July 26, 2018

This week a city ordinance ostensibly designed to fight prostitution became law. Sadly, it doubles down on the city’s failed efforts to end prostitution while rejecting every established best practice for crime reduction. It adds another nonviolent charge to the books and a new mandatory minimum jail sentence. Most disappointingly, it punishes people who rarely have better options for surviving and are often victims of sex trafficking.

The new law allows the Superintendent to designate prostitution-free hotspots – which he’s not required to publicly identify – and authorizes police to target, detain, and arrest people in them if they are “loitering for the purposes of prostitution”. The law doesn’t identify what an officer can consider when assessing unlawful conduct, begging the question if wearing a skirt of a certain length or waiting for a ride will invite arrest in particular neighborhoods. Additionally, existing loitering-related enforcement unfairly targets racial and ethnic minorities. It’s distressing but reasonable to expect more of the same disproportionate impact on already marginalized populations, including homeless youth, one-third of which are forced to trade sex for survival, and trans women who engage in survival sex at a rate 10 times higher than cis women due to poverty and discrimination.

History and social science prove that arresting and prosecuting sex sellers does not decrease prostitution. This fact promoted Illinois to change state law by providing a safe haven for minors in prostitution, defelonizing sex-selling, and increasing incentives for buyer-targeted policing. Smart communities place blame for the sex trade on buyers – who are overwhelmingly men with disposable income, buying sex in neighborhoods they don’t live in, and who can be deterred with prevention education and financial penalties. Chicago claims to understand this – it’s why at the same time City Council passed the terrible loitering ordinance, they amended city code to increase fines for buying sex and nominally decrease fines for selling. However, if Chicago’s leaders truly understood, policing and legislation would look very different.

The Chicago Reporter revealed that 90% of the CPD’s prostitution-related arrests are for selling sex, not buying. Given that the overwhelming majority of people ‘involved in prostitution’ are male buyers, while sellers are predominantly female, this disparity is both disturbing and discriminatory. The severe penalties embedded in the anti-loitering law are also contemptible. Fines up to $500 are laughably out-of-reach for most in the sex trade and a mandatory minimum 5 days’ incarceration for a second offense is outrageous, particularly in a community that celebrates Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx joining a task force aimed at reducing the number of incarcerated women. Finally, the third offense penalty of a 30-day ban on being present in a “hotspot” fails to recognize that many people who sell sex face huge barriers to accessing housing, safety, or needed services in any community outside of the ones they know well.

There’s a lot Aldermen can, and should, do to end the sex trade in their communities but they seem to need some pointers. Here’s how to start: seek accountability from CPD by asking why it’s not targeting sex buyers and demand change. Address the issues driving people into selling in the first place, such as economic hardship and housing insecurity. Do so by passing Alderman Pawar’s Universal Basic Income ordinance, and Alderman Waguespeck’s Fair Workweek Ordinance. Join the #fightfor15 movement. Deliver more affordable and public housing options. The list goes on but that’s a start. Punishing people who don’t have better options for surviving will do nothing to end the sexual exploitation of our community’s most vulnerable members. Creating real opportunities will.