New York: As part of a nationwide change, Manhattan will no longer criminalize prostitution

The New York Times

04/23/2021 10:00

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 04/23/2021 10:00

The Manhattan district attorney's office

announced that it will stop criminalizing prostitution

and unlicensed massage, putting the burden of one of the highest-profile police offices in the United States behind the growing movement to change the focus of the criminal justice system. towards sex work.

District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. asked a judge to

dismiss 914 open cases

involving prostitution and unlicensed massage, along with 5,080 cases in which the charge was loitering for prostitution purposes.

The law that criminalized this latest charge, which had become known as the

"walking while trans"

law

, was repealed by New York state in February.

The announcement represents a substantial change in the office's approach to prostitution.

Many of the cases Vance dismissed date back to the 1970s and 1980s,

when New York waged a war on prostitution

in an effort to clean up its image as a center of iniquity and vice.

"Over the past decade, we have learned from those with lived experience and from our own experience on the ground: criminally prosecuting prostitution does not make us safer and, all too often, achieves the opposite result,

further marginalizing vulnerable New Yorkers.

" Vance said in a statement.

Other related crimes

The office will continue to criminalize other crimes related to prostitution, such

as pimping, promoting prostitution and sex trafficking,

and said its policy will not prevent it from filing other charges stemming from prostitution-related arrests.

This means, in effect, that the office will continue to go after pimps and sex traffickers, as well as people who pay for sex, continuing the fight against those who exploit or profit from prostitution, without punishing those who for decades they

have borne most of the attention of law enforcement.

The office will continue to criminalize other crimes related to prostitution, such as pimping, promoting prostitution and sex trafficking.

AFP photo

Manhattan

will join Baltimore, Philadelphia

and other jurisdictions that have given up on going after sex workers.

Brooklyn also does not prosecute people detained for prostitution, instead referring them to social services before forcing them to appear in court, unless the prosecution cannot locate them.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric González in January requested the

dismissal of hundreds of

open

cases

related to prostitution and vagrancy, and said he would end up requesting the dismissal of more than 1,000.

Queens and Bronx district attorneys followed him in March, requesting the dismissal of hundreds of prostitution-related cases.

Prosecutions for sex work

had already dropped dramatically

over the past decade, said Abigail Swenstein, an attorney for the Legal Aid Society's Exploitation Intervention Project, with occasional spikes, like the one that took place during 2014, when Super was held. Bowl at MetLife Stadium in neighboring New Jersey.

She added that the vast majority of her clients in the past two years had been women detained in massage parlors.

Swenstein said Vance's move will likely "

have repercussions for sex workers

and survivors of human trafficking far beyond New York City," and will make them feel "less stigmatized."

He commended the district attorney for formulating the policy after speaking with sex workers and others with relevant experience.

The struggle

Vance's office had a practice of dismissing prostitution cases after sending defendants to mandatory counseling sessions.

From now on, according to Vance's statement, such counseling sessions will be offered

on a voluntary basis only.

Sex workers

have fought for decriminalization for decades

.

But the 2019 formation of Decrim NY, a coalition of organizations that support full decriminalization and have worked to pressure lawmakers, represented a turning point for the movement.

In New York City, those calls have grown stronger.

Last month,

Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray

, called on the state to end criminal penalties against sex workers.

"The communities most affected by the continuing criminalization of sex work and

human trafficking are overwhelmingly LGBTQ,

people of color and undocumented immigrants," McCray said at the time.

"Sex work is a means of survival for many of these marginalized groups."

The rejection of the prosecution of prostitution and other related crimes has also been one of the objectives of the candidates who aspire to replace Vance, who announced in March that he would not run for reelection.

Most have said they

would halt the prosecutions if elected.

Eliza Orlins, a candidate for office and a former ombudsman, has been especially vocal, publishing a comprehensive political document on the issue, saying she would fight to make the buying and selling of consensual sex legal in New York.

The desirability of going after pimps who sponsor prostitutes

has been a subject of

constant

debate

among feminist organizations.

In an interview, Orlins said she was glad about the change, but that it had taken too long and that, by continuing to go after those who sponsor sex workers, the office had not gone far enough.

"Am I glad that someone in such a powerful position, like the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, is finally speaking up and saying that we shouldn't go after people for doing their job?

Of course I'm glad,

" he said.

"But do you think you deserve the movement to have you as a hero, when you haven't done enough, or acted fast enough? No."

Jonah E. Bromwich.

The New York Times

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