On March 16th, the Mayor’s office released this plan for a police reform bill: https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/192-21/advocates-praise-new-effort-decriminalize-sex-workers-combat-human-trafficking

SWOP Brooklyn believes the sex work reform proposal under New York City Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative draft is inadequate and, as it’s currently written, would be damaging to sex workers if implemented.

The draft makes no mention of how clients will be treated under these proposed reforms. Will proposed “pre-arrest” programs put clients at risk of arrest? Enforcement against clients and third parties but not people who sell sex has been tried in US cities like Seattle. Workers reported huge decreases in their ability to work safely. Fear of arrest on a client’s part makes it harder for us to conduct screenings, and a dwindling clientele makes it harder for workers to turn down potentially dangerous clients. If clients are still arrested under this proposal, it is extremely likely that Black people and people of color will be targeted disproportionately by the NYPD.

This program promises to “explore pre-arrest program models to offer community-centered services to sex workers without conducting arrest as a condition of receipt.” What are these pre-arrest programs? Why are they still being framed in terms of arrest, which implies that people who sell sex will continue to be surveilled and harassed until arrest occurs? Who would these programs be conducted by? Are they the same diversion programs we currently have but simply prior to an arrest instead of after an arrest, or are they an alternative to arrest? We have no guarantee that these programs won’t simply become line items used to inflate the NYPD budget and continue the policing and surveillance of our communities. In the absence of full decriminalization, any proposal that expands police interactions with sex workers or the surveillance of sex workers will disproportionately target and criminalize people of color, undocumented, and transgender/gender non-conforming sex workers. The program promises that the NYPD will collaborate “with other agencies.” What are these agencies, and how will the identities of workers be protected if the NYPD is collecting and sharing information? Again, this seems to be yet another expansion to the surveillance of sex workers under the guise of “reforming” the NYPD. Sex workers and people who trade sex are consistently harmed during interactions with the police and we need full decriminalization of sex work now.

This proposal tasks the NYPD with reviewing policies and procedures for “identifying and investigating human trafficking to develop alternative methods that focus on arresting traffickers…and to address the racialized enforcement of sex work.” Why should the NYPD be trusted to address racial disparities in policing of sex work when the NYPD has been unable to do this in any other aspect of policing? Policies/procedures are not the entire problem, it’s the way the police choose to enforce them that is overwhelmingly racialized. There are no policies that explicitly say to arrest more Black/brown people than anyone else, so “reviewing policies” isn’t going to fix anything.

Sex workers are already providing each other “community-centered services.” This proposal co-opts the mutual aid work done in sex working communities in order to expand policing and push forward an administrative alternative to full decriminalization. Even partial decriminalization will have negative consequences for sex workers and clients most at risk of facing jail time or police brutality. Partial decriminalization or partial enforcement makes it harder for sex workers to work safely and have thriving communities.

Suggested reforms:

The immediate end to enforcement of all laws related to prostitution (consensual adult sex work), including the abolition of the Vice squad.
Legislation that fully decriminalizes consensual adult sex work, including people who sell sex or are perceived to sell sex, people who buy sex, and third parties (Stop Violence in the Sex Trades Act introduced by Senator Salazar and Assemblyman Gottfried)
Defunding the police and using the money to fund non-carceral, non-coercive services for people in the sex trades and people at risk of trafficking such as housing, healthcare, education, and job training. Research has clearly shown that access to resources reduces vulnerability to trafficking and other forms of violence whereas prosecution that happens after the fact does no such thing.

We also ask that any sex workers or allies submit comments on this proposed plan prior to April 1st informing the city that you do not support it, and directing them to our statement. Comments can be submitted here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/policereform/index.page