not entitled and because I care I did go on the street”

End criminal records - they bar access to other jobs preventing sex workers from getting out. Prostitute cautions and convictions remain on someone’s record until they are 100 years old and show up with a standard CRB check. 

Example: “As the mother of a disabled child, I know a lot about caring. But I couldn’t apply for a caring job because I had convictions for loitering and soliciting.” Under the 2004 New Zealand Prostitution Reform Act sex workers had their criminal records “wiped clean”.

Reduce police corruption - enable sex workers to report wrongdoings. Police wield enormous power over sex workers because of the threat of arrest and exposure. When police bully, steal, extort, and demand free sexual services from sex workers they often enjoy impunity for their crimes. Charges of loitering and soliciting, Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) and Closure Orders can be brought on the uncorroborated word of a single police officer. The incidence of rape is high among sex workers in many settings.

A survey of sex workers in Kenya, for example, revealed that 58 percent
had experienced forced sexual encounters.11 But sex workers who are
criminalized are unlikely to feel safe going to the police to report violence
perpetrated against them. The criminal law is also a barrier to access to
civil protections, such as restraining orders, or to obtaining treatment
and support after rape and abuse. In a 2011 ruling, the Ontario Superior
Court decided that certain criminal prohibitions on sex work violated the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, citing evidence that most sex
workers don’t report violence because they fear they may be arrested or
punished in other ways, such as losing custody of their children, losing
their lawful employment, or being stigmatized for their association with sex
work.12 Decriminalization removes a major barrier to sex workers’ reporting
of rape and other crimes and makes it harder for violence against sex
workers to be committed with impunity.

Furthermore police are often the perpetrator of violence against sex workers. In countries where prostitution is prohibited, it turns out the police are the number 1 agressor when it comes to violence against sex workers.

 

Example: Sex workers in New Zealand report thatsince they have the backing of the law they can turn to the police and courts for help without fear of prosecution.

In Cambodia, 70% of the prostitutes who work in a brothel reports having been abused by the police and almost 60% has been raped by the police.

 In the US sexual misconduct remains the second highest complaint against Law Enforcement Officers. 

Stop rapists - sex workers could report violence without fear of arrest. Fear of arrest, and for immigrant sex workers, fear of deportation, are the biggest obstacles to reporting rape and other violence. Violent men take advantage of the legal vulnerability of sex workers and deliberately target them. They pose a danger to sex workers and to other women. 

Example: Lorraine Morris was prosecuted after reporting an attack while her attackers were left free to attack again.

 Decriminalization of sex work in New South Wales in Australia has been
associated with sex workers’ decreased risk of occupational injury or
insecurity as compared to other Australian jurisdictions.13 One important
way in which decriminalization promotes safer working conditions for sex
workers is by enabling workers to organize. Collectively, sex workers can
address risk factors in their workplaces and insist upon improved conditions.
The power of collectivization to promote health by increasing access to
condoms and other HIV prevention materials, as well as to establish health
services and access to financial services, is evident from the successes of
collectives in India, including the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee
in Sonagachi (Kolkata) and VAMP/SANGRAM in Sangli.14 The mobilizing
efforts of the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective have had similar results for
improving workplace safety. Decriminalization in New Zealand brought sex
workers under the Health and Safety in Employment Act, resulting in the
creation of occupational health guidelines, which sex workers have used to
assert their rights with employers and clients.15

Stop profiteering by the state - fines and confiscation orders are an incentive to policing consenting sex. Proceeds of Crime (POCA) legislation is used to seize savings and assets(eg: a house, car, jewellery) from people convicted of prostitution offences. The burden of proof is reversed so the person has to prove the money did not come from criminal activity. Debts under POCA are the only ones which can’t be cancelled by a prison term. 

Example: A woman convicted of brothel-keeping for working as a maid for five months was charged $10,000, she had to use the money saved for the gravestone of her baby daughter who died while the case was going on. 

Free up police time - rape, murder, trafficking and racist attacks urgently need tackling. At least 60 sex workers were murdered between 1998 and 2008. While the vast majority of murder cases are solved, in one third of murders of sex workers the killer is never found. Women Against Rape highlightsthe appalling 6.7% conviction rate for reported rape and the shortage of officers committed to investigating rape. Yet a brothel raid can on average engage 25 police officers and hundreds of officers are employed for months at a time on street crackdowns.

Example: National surveys have shown that 94 percent of citizens believe that police do not respond quickly enough to calls for help — and the endless pursuit of prostitution is one factor that slows down many police departments from responding to other victims.

250 police officers raided premises in central London last year at a cost of £20,000 (not including the substantial cost of the prior 18 month investigation and 10 subsequent court cases).

What type of resources was expended to try to quell this non-problem; A typical sting involves five police officers, including one captain, three of them waiting in a rented room at a local motel. These officers had earlier placed an ad on Backpage.com, an internet classified ad service similar to Craigslist. They enlist the help of a Confidential Informant who poses as the prostitute and provides her a pre-paid cell phone to answer calls from prospective customers. It takes the officers some time to get it all planned and organized. It is likely fair to say that the entire operation could hardly consume less than one full shift of each officer’s time, and almost surely much more. Every prostitution arrest, not including jail or court expenses, costs between $2,000 to $2500 Most girls are fined $200 and released from an already crowded County jail. Most of their clients pay a similar fine and walk or are sentenced to John schools with high operating costs and little to no recividity rate. How many return to the lifestyle is unknown.

New Zealand successfully decriminalised prostitution in 2003. A government review has shown positive results: no rise in prostitution; women able to report violence without fear of arrest, attacks cleared up more quickly; sex workers more able to leave prostitution as convictions are cleared from their records; drug users treated as patients not criminals.

 

DECRIMINALIZATION
FACILITATES EFFECTIVE RESPONSES
TO TRAFFICKING

There is no evidence to support the claim made by some that removing
criminal prohibitions on sex work will result in an expansion of the sex
industry.22 In New Zealand, a study estimating the number of sex workers
in five locations throughout the country before and after decriminalization
demonstrated that the Prostitution Reform Act of 2003 had little impact
on the number of people working in the sex industry. Furthermore studies done on human trafficking and prostitution have shown begrudgingly that Nations that have legalized sex work have about the same rate of human trafficking as nations that have banned sex work 
Concerns that decriminalization will promote sex trafficking are
founded on a mistaken conflation of sex work and trafficking. In fact,
jurisdictions that decriminalize sex work can retain and even strengthen
criminal prohibitions on trafficking, sexual coercion, and the prostitution
of minors. Decriminalizing sex work does not cause an increase in
trafficking. For example, New Zealand, which decriminalized sex work
in 2003, continues to be ranked in Tier 1 by the United States State
Department’s Trafficking in Persons report—that is, the country is
judged to be among those doing the most effective work on human
trafficking.24 Laws and policies that encourage or enable collectivization
of sex workers may also facilitate enforcement of anti-trafficking
laws. When not themselves under the threat of criminal penalties, sex
workers and their organizations can work with law enforcement to
combat trafficking. The UNAIDS Guidance Note on HIV and Sex Work
highlights sex worker organizations as best positioned to refer women
and children who are victims of trafficking to appropriate services.25
Criminalization of sex work can impede the anti-trafficking efforts of sex
worker organizations and make it easier for sex workers to be wrongly
categorized as trafficked persons.

For these reasons and many more, we ask that you Call Off Your Tired Old Ethics and legalize sex work in th United States