When I saw this article it brought back memories to 1999 where I petitioned the Superior Court to issue a preliminary injunction against our city’s Measure K. My argument was that Mission Viejo city council and staff changed the deck chairs on the Titanic from a prior election. This afternoon I see that the city of San Francisco also has a Prop K on their ballot. While tempted to draw a parallel I will refrain and focus on today’s story.
The Associated Press is reporting that San Francisco wants voters to decriminalize prostitution. First we open Indian Casinos to compete with Reno and Las Vegas. Now S.F. wants to compete with brothels in Nevada in the lucrative area of prostitution. Will this be a taxable source of revenue to help our governor’s multi billion dollar shortfall?
“San Francisco would become the first major US city to decriminalize prostitution If voters next month approve Proposition K—a measure that forbids local authorities from investigating, arresting or prosecuting anyone for selling sex.”
From the AP story it reads: Proponents say the measure will free up $11 million the police spend each year arresting prostitutes and allow them to form collectives.
“It will allow workers to organize for our rights and for our safety,” said Patricia West, 22, who said she has been selling sex for about a year by placing ads on the Internet. She moved to San Francisco in May from Texas to work on Proposition K.
Note: “Proposition K has been endorsed by the local Democratic Party. But the mayor, district attorney, police department and much of the business community oppose the idea, contending it would increase street prostitution, allow pimps the run of neighborhoods and hamper the fight against sex trafficking, which would remain illegal because it involves forcing people into the sex trade.”
To read the entire article simply click on the following link.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D93V4U0O0&show_article=1
I expect numerous responses that this is a “victimless” crime. Oh really?
I don’t have a problem with consenting adults doing anything sexual including bringing cash into the equation. That being said I think Prop J is wrong for all the public safety reasons stated and because the sex industry is filled with coercion to the extremes of kidnapping and slavery, its not a case of consenting adults having consentual sex any more than modern agribusiness is Old MacDonald’s Farm. Vote no on Prop J and yes on Prop 2.
I am deeply troubled at the thought of proposition K passing in San Francisco. It is extremely important that voters thoroughly consider the implications of this. The loopholes in this proposition will limit San Francisco’s ability to investigate and prosecute prostitution-related activities such as pimping, pandering and human trafficking. Even more alarming, proposition K will create a ‘policy’ against social service programs that help women and girls trapped in prostitution to escape. I am not only speaking as a San Franciscan and a woman, but I am also speaking as a former prostitute whose life was rescued by SAGE-one of the San Francisco social service programs that proposition K seeks to defund.
I was introduced to SAGE while I was in the San Francisco County Jail. SAGE taught me how to become empowered, speak my voice and fight for opportunity in life. When you look at me today, you would never imagine that I was once sleeping on the streets, meeting up with ‘customers’ behind dumpsters, and doing everything in my power to avoid accepting my reality. I appear as the typical college student who is secure, confident and full of hope and promise for the future. I appear this way because that is who I am. Today I am very confident in my strengths and abilities, very secure in my identity as an empowered woman, and extremely driven to seek out a better future for myself and the community in which I live.
There are hundreds of other women like me in San Francisco. You may not recognize us because we don’t walk around with a sign saying “I’m a former prostitute.” We have carved out new identities for ourselves. We have learned how to be healthy, happy human beings. We are now working hard to make this world a little better for ourselves and the next generation. Proposition K will eliminate any opportunity for other women and girls to receive the same help I did. It will benefit San Francisco tremendously to keep these programs in place and allow law enforcement to rid the streets of the pimps, traffickers and other perpetrators that prey on the most vulnerable. Please understand there is true potential there if you allow it to blossom. Please vote NO on K.
Prop K does not stop enforcement of human trafficking. If you read it, it requires the police and DA to “vigorously enforce laws against coercion, extortion, battery, rape and other violent crimes, regardless of the victim’s status as sex worker.”
Prop K decriminalizes consensual prostitution between adults.
On Tuesday, November 11th at 10 p ET Melissa Francis examines the world of high-end prostitution in the CNBC Original “Dirty Money: The Business of High-End Prostitution”. In every city in America sex is for sale and much of it operates in plain view. But, there’s one corner of the trade protected like none other… the business of high-end prostitution where clients can spend hundred of thousands of dollars each year. It’s a secret world with rules and practices that will change everything you think you know about the buying and selling of sex. Join Melissa as she ventures into this secret world.
For web extras visit http://dirtymoney.cnbc.com.