North Carolina has made it a felony to sponsor a sex worker. According to the law, which went into effect Dec. 1, “any person who solicits another person for the purpose of prostitution is guilty of a first-degree felony as a first-time offender.” This crime carries a minimum sentence of four months to a maximum of two years in prison. . Second and subsequent offenses are now considered Class H felonies, punishable by up to 39 months in prison.
“In the past, many first-time offenders in each category received house arrest or probation instead of prison. Prior to this amendment, the maximum penalty for purchasing sex from a consenting adult was a misdemeanor.” According to yes every week.
Like prostitution, solicitation of prostitution is generally classified as a misdemeanor in states across the United States. However, in recent years we have seen a disturbing trend in which attempts to pay for sexual acts are beginning to be classified as felonies.
This is a bad trend not only for sex buyers, but especially for sex workers. And that reflects the wrong and harmful path people are taking in the war on drugs.
Three states now make prostitution a felony.
Three states now make it a felony to pay for sex or attempt to pay for sex, even when the first offense and the person receiving the money is a consenting adult or a police officer posing as a consenting adult. (Many states make it a felony to pay or attempt to pay a minor for sex, but we won’t talk about that today.)
Not only do felonies carry harsher prison sentences, but they also come with conditions such as loss of voting rights for a period of time, restrictions on the types of jobs one can hold, and restrictions on the right to own guns.
“In 2021, Texas became the first state to make prostitution a felony when Governor Greg Abbott signed legislation increasing the maximum sentence for first-time offenders to two years in prison.” yes every week. “We know that demand is the driver of human trafficking, and if we can curb or eliminate demand, we can stop human trafficking,” said state Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D–Houston), the bill’s author. The lives of countless people.”
Last May, made by oklahoma “Engaging in prostitution or soliciting, inducing, luring or procuring another person to engage in prostitution” is a felony.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) (a conservative group formerly known as Media Morality, which has been trying to rebrand itself as a feminist organization for the past decade) is a major driver of these laws and, more generally, believes that we should reduce the “demand” for prostitution. You can quit.
NCOSEs tend to: focus on salacious stories The number of people violently forced into prostitution and all sex buyers described as complicit in ‘atrocities’. This group and its allies make it very difficult for politicians or anyone else to speak out against harsher punishments for sex buyers. Even though the vast majority of sex purchasing situations bear no resemblance to the horror stories they advocate.
punish sex workers
Like many overly punitive or privacy-invading initiatives related to sex work, policies like the one implemented in North Carolina were sold under the guise of stopping human trafficking. This despite the fact that it targets anyone involved in a paid sexual exchange, even between consenting adults. .
Police, politicians, and anti-prostitution activists target people who pay for prostitution. They will “end the demand”“Prevents forced, coerced and underage prostitution, i.e. human trafficking or sex trafficking, in all forms of prostitution.
Of course this is absurd. We cannot eradicate human sexuality, nor can we guarantee that everyone can fulfill it without money changing hands. No matter how hard the country tries, it will never “end the demand” for sex.
Moreover, we know from other types of prohibitions that increasingly punitive laws do not have the major deterrent effect that their proponents suggest. Some types of people will be deterred when something is criminalized, but many who are willing to risk arrest and punishment will not be deterred by the fact that they could potentially face longer sentences.
what is What is likely to happen with the increased criminalization of prostitution customers is that the customers will actually benefit. more power and have the upper hand Negotiating sex work. After all, they are the ones who pose more risk (at least in North Carolina and Texas; Oklahoma seems to have increased penalties for everyone involved). No doubt this will make customers less likely to follow screening methods and less likely to act in other ways that are beneficial to sex workers.
In the end, sex workers will be the real victims of this policy change.
The vast majority of customers will never be caught and will never face greater penalties. But the threat exists for everyone, and the ripple effects of this increased threat will reverberate throughout North Carolina’s sex work scene, with potential consequences for everyone involved in the sale of sex.
Sex workers are also likely to suffer under another provision of North Carolina’s new prostitution law. The law requires hotel staff to be trained in detecting “human trafficking.” We repeatedly see these programs simply portray all sex work as human trafficking and encourage employees of airlines, hotels, and all kinds of other businesses to report anyone they believe is involved in sex work.
Repeating the mistakes of the drug war
Tightening penalties for prostitution customers shows one of the many ways authorities are repeating the mistakes of the war on drugs in their fight against prostitution.
As the drug war intensifies, we have seen increasingly harsher penalties: more prison sentences, more serious charges, and more conditions for those found guilty.
