Towards a New Proposition K

Many of you recall that Proposition K, which would’ve basically decriminalized prostitution here in San Francisco, failed.  This, despite some media stories suggesting that it had the support of about 73% of the city’s voters.  I still have no idea where CNN came up with that figure.  Perhaps it is(was) a reflection of those who believe that sex, even paid sex, between consenting adults isn’t the business of the government.

There have been several surveys conducted in a variety of different venues that show significant support for the decriminalization of prostitution in general -a statistic that is pretty consistent throughout the country, actually.  In many other countries it is already legal to one degree or another, including New Zealand, which is widely believed to be the best overall model for anyone wanting to decriminalize the work here in the U. S.

There was optimism that San Francisco might be the first city in the country to head down that path with Prop K.  Prop K would’ve amended the city’s charter to prohibit the police from enforcing prostitution laws, and to treat sexual assault and rape cases submitted by prostitutes the same as they do any other.  As it stands right now, if a prostitute claims rape in a case where a john doesn’t pay her, she is typically arrested and charged with being a prostitute.  The police may or may not pursue any investigation of the rapist.  That’s fucking ridiculous, of course, but that’s the way most other cities approach it as well these days.

The Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) and the Bay Area Sex Worker Advocacy Network (BAYSWAN) jointly developed the language for this year’s Prop K (as best I can tell – if I am wrong, please correct me).  Proponents gathered enough signatures to have the measure placed on the city election ballot in November, and there was some speculation that it might actually pass.  In the end, however, it failed by a margin of 59-41%.  That’s substantially better than a similar amendment fared in Oakland a few years ago, but it still means that the police get to harass prostitutes here in the Bay Area and many of the benefits of their being able to operate in a safer environment are not realized.

Sadly, the wording of the ballot measure helped contribute to its defeat in my opinion.

The original proposition basically said:

Proposition K would prohibit the Police Department from providing resources to investigate and prosecute prostitution. It would also prohibit the Police Department from applying for federal or state funds that involve racial profiling to target alleged trafficking victims and would require any existing funds to implement the Task Force’s recommendations.

Proposition K would require the Police Department and the District Attorney to enforce existing criminal laws that prohibit coercion, extortion, battery, rape, sexual assault and other violent crimes, regardless of the victim’s status as a sex worker. It also requires these agencies to fully disclose the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against sex workers.

Proposition K would prohibit the City from funding or supporting the First Offender Prostitution Program or any similar anti-prostitution program.

There were many supporters of the amendment, including many local and national sex workers’ rights organizations, the local Democratic Party, and even Barbara Walters.  Conversely, of course, there were many who came out in opposition to the amendment, most notably San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and the city’s District Attorney.

There were a variety of complaints about the charter amendment – some of them valid, some outlandish (that San Francisco would become the human sex trafficking capital of the world, for example.).  There are a couple specifically that, in my opinion, had they been rectified, might’ve made the amendment much more passable had they been addressed appropriately from the outset.

The first of these has to do with streetwalking.  I know many sex worker activists believe that streetwalking needs to be decriminalized. In fact, many of the issues that drove the idea behind Prop K were related to things that happen most often to streetwalkers, ranging from being raped by johns to being harassed by the police when they’re arrested or when they attempt to report the rapes.  As a matter of general principle, I don’t disagree with the idea, but rather the implementation in this instance.

One of the fatal flaws with the original amendment was that there’d be nothing in place to mitigate the potential expansion of streetwalking into any place in the city.  Whether or not that was likely to occur is a subject for another discussion – the perception was there that it would, so it was a real issue in the mind of many voters.  I addressed this issue in my post about decriminalizing prostitution as a whole.  You simply are not going to find any political support for any change in the law that allows unchecked street-based prostitution.  Yes, we need to do something other than arrest these workers, absolutely.  But simply allowing it to go on unabated is not going to buy you any votes from people who don’t want that kind of activity in their neighborhoods (and I don’t know anyone who would be in favor of that, quite honestly).  There has to be some provision in the amendment to facilitate moving these workers into a better environment (or out of the work altogether if that’s where they want to go).  If the opponents of the amendment can cement it into the minds of voters that their neighborhoods will be overrun with street walkers, they won’t have a tough time defeating it at the ballot box.  Issue number one.

The second issue has to do with the crime of human trafficking.  Though there was an attempt to explain that Prop K would not interfere with law enforcement’s work associated with stopping human trafficking, it wasn’t explicitly spelled out in the amendment. In fact, if you just glanced through the amendment language, you might read it as “...prohibit…target(ing) alleged trafficking victims.”  If you’re not paying attention, you might misconstrue that to say that it prevents the police from targeting victims of human trafficking, thereby, presumably, allowing trafficking to continue without interference from the fuzz.  Obviously, when you read the amendment language in its full context, that’s not the case.  But how many voters do you know that actually pay attention to the specifics of these kinds of things?

That concerned many people, especially those who’ve bought into the bullshit spewed forth by the likes of Melissa Farley and her minions.  According to her, everyone who works as a prostitute, voluntarily or not, is “trafficked.”  Since the media likes to seize on that garbage and feed it to the masses, it has become part of the collective public wisdom about prostitution.  There needs to be more done to specify that any decriminalization wouldn’t interfere with law enforcement’s work in addressing the very real issue of trafficking when and where it actually occurs.

With these two issues in mind, I’ve formulated a new proposal for a charter amendment that would decriminalize most prostitution in the city, yet make it clear that these two issues are addressed in a manner that appeases many who were uneasy with the 2008 version of Prop K.

The police are prohibited from investigating or prosecuting instances of consensual exchange of money or goods for sex between/among consenting adults.

This amendment does not preclude law enforcement from investigating and prosecuting instances of known or suspected legitimate human trafficking or the coercion of anyone into prostitution, but it is intended that the police not use racial profiling to accomplish this.

The Police Department and the District Attorney are required to enforce existing criminal laws that prohibit coercion, extortion, battery, rape, sexual assault and other violent crimes, regardless of the victim’s status as a sex worker, and to fully disclose the investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against sex workers.

The City is prohibited from funding or supporting the First Offender Prostitution Program or any similar anti-prostitution program. The City will fund a program to provide sex worker support officers (non-commissioned) and programs to help street-based sex workers find alternative means of employment or alternative means of providing their services, as well as providing counseling and referral services for minors found to be engaging in prostitution of any type.

I think this, or some derivative thereof, would address the substance of the majority of the complaints and concerns that doomed the original Proposition K, and would allow a great many more people to support it.  It doesn’t wholesale endorse prostitution, but it allows those who wish to do the work to do so without having to fear being arrested for the work, and allows them to know that, if they file a complaint about a crime, they won’t be harassed or worse simply because of the line of work they choose to pursue.

I’d love to entertain any thoughts or suggestions about this.  It is something I believe in and I think if any city in the United States is going to be the first to address prostitution in this way, it will (and should) be San Francisco.  We have the support infrastructure here to help make it happen, and if we do it correctly and it works, then it could easily become a model for other cities to use.

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Tagged as: decriminalization, legalization, prop k, prostitution, San Francisco