California loitering law invites discrimination
For most of the public, it’s hard to believe that laws are currently in place that allow police to target someone based on how they dress, the color of their skin or their gender. But for those of us who have made a living on the street doing sex work, this is our reality.
In the 1990s, at the height of the tough-on-crime era, California passed a law criminalizing loitering with intent to commit prostitution. AB 1035 was authored by Assemblymember Richard Katz, who expressed that “existing law has been ineffective in securing their arrest” and suggested that it was “quite obvious” when prostitutes and drug dealers are conducting business.
In the decades since the law was passed, however, it has become clear that there is nothing obvious at all about who is and isn’t conducting business on the street. And that this law has given police the power to arrest people for simply being in the wrong part of town or standing in one place for too long.
In the city of Los Angeles, Black adults make up over half the people arrested under this law — even though they are only 8.9% of the city’s population. In one survey of trans Latina women in Los Angeles, almost 60% of participants reported being stopped by law enforcement without violating any law. Many descriptions of these interactions involve police who “assumed” that the individuals were prostitutes.
Once caught up in the system, these individuals are locked into a cycle of criminalization with no end in sight, impacting their ability to secure other employment and stable housing. A survey by the Urban Institute found that 63% of respondents experienced challenges with employment because of their criminal records. Another survey of sex workers by St. James Infirmary found that 53% of respondents experienced housing insecurity. For undocumented sex workers, a conviction under this law can lead to deportation proceedings.
These abuses are why we are currently working with Sen. Scott Weiner to pass the Safer Streets For All Act, Senate Bill 357, which would repeal California’s discriminatory loitering law and provide those previously convicted with redress by removing prior convictions under the law.
Those who oppose this bill have raised concerns that removing this harmful law might make it harder to investigate human trafficking, going so far as to say it would severely cripple the ability to arrest and prosecute human traffickers.
But this claim has no evidence to back it up.
California’s current loitering law relies on an officer’s subjective determination that someone intends to commit prostitution. It does not create distinction between those willingly providing services and those being trafficked. The idea that California cannot prevent trafficking without arresting people for misdemeanor loitering charges is false — and it only serves to reinforce a deep misunderstanding about what lies at the root of trafficking.
The real hindrance to justice for trafficking victims is a system that frequently criminalizes them, as this one does. Ninety-one percent of trafficking survivors surveyed by the National Survivor Network reported having been arrested.
Instead of helping victims escape their circumstances, current law encourages officers to disproportionately target the vulnerable for punishment, instead of providing needed support and services.
This kind of policing only leads to increased mistrust of law enforcement, which then makes earnest investigations into trafficking that much more difficult.
Too often, we see people arrested in the name of “rescue,” and then pressured into cooperation with law enforcement under the threat of prosecution. How does threatening the most vulnerable members of a community with punishment stop exploitation and promote true safety?
You cannot arrest people out of poverty, homelessness, abuse or systemic inequality.
Those who are concerned for victims should join us in working to reimagine a system that centers on the needs of those directly impacted.
Repealing California’s loitering law won’t solve the decades of harm it caused, but it’s a start. For all of us who have been targeted and victimized, we ask that you listen to our stories and hear our demands. Everyone deserves to exist in public peacefully without the fear of arrest.