Why I Think Prop K Is Not OK

Earlier today I voted. The big three issues for me:

• Obama- duh!
• No on Prop 8- duh!
• and No on Prop K

I said as much on Twitter when someone asked and hours later found myself in a debate with Melissa Gira Grant (and a few others) on why exactly I was so against sex workers rights. I'm not. In fact, I was excited about Prop K when I first heard about it. Then I started hearing more details and read it myself.

This is not a proposition that helps everyone-- in fact it hurts the sex workers lowest on the totem poll and hurts people investing in San Francisco homes and neighborhoods. I'm limited to what I can say in 140-characters on Twitter and my followers were probably annoyed by all the back and forth. So in case you live in San Francisco and are voting next week (hopefully another "duh") please read this letter a good friend of mine wrote after studying the issue. He wrote it to send to the candidate he was hoping to vote for for district supervisor. That guy had staunchly supported K, and when he read this letter he went back, read the prop, and switched his vote, writing my friend back to thank him and say he was right. (Both letters on the jump.)

As I said on Twitter, bad law with good intentions doesn't equal good law. History books are filled with laws that meant well, but introduced a flood of negative unintended consequences. (Remember energy deregulation and Enron???) We can do better. We live in the most progressive, most freethinking city in the U.S. We should do better.

I'm not urging you to vote based on what my friend says below.  But if you are going to vote for it, just read the proposition for yourself, please. We all get this phone book-thick lists of all the stuff we need to vote on every year and almost none of us sit and read what we're essentially enacting into law.

I don't want to keep debating this. This is what I think, have a free-for-all in the comments if you disagree just keep it clean for the sake of my readers. And, @philipn, I don't apologize for caring about this as a homeowner. First of all, if I were a renter I'd want my block safe for the kids who live next door and across the street. Second, my husband and I worked our asses off for ten years in low paying professions like art and journalism to buy this house and invest in the city we love. If that makes me a bad person in your book, unfollow me.

(BTW: Forgive the digression from startup/business/tech posts, but the election is all I can think about this week.)

The letter on the jump:

Like many San Franciscans, I personally lean toward social liberalism: people should be governed by the least intrusive laws under which society can function. But Prop K, by decriminalizing prostitution and pimping, does not create some sort of utopian, Amsterdam-style red light district in an innocuous industrial area, where the exploitation of women is minimized, and sex workers are protected, tested and taxed. No, this prop simply legitimizes the nightly flood of vice that we Mission residents have been fighting against in our streets (as opposed to the streets of say, Pac Heights, Nob Hill, or Sea Cliff) for decades. There is nothing in the context of this legislation that leads me to believe that -- upon its passage -- anything else will occur other than the canonization of our neighborhood as the de facto locale for Oakland/Richmond pimps to freely ply their trade to the customers of Daly City and points beyond, as is my understanding of the situation on Shotwell, Capp, Folsom and South Van Ness, from ten years of studied observation and conversations with rank and file police officers.

Indeed, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), a non-partisan planning institute which is opposed to this measure, claims Prop K will "result in San Francisco becoming a destination for prostitutes, clients and pimps" even as "Oakland and other surrounding communities institute higher penalties for pimps and johns." Hats off to any initiative that actually addresses the real issues of prostitution in San Francisco, but Prop K isn't it, not by a long shot, and specifically at our expense, as it is our streets that undoubtedly will become the "destination."

With regard to prostitution in District 9 in general, I am told by SFPD officers that neither the prostitutes, pimps, nor johns are from our neighborhood, or in most cases, from San Francisco at all. So why is the sex trade allowed to flourish here? None of my neighbors signed up to be part of a progressive social experiment with regard to prostitution, yet our elected City officials have conspired to designate our neighborhood a "pimp-friendly zone,"  to the point where State or Federal intervention has become an attractive option. I personally am not naive about human nature or the nature of urban living, nor do I expect or want to live in a police state; I am merely a fan of the equal, non-selective application of the law. We expect -- we demand -- the same quality of life as any one else in San Francisco. Can you honestly say that the passage of Prop K will make day-to-day life better for the people you seek to represent?

I don't know if you have ever swept used condoms from your doorstep, been dressed down by a pimp on your way home from work, interrupted a "sex transaction" by opening your front door, or had your significant other propositioned or harassed by a "sex customer" on the street where you live and your children play, but the problem on our street is very, very real, and Prop K is 180-degrees wrong in how to address it.

Having been failed by our elected representatives, we, as neighbors from many different backgrounds, have banded together over the years to combat crime in our neighborhood, reaching out to the sole City organization that has been sympathetic to our plight, the San Francisco Police Department. Without exception, they have entreated us to report all crimes and to provide them with details of the activity and descriptions of the perpetrators, no matter how unlikely it is that our DA will choose to prosecute anyone involved. What we have wanted for years is for the City to take the rampant prostitution that plagues our neighborhood seriously; to increase patrols, prosecutions and convictions. Prop K takes away the sole tactic we have for combatting this problem. Besides being a slap in the face to civic-minded, taxpaying citizens and our years of hard work, the passage of Prop K will serve to further exacerbate an intolerable situation. 

