Group Opposing Sex Work Gave Money to Prosecutors: Got Stings Against Johns

> "King County prosecutors again agreed to meet particular prosecutorial goals in exchange for funding. They signed a written agreement promising to achieve a total of 14,800 “direct buyer disruptions”..."

When police start arresting people to make their quotas, they can end up arresting innocent people.

Also, the prosecutor's behavior goes beyond accepting money to enforce laws:

> "A legal scholar interviewed by The Intercept said he thinks that by calling consensual prostitution “trafficking,” the prosecutors’ behavior doesn’t only appear to violate those rules of professional conduct, subsequently hurting the right of the accused to a fair trial."

The group that's financing this, which was founded by a Texas oil heiress, is operating in several cities across the U.S.:

> "Demand Abolition has also provided millions of dollars in funding to law enforcement agencies and other organizations in local jurisdictions around the country, including Boston, Chicago (a part of Cook County, whose Sheriff’s office received $92,145 in funding from Demand Abolition between 2014 and 2016), Denver, Oakland (a part of Alameda County), Houston, and Dallas, according to tax documents."

I find it kind of disturbing that one person with millions of dollars to throw around can influence the running of local law enforcement all over the country. There is significant potential for abuse in a system that allows this.

Specifically, how by forcing their profession (which weighed morally right or wrong, still exists and will continue to) into a legal gray area we actively make them vulnerable to further exploitation.

For example, by criminalizing websites that are involved in the profession, we strip their ability to use the internet openly for their own safety and education.

By threatening their business with legal charges, we disempower them against less scrupulous elements of the legal system (law enforcement or prosecutorial). Resulting in extortion or coercion.

So would legalizing sex work and bringing it under a regulatory framework "change things" for everyone? Yes.

But not doing so is cruel and dehumanizing enough that I'm frankly disgusted to live in a society that feels prosecuting sex work is the "right" moral choice.

Imagine trying to legalize alcohol for the first time. What if kids drink it? What if people drive after drinking? We managed to work through the follow-on effects with a system of rules that left most people feeling content and safe.

The biggest impact of keeping it illegal is legitimatizing a whole class of stigmas based on primitive superstitions. It's time to shed that baggage and grow up.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/08/13/globalp...

"Nor is there any mention of the fact that Demand Abolition, in exchange for providing approximately $191,667 in funding to the King County prosecutor’s office over four years, asked Seattle-area law enforcement to carry out regular arrests and prosecutions of buyers with the goal of disrupting demand."

The question is whether it's appropriate for a group of citizens to be able to fund a prosecutor's office and expect it to arrest people in return for its funding.

How would you feel if some anti-drug group gave your local prosecutor money and told them they had to aggressively arrest pot users?

Should prosecutors be allowed to accept money from private groups at all? Or should they be funded entirely by taxpayer dollars, distributed by elected officials?

Yet somehow men are still able to place sugar daddy ads, employers occasionally spring for prostitutes for employees, and some even expect sex from subordinates.

I think legalization has far more beneficial effects than you realize.

And don’t use the word “decriminalize”, it’s regularly used to describe another way of continuing prohibition by making the core offenses no longer felonies, but still illegal. Which means prostitutes are still at the mercy of pimps and customers without any police protection. And it would remain a black market with the profits used to support organized crime.