YES
Kay Khan
State representative, Newton Democrat, House chair of the Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities
Incarcerating women for prostitution-related crimes is estimated to cost Massachusetts taxpayers approximately $1 million annually. Not only does incarcerating these victims of commercial sexual exploitation have a financial impact on our state, it encourages a cycle of trauma for victims in which sentences are overly punitive and offer no public safety benefits.
Imagine if we could redirect the funds currently used to imprison sexually exploited individuals to expand trauma-informed services in the state; Massachusetts’ criminal justice approach to sexual commerce would then become more proactive, just, and rehabilitative.
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In fact, we continue to see many sexually exploited adults arrested and incarcerated for prostitution-related crimes only to return to prostitution without receiving any help for the trauma they have endured. This is often because they lack income, suffer from substance use disorders, are coerced, or a combination of those factors.
As for minors, current law allows them to be arrested for prostitution. Since 2015, none of those arrested have been prosecuted — the court can offer services as an alternative to pressing charges — but the trauma children experience from such a stigmatizing arrest is irreversible. The median age of a minor entering into sexual exploitation is 15 and many continue into adulthood.
While we made great strides toward advancing justice for victims with the passage of the state’s human trafficking statute in 2011, I believe we can and must do more. My legislation, An Act Relative to Sexually Exploited Individuals, creates an Equality Law that ensures no criminal penalties are applied to exploited individuals — minors and adults — while continuing to allow for the prosecution of pimps and buyers. The legislation also directs the Department of Public Health to provide services to individuals who have been sexually exploited and establishes a task force to help prepare law enforcement for the implementation of the law.
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We must continue to focus more on restorative justice and rehabilitation. My legislation will shift the burden of stigma and criminalization from victims of commercial sexual exploitation to pimps and buyers. I hope to build on earlier successful efforts by the Legislature to affirm that sexually exploited individuals are in need of services, not prison sentences.
NO
Matt McDonald
Weston resident, editor of the New Boston Post, an online Massachusetts journal of conservative thought
Do you want to live in a good society? If so, it requires two things: quality of life; and people caring about each other. If you saw someone drowning within plain sight, would you try to save that person? In a good society, you would.
But there are clearly exceptions to that rule. Among the drowning in our society are prostitutes and their customers. But the practice of this age-old illicit business also undermines our health and our culture. It is not, as some would have it, a victimless crime.
Prostitution can spread venereal disease. And as for its cultural effects, do you want to live in a neighborhood where prostitution is going on? Most people, understandably, would say no.
Regulating prostitution by testing for diseases and providing other protections for those who engage in it would not fix the problem. That’s because in addition to its obvious physical effects, sex has emotional and spiritual impacts. Depending on the context, those can be good or bad. And in the case of prostitution, they are surely negative. Prostitution is not a healthy activity for either the seller or the buyer, or for the overall society.
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This is not simply a moral question. If you ever see someone in a bad sexual relationship, you know how unhappy that person is. That’s what prostitution is — however fleeting.
Now, we don’t regulate people’s private affairs, you might say. But we do regulate money. Prostitution involves money. It’s rightly the subject of governing.
When you legalize something, you are going to get more of it. When you make it illegal, you generally get less of it. The law provides incentives and disincentives — and it also expresses what a society believes in and hopes for.
Prostitution should continue to be illegal and its penalties enforced — both for the prostitute and her customer — as a matter of compassion. It should remain a punishable crime because we care about prostitutes, their customers, and the people who live nearby.
Prostitutes sell themselves — not just their bodies, but their souls. Their customers corrupt theirs. And the people who live in the neighborhood deserve peace.
This is not a scientific survey. Please vote only once.
As told to Globe correspondent John Laidler. To suggest a topic, please contact laidler@globe.com.