Your position on Proposition K baffles my neighbors and me. Are we so broke as a city that we are relegated to fighting only certain crimes? Is it good public policy to calm roiling neighborhood crime statistics by making harmful, illegal acts legal? If so, why stop with prostitution? Why not assault or robbery as well? What kind of cynical message are you sending to the voters of San Francisco?

Of course, maybe I’m turned around on this issue. I challenge you to educate me further, to somehow justify your position, or better still, to rethink your support of this ill-conceived piece of legislation. I await your response, which I will be sharing with my neighbors at the upcoming Community Meeting at Mission Station on Tuesday, October 28th, at 6:00 PM. These meetings, which encourage members of the community to voice their concerns about crime and quality of life issues, occur on the last Tuesday of every month, in case you were not aware.

You are applying for the job of serving the people of District 9, and the mandate of that job is to represent and better the interests of the people who live in our community. Even if Prop K fails, and you are elected, you will forever be remembered by the citizens of D9 as being on the wrong side of one of the most important public policy issues we have ever faced. I urge you to reconsider your position.

Sincerely,

Andrew Oglesby

Andy's response from Eric Storey:

Andrew,

Thank you for contacting me.  Your email prompted me to re-examine my position on Proposition K — and I have reviewed the “in favor” arguments, the “opposed” arguments and the full text of the proposition itself.  I am glad you brought the below arguments to my attention as well.  On second look, it appears that Proposition K as written goes too far.  I am in favor of a law that protects the prostitutes themselves - for medical reasons (so they can seek medical attention without the fear of prosecution), for violent crime reasons (so sex worker victims can report crimes) and also so the workers can get away from pimp control.   But I now realize that Proposition K does not adequately address these concerns.  It also does not define “sex-worker” so as to exclude pimps.  Therefore, I am changing my position to a “No” on Prop K.

When elected, I do intend to revisit this issue and will take a stab at revising the language of Prop K into an city ordinance for the Board’s consideration with the above concerns in mind.  I also would include a provision baring prostitution in residential zones.

Let me know if you have any further concerns or questions.

Regards,
Eric Storey

More on how Prop K actually hurts many of the most disenfranchised members of the sex trade (from SPUR's web site). At the very least can't legislation *exclude* pimps and johns if that's where the violence is coming from? (Bold below was added by me.)

From spur.org website: http://www.spur.org/documents/1108_ballot_analysis.shtm#k

PROPOSITION K

"Changing the enforcement of laws related to prostitution and sex workers”

DECRIMINALIZING PROSTITUTION

Decriminalizes prostitution by preventing the City from expending funds to enforce state laws against illegal sex work.

What it does

Proposition K is an initiative ordinance that would decriminalize prostitution by preventing the San Francisco Police Department and District Attorney's Office from enforcing the state's prostitution laws. This measure would also prevent the San Francisco Police Department from engaging in targeted investigations of undocumented sex workers employed in massage parlors.

If passed, the measure would eliminate funding for the investigation and prosecution of illegal sex workers. In addition, the measure would bar the Police Department and District Attorney's Office from applying for or receiving federal and state funding for prosecuting prostitution and the trafficking of sex workers. Funds currently expended on prosecuting prostitution laws would be spent investigating crimes committed against sex workers, such as extortion, battery and rape.

In addition, the measure would eliminate funding for programs that provide services to prostitutes. The Early Intervention Prostitution Program offers treatment services for trauma and substance abuse, housing assistance, and vocational training to sex workers arrested for prostitution, to assist them in exiting the illegal sex industry, if they so desire. The Early Intervention Prostitution Program also provides peer counseling to women arrested on prostitution charges and works with them to develop a treatment plan. The program is funded through fines that are levied on people arrested for purchasing illegal sex.

A program for first-time offenders convicted of purchasing sex also would be eliminated if the measure were to pass. The First Offender Prostitution Program — also known as Johns school — is a diversion program that offers clients arrested for illegally purchasing sex the option of attending a one-day Saturday seminar and paying a $1,000 fee. The program has been shown to be effective in reducing recidivism and is operated at no cost to the taxpayer because it is funded through the fines levied on convicted purchasers. The program also is available for people arrested for solicitation. The prostitutes are directed into diversion programs through a local nonprofit organization called the Standing Against Global Exploitation Project. If this measure were to pass, it would eliminate the practice of directing to this organization the $1,000 fee paid by "johns."

Why it is on the ballot

This measure was placed on the ballot through the collection of voter signatures. The measure was drafted by the Erotic Service Providers Union, which led the signature campaign to place the measure on the ballot.

In 1994, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors established a Task Force on Prostitution, which recommended in a 1996 report that the City decriminalize prostitution. Proposition K seeks to achieve the decriminalization of prostitution through the ballot, since the task force's recommendation was never implemented.

