"Prostitutes threatened my life!" and other ridiculous foolishness

Last Friday the DC Council Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary held a hearing on "Strategies to Combat Prostitution." I (dj bent) was unable to attend but I did catch some crucial moments on the DC Council video streaming - OMG it was so awful. I was at work or else I would have been screaming at the computer screen "What is wrong with you idiots!!!?!?!"

The Washington Post had an interesting article on the hearing (chaired by Phil Mendelson, At-Large Democrat) and includes a neat video that I like:



I am so impressed with Sharmus, she is the bomb and really stuck it to them - I didn't get a chance to see her testify, but I helped her craft her testimony and my sources at the hearing said she was the best and strongest voice present for sex worker rights.

Some of the proposals put forward by witnesses from PSA 102 in Northeast included:
-making prostitution a felony offense
-mandatory HIV testing for anyone arrested of a prostitution offense
-increasing the length of time of prostitution free zones and expanding the area that they can cover
-longer sentences for prostitution charges (currently they are up to 30 days first offense, up to 60 second offense, and up to 180 third offense and beyond)

To show how uninformed and operating on assumption and moralistic foolery these people are, they also proposed two "solutions" that are not only offensive like the ones abose, but:
-already law: increasingly long sentences the more convictions you have
-impossible and contradictory/ie make no sense: mandating diversion programs

Diversion programs are when people agree to plead guilty so that the charges are suspended and they participate in a program, which would be helpful (like drug treatment) or bad (like re-education programs for clients of sex workers). If they fail to fulfill any part of the program they face the jail time for the guilty plea and full sentence.

The atmosphere and language of the anti-prostitution dudes was vitriolic with them complaining that there are condoms everywhere in their neighborhood that their kids try to eat them, that sex workers threaten them and make everyone in the area afraid for their lives, and more foolishness. Incredibly, Chairman Mendelson seemed to be taking their recommendations seriously!! WTF?!?! He is supposed to be this measured, thoughtful guy and I've heard him in other hearings repeatedly say to advocates of harsher criminal penalties on other topics "It's important to hear individual stories but we need to think about the broader policy issues and find what is going to work." Not once did he bring that critical eye to this issue. It's so obviously about political calculations - as Mendelson told researchers with the Alliance for a Safe & Diverse DC that he thought it's time to try new approaches to sex work that don't rely on criminalization but that it's not politically viable. Plus he used the passage of the prostitution free zones in his campaign literature for re-election and probably is worried about being portrayed as "soft on crime" again in the next election.

Folks in the community recognize the seriousness of the situation, that this hearing is probably going to lead to new proposed legislation that will be horrible, so we are organizing to put pressure against that kind of solution. Between this debacle and the overt, violent efforts to remove all non-yuppies from 5th and K Street area now that there are new condos and such there, this violent battle for public space in DC continues. They are even fighting against social services! When does it end? Oh that's right, when every poor, person of color, gender non-conforming, homeless, etc person is run out of the District. That's probably when DC will become a state too.

It is really a shame that more groups are not working on these issues, recognizing the fundamental threat to all of us that they represent, and creating stronger coalitions across issues to fight back. Low income housing advocacy groups, homeless advocacy groups, people of color groups, LGBT groups and more should all be working on this and educating their membership about the issues. Because of the fiercest witnesses demanding the heads of all sex workers at this hearing: most of them were white gay men.