The Brooklyn district attorney Eric Gonzalez at the Congress of the Lambda independent Democrats of Brooklyn (LID) expressed support for the decriminalization of prostitution.
A few weeks earlier, Gonzalez has published its plan «Justice 2020», which talked about the need to reduce arrests and noted that he is ready to discussions about decriminalization of sex work. Now at the seminar «the decriminalization of oddities», organized by the LID with the participation of a number of senators, prosecutors and politicians, he expressed a more detailed opinion. Question from the audience he said that he supports the decriminalization, but she can’t talk to pimps. The possibility of avoiding responsibility is the main reason why many of the women’s movement are opposed to this idea.
Thank you @BrooklynDA for announcing your support for #DecrimNY at LID #DecriminalizeQueerness pic.twitter.com/QJVaafdym2
— Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn (@LIDbrooklyn) April 6, 2019
According to Gonzalez, his office already handles cases of prostitution in the order of «soft persecution.» People arrested on such charges, as a rule, not prosecuted, they are not thrown in jail.
Darcel Clark from the Bronx added that prostitutes get advice and you can then delete the records of their arrests with the police if they are re-arrested within six months. Other prosecutors working in new York, said that in their territories implemented the same approach.
«Our policy is that persons engaged in prostitution are not subjected to further isolation due to the presence of a criminal record. In Manhattan, every person arrested for prostitution, NGOs help,» said Emily tuttle, the press Secretary of the Prosecutor of Manhattan.
From 2012 to 2018, the number of arrests of prostitutes has decreased in new York from approximately 4 thousand to 1.5 thousand
Writes Gay City News, women’s and LGBT communities called on the police to consider age-related aspects of current legislation in cases of prostitution. As told by Jared Trujillo, who previously worked in the sex industry, persons under 18 years of age are automatically added to the category «forced to provide sex services,» despite the fact that the vast majority of cases, they work independently, without pimps. Under prosecution of law enforcement officers fall into such situations, random adults, most often the landlord. Also the attention of prosecutors is paid to the bias of the police. According to the observations of human rights defenders, among those arrested for sex services, over 90% were African American, and transgender people.
As recalled today by the NY Post, Senator Kamala Harris, former California attorney General and the candidate in presidents from Democrats, recently also endorsed the idea of decriminalization of prostitution.