Other recommendations in the 1996 report have been implemented. In 2003. San Francisco adopted an ordinance that transferred the regulation of massage parlors and their employees from the Police Department to the Department of Public Health. The 1996 report also recommended creating an anonymous hotline for sex workers, a recommendation implemented in 2006 by the Department of Public Health.

In 2004, a measure proposing the decriminalization of prostitution in the city of Berkeley was placed on the ballot there, but it was rejected by 64 percent of the vote. The Berkeley measure would have made illegal sex work the low priority of Berkeley city police and would have required the Berkeley City Council to lobby the state to overturn laws prohibiting prostitution.

This measure is designed to achieve not only the decriminalization of prostitution, but also to address several perceived disparities in the prosecution of illegal sex work. A series of raids conducted by the San Francisco Police Department this year resulted in the closure of 17 massage parlors for health and safety violations. These massage parlors are suspected of employing unauthorized immigrants who were forced into illegal sex work by traffickers. The measure is designed to prohibit the targeting of massage parlors, which proponents argue have been the focus of excessive scrutiny.

The measure also is designed to address what proponents claim is a disparity in the prosecution of illegal sex workers operating out of their homes, on the streets and through escort services. The measure claims that the Police Department and District Attorney's Office have been unwilling to pursue the prosecution of prostitution in dance clubs.

Pros

Arguments in favor of Prop. K:

While those in prostitution can report battery, assault and rape as the law stands now, by decriminalizing prostitution, victimized prostitutes would no longer fear the risk of facing criminal charges for reporting battery and rape. Decriminalization could create greater cooperation between the police and prostitutes when attempting to prosecute crimes related to prostitution, such as robbery and assault, as well as the sale of illegal substances.

Prostitutes who operate out of their homes would no longer face eviction as a result of being prosecuted. As a result, these prostitutes no longer would be forced to operate on the streets. However some landlords might still require that tenants abide by state law, or might begin putting non-prostitution clauses into their lease agreements. In Nevada, even legal prostitutes have a very hard time finding housing or other jobs, based on the stigma that goes along with their work.

Eliminating the prosecution of sex workers would save the expenditure of funds to investigate and prosecute illegal sex work. In 2007, this expenditure came to more than $11.4 million. Prop. K would enable the City to spend those funds prosecuting other crimes.

Decriminalizing prostitution could result in the police expending more effort to prosecute crimes committed against all sex workers, not the crime of being a sex worker. Some sex workers in nightclubs allegedly are being forced to work without pay or to have sex with owners and managers.

Decriminalization would increase the economic security for some sex workers, as they no longer would fear arrest for continuing their work.

Cons

Arguments against Prop. K:

By decriminalizing all sex workers, as well as pimps and clients, this measure would make it more difficult for the Police Department and the District Attorney's Office to prosecute coercive pimps who would be decriminalized under this measure. A large percentage of women who seek to leave prostitution report having been forced into prostitution or controlled by their pimps, who threaten them and withhold their earnings.

Prohibiting the Police Department and the District Attorney's Office from funding the investigation and prosecution of illegal sex work is likely to make it much more difficult for both departments to pursue charges against human traffickers and pimps who put minors and children into prostitution.

By removing the funding for the Early Intervention Prostitution Program would make it more difficult for prostitutes to exit the sex industry. A significant number of women who work in the illegal sex industry were forced into prostitution in their teens. These services are important to efforts to help prostitutes who have chosen to leave the sex industry to address the traumatic experiences they have endured as well as other barriers they may face, such as substance abuse and a lack of education.

Any measure that decriminalizes both the sex workers and their customers does nothing to protect the sex workers from abuse by the customers. As a result, this measure could lead to an increase in the abuse of some sex workers but would diminish the ability of the City to prosecute such crimes.

Prop. K could result in San Francisco becoming a destination for prostitutes, clients and pimps. Oakland is operating a pilot program that carries much harsher penalties for pimps and johns. If prostitution were decriminalized in San Francisco, there could be an influx of johns and pimps from the Bay Area into San Francisco, a possibility made more likely by San Francisco's status as an international tourist destination and its existing reputation for libertinism.

SPUR’s analysis

Arresting and prosecuting prostitutes is expensive, and provides no support to those individuals who are working in the illegal sex industry against their will. However, by decriminalizing not only prostitutes, but also pimps and johns, this measure would provide the Police Department and the District Attorney's Office with very limited means of prosecuting abusive pimps. Further, by removing funding for the investigation and prosecution of prostitution, this measure likely would make it much more difficult to pursue traffickers and pimps of child prostitutes. While not all prostitutes are working in the illegal sex industry against their will, by removing funding for services to help prostitutes get out of the business, this measure would make it much more difficult to provide services and support to those women who have been coerced into prostitution. We see the initial appeal of liberalizing laws that are not working effectively, and understand that many sex workers are in their business by their own choice. But we think the unintended consequences of this measure would outweigh any potential benefits.