The Sound Guy
Pursuit Driver
The Manhattan district attorney’s office announced Wednesday that it would no longer prosecute prostitution and unlicensed massage, putting the weight of one of the most high-profile law enforcement offices in the United States behind the growing movement to change the criminal justice system’s approach to sex work.
The district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., revealed the new policy as he appeared virtually in court to ask a judge to dismiss 914 open cases involving prostitution and unlicensed massage, along with 5,080 cases in which the charge was loitering for the purposes of prostitution.
The law that made the latter charge a crime, which had become known as the “walking while trans” law, was repealed by New York State in February.
Mr. Vance said that with the announcement, his office had fully shifted its approach to prostitution. Many of the cases he moved to dismiss dated to the 1970s and 1980s, when New York waged a war against prostitution in an effort to clean up its image as a center of iniquity and vice.
“Over the last decade we’ve learned from those with lived experience, and from our own experience on the ground: Criminally prosecuting prostitution does not make us safer, and too often, achieves the opposite result by further marginalizing vulnerable New Yorkers,” Mr. Vance said in a statement.
The office will continue to prosecute other crimes related to prostitution, including patronizing sex workers and sex trafficking.
Manhattan will join Baltimore, Philadelphia and other jurisdictions that have declined to prosecute sex workers. Brooklyn also does not prosecute people arrested for prostitution, but instead refers them to social services before they are compelled to appear in court — unless the district attorney’s office there is unable to reach them.
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In New York City, those calls have grown louder. Last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, called on the state to end criminal penalties for sex workers.
“The communities hit hardest by the continued criminalization of sex work and human trafficking are overwhelmingly LGBTQ, they are people of color, and they are undocumented immigrants,” Ms. McCray said at the time. “Sex work is a means of survival for many in these marginalized groups.
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Really? Prosecute the customers, but not the provider. Then claim that all these people that the libs support have no worthy skills to make a living but to sell their bodies. Hmmm... do those people not see that comment for the insult it is?
The ship has sunk, hit bottom and been smashed into little pieces.
The district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., revealed the new policy as he appeared virtually in court to ask a judge to dismiss 914 open cases involving prostitution and unlicensed massage, along with 5,080 cases in which the charge was loitering for the purposes of prostitution.
The law that made the latter charge a crime, which had become known as the “walking while trans” law, was repealed by New York State in February.
Mr. Vance said that with the announcement, his office had fully shifted its approach to prostitution. Many of the cases he moved to dismiss dated to the 1970s and 1980s, when New York waged a war against prostitution in an effort to clean up its image as a center of iniquity and vice.
“Over the last decade we’ve learned from those with lived experience, and from our own experience on the ground: Criminally prosecuting prostitution does not make us safer, and too often, achieves the opposite result by further marginalizing vulnerable New Yorkers,” Mr. Vance said in a statement.
The office will continue to prosecute other crimes related to prostitution, including patronizing sex workers and sex trafficking.
Manhattan will join Baltimore, Philadelphia and other jurisdictions that have declined to prosecute sex workers. Brooklyn also does not prosecute people arrested for prostitution, but instead refers them to social services before they are compelled to appear in court — unless the district attorney’s office there is unable to reach them.
<SNIP>
In New York City, those calls have grown louder. Last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, called on the state to end criminal penalties for sex workers.
“The communities hit hardest by the continued criminalization of sex work and human trafficking are overwhelmingly LGBTQ, they are people of color, and they are undocumented immigrants,” Ms. McCray said at the time. “Sex work is a means of survival for many in these marginalized groups.
*******
Really? Prosecute the customers, but not the provider. Then claim that all these people that the libs support have no worthy skills to make a living but to sell their bodies. Hmmm... do those people not see that comment for the insult it is?
The ship has sunk, hit bottom and been smashed into little pieces.
