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A Washington, D.C. city councilmember has introduced a bill that would decriminalize prostitution:
D.C. Councilmember David Grosso is behind a bill that would decriminalize prostitution, arguing it's in keeping with his advocacy for human rights and marginalized communities. "We basically criminalize too many activities," Grosso argued in a recent news conference. "It is time for the District of Columbia to reconsider the framework in which we handle commercial sex work, and move from one of criminalization to a focus on human rights, health and safety."
Grosso says he worked with the Sex Worker Advocates Coalition, and followed recommendations from a variety of human rights organizations from around the world as he drafted the bill. "The bill is quite simple, really," argues Grosso. "It repeals a number of laws or parts of laws that criminalize adults for exchanging consensual sex for money or other things of value." "By removing criminal penalties for those in the sex trade, we can bring people out of the shadows, help them lead safer and healthier lives, and more easily tackle the complaints we hear from communities about trash or other nuisances."
If passed, D.C. would become the only city in the U.S. to decriminalize prostitution:
While prostitution has been legal in some parts of Nevada in the form of brothels for more than a century, what's often called "the world's oldest profession" remains criminalized in the rest of the United States. An effort to decriminalize prostitution via referendum in San Francisco failed in 2008, after heavy criticism from city officials at the time. Kamala Harris, then the city's district attorney and now a rising star senator, said the measure "would put a welcome mat out for pimps and prostitutes to come on into San Francisco."
But in the near decade since then, there's been a shift in perspective alongside a growing international movement further popularizing the policy change that sheds stigma in favor of pragmatism. The idea is that if sex workers don't fear arrest, they'll be able to access healthcare and other services. One 2014 study from The Lancet found that decriminalizing sex work could "have the largest effect on the course of the H.I.V. epidemic."
Reducing Criminalization to Improve Community Health & Safety Amendment Act of 2017
Also at Reason. Grosso press release at Scribd. HIPS.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by jmorris on Wednesday October 11 2017, @03:08AM (2 children)
Seriously, how fudged up does DC have to get before Congress retakes the reins? They ignore SCOTUS multiple times on 2nd amendment, elect a crackhead for mayor, legalize dope and now whores? The only reason the still aren't number one in murder is so many others have upped their game, not that DC is all that much better. It really looks like they are trying to make DC the poster child for failed 3rd world shithole cities.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @09:44PM
Not surprising, but not a single bit of factually correct info in your post. They never ignored SCOTUS. They passed a gun law that got challenged and deemed unconstitutional by SCOTUS. They then passed a different gun control law addressing what they thought would make it constitutional. Just like every damn SCOTUS outcome. How many times have Red State anti-abortion laws have "ignored SCOTUS" as you say? How many Red States "ignored SCOTUS" with voter suppression laws? Or gerrymandering laws? They come back again and again and again having tweaked their laws ("ok, so we're not oppressing the blacks this time. Gays, maybe, but not the blacks. Will that do?").
Your view of the murder rates is so 1980's. I know you regularly parrot what Trump/Sessions claim, but not only is murder way down, you have to look pretty low to find DC [fivethirtyeight.com]. Just saying it doesn't make it so, which some day you parrot heads will have to realize (you'll see the light again when you are a minority party and can go back to your safe "just say no" place of "governance").
The problem is a-holes like you who won't let DC govern themselves. Home rule is BS when every shithead Republican in Congress from the fly-over states comes down and overrules democratically passed ballot initiatives and tells them, for instance, what kind of marijuana laws they can have. Or look at Puerto Rico. Congress fucks them over regularly. They've lived under that BS Jones Act for 100 years, people like Thurmon go out of their way to screw them over [politifact.com], then they get to listen to all the finger-wagging lectures from the same a-holes telling them that not only are they in a financial mess, that they've gone out of their way to make it twice as hard to get out of that mess.
(Score: 1) by Tara Li on Thursday October 12 2017, @08:46PM