As the drug war intensifies, we have seen a shift in the focus of law enforcement from major drug suppliers to those who sell drugs and those who buy drugs.
The drug war’s shift to targeting drug buyers has even been sold as an “end-demand” strategy, with advocates arguing that drug trafficking (the supply side) can be eliminated by more vigorously pursuing drug users (the demand side).
Then-President Ronald Reagan said, “Ending the demand for drugs is ultimately how we win the war on drugs.” said In 1988.
As the drug war intensifies, we see more and more desperate attempts to get random people and industries to join the drug warriors’ side. The campaign encourages people to snitch, including children whose parents are drug users. Training and propaganda aimed at teaching people to recognize the signs of drug use.
Now we all know how this happened. Yes, we have significantly increased drug arrests, prosecutions, and convictions. We have filled our jails and prisons with people convicted of drug crimes. We have devastated so many low-income communities. Because it has put too many people in prison while simultaneously creating incentives for gang activity to thrive. We’ve poured a ton of money into enforcement and enabled all sorts of crazy police state schemes to do it. We have militarized our police and punched countless loopholes in our civil liberties.
But we haven’t stopped the demand for drugs. We have not eradicated drug addiction and drug-related gang activity. Most certainly, we did not win the war on drugs.
And we will not repeat all the mistakes of the drug war and end the need for sex, nor will we eradicate sexual exploitation and sex-related crimes. But states like North Carolina appear willing to try.
More sex and technology news
Idaho’s “abortion trafficking” law could largely go into effect. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned a lower court’s ruling that impeded law enforcement. On Monday, “a panel of federal judges… largely backed Idaho’s ‘abortion trafficking’ law, a bill aimed at punishing adults who help minors obtain abortions out of state or obtain drugs to induce abortions.” was passed in the 2023 Legislative Session,” report that Idaho Capital Sun.
The law prohibits “recruiting, harboring, or transporting” anyone under the age of 18 to assist in obtaining an abortion without the parents’ knowledge.
Idaho can now “substantially enforce” the law. memo bloomberg Legal reporter Mary Anne Pazanowski. Exception: “Provisions prohibiting individuals from providing truthful, non-misleading information about abortion to minors” are unenforceable.
This “recruitment” prong would likely “prohibit a significant amount of protected expressive speech relative to the scope of what is clearly lawful.” said courthouse.
Update on age verification lawsuit
• The Free Speech Coalition is suing the Tennessee Minor Protection Act, which requires web platforms that offer adult content to adopt “reasonable age verification methods.”
• technology dust A look at groups supporting Texas The Supreme Court fought to enforce age verification laws.
• “A federal district court has paused proceedings in a legal challenge to Indiana’s new age verification law for adult websites, deciding to await the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on a similar dispute.” report national affairs.
Elon Musk should pay attention to what happens with social media laws in Texas and Florida.Corbin Barthold, Internet Policy Advisor at TechFreedom, suggests: “If Elon wants to listen, I will tell him this: He needs to talk loudly and often about the threat that SB 7072 and HB 20, the social media laws in Florida and Texas, pose to X,” Bartholdi said. I wrote it. more:
Florida’s SB 7072 and Texas’ HB 20 were enacted in 2021 and have already been the subject of extensive litigation. They have already gone to the Supreme Court. In fact, last summer judges addressed lawsuits challenging both laws. Moody vs. NetChoice. That decision paid off very well. This confirms that the First Amendment protects select collections of third-party speech. We discovered that social media news feeds are collections of just that kind of protected speech. And it concluded that “the state cannot interfere” with such material “to advance its own vision of ideological balance.”
but moody It’s not the last word. The justices were considering a pair of interlocutory appeals. They were only explaining on the merits what was likely to happen in both cases. Moreover, the decision only addresses what social media platforms do “in their main feeds.” Texas and Florida are “unlikely to succeed in enforcing” the platforms’ enforcement of their content moderation policies, the court declared. to the feed that was the focus of the procedure below.” (emphasis mine). The court did not opine on whether SB 7072 and HB 20 are constitutional as they apply to user profiles, direct messaging, group chat, or event features. Instead, it referred the case to the appropriate trial court for further investigation. Sent back, confirmation of facts.
Simply put, SB 7072 and HB 20 require large social media platforms to (1) forward and promote content against their will and (2) meet burdensome transparency requirements. Even if the conclusion that they don’t regulate content moderation in the News Feed holds up (no guarantees, we’ll come back to that later), these two laws could be a huge headache for Musk and X.
read everything here.
image of the day
