Authorities in Massachusetts have charged nearly twice as many people with selling sex as buying it over the past five years, according to state court data, often using what advocates say are particularly archaic “common nightwalker” and “common streetwalker” laws.
Advocates for survivors of the sex trade are rallying around a bill that would repeal the state laws against sex workers — but keep prohibitions on paying for it and trafficking — and create a process to expunge the records of people who have been charged with prostitution-related offenses.
In the wake of arrests connected to an alleged brothel ring in Cambridge and Watertown, proponents say this “partial decriminalization” would shift responsibility to those most responsible for perpetuating the sex trade.
“It would codify into law what we know about who should be held accountable for this crime — the buyers and the brothel owners,” said Lisa Goldblatt Grace, cofounder of My Life My Choice, a Boston-based advocacy organization that helps people trying to leave the sex trade. “Not the people who are in the sex trade.”
The bill would abolish three criminal statutes: the nightwalker and streetwalker laws, which target people offering sex, and the charge of sexual conduct for a fee, which criminalizes moving ahead with the exchange. It would allow the courts to order expungement of these charges.
It’s also part of an international movement called the “Nordic Model” or Equality Model,” launched in Sweden in 1999, which has been passed in Maine, as well as in Canada, Ireland, and France.
The effort in Massachusetts brings hope to Jacquelyn Chenard, who said she spent two decades on and off as a sex worker. Her slide into the sex trade began in her late teens with encounters at parties with people she knew, in exchange for some cash, she said. She soon had what she now knows is a pimp — though she didn’t see it like that at the time.
“I don’t know if I was in denial,” she said. She remained in the sex trade, scared of what would happen if she tried to leave and uncertain what help would be available.
“Women are not just prostituting for drugs because they just think it’s fun,” she said. “People are desperate, homeless — some women have no choice.”
Chenard, 44, has two charges of sexual conduct for a fee on her record, from incidents in Chelsea and Everett in 2015 and 2016, according to court records. In 2017, she said, she said she stopped using drugs and left “the life.” But it did not leave her.
The criminal record has hovered over her, Chenard said, making it difficult to earn a living. A few months ago, she came close to securing a job, pending a background check. But when the results came back, the company backed out, she said.
“I’ve been trying so hard to get any job,” Chenard said. “It was awful. I got depressed.”
Sexual conduct for a fee, the most common charge against sex workers, was filed 883 times over the five years leading up to June 2023, according to recently released state court data. The nightwalker charge was filed 50 times during that period, and the streetwalker count 38, the data show.
Though the data do not break down exactly how many people have been charged with those crimes, the 971 charges aimed at the people selling sex dwarfs the 535 charges filed for paying for sex during the same time five years.
A conviction for selling sex can result in a year in jail and a fine of $500, while paying for sex carries a punishment of up to two and a half years in jail and fines between $1,000 and $5,000, according to the current statutes. Paying for sex with a minor can result in up to 10 years in prison.
Criminal charges against sex workers are counterproductive to ending exploitation in the commercial sex trade, said Mary Speta, a survivor and the executive director of Beverly-based nonprofit Amirah Inc., as the “fear factor” of being charged can keep people from reporting trafficking and abuse.
Instead, the bill’s cosponsor, state Senator Lydia Edwards, told the Globe, “We should be doing our best to provide pathways out of the life.”
Last session, the Legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary sent a similar bill “to study,” a death knell for proposed legislation on Beacon Hill. But earlier this month, the committee granted extensions to the House and Senate versions of the bill, keeping it alive pending further review.
Edwards, a Democrat from East Boston who is the committee’s Senate vice chair, said this bill remains a priority.
Several prosecutors have expressed support for the bill.
“We want to force our government actors to think deeper about these scenarios, and acknowledge we can do better,” said Elizabeth Keeley, former chief of the Massachusetts attorney general’s human trafficking division.
Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan said she supports the bill because it “would be a good step in moving people forward.” She said many of the times her office pursued prostitution-related charges were in response to quality of life complaints from neighbors or problems at hotels. Because she could still pursue charges against johns and pimps, the new bill likely wouldn’t affect her office’s ability to address such issues, she said.
“Nothing about the passage of this statute would stop anybody from enforcing the laws against people who are selling people or buying them,” Ryan said, adding that mass arrests on street corners, “weren’t making people’s lives better.”
“And from a public safety perspective, it wasn’t really addressing the problem,” she said.
The proposed bill would also create a commission to deliver recommendations on support services for survivors. It would look to direct more of the fines levied against sex buyers into the existing Human Trafficking Trust Fund, which provides money for survivors of the sex trade.
“We need to figure out what’s working and what’s not,” state Senator Cindy F. Friedman, another cosponsor of the bill, said. “What aren’t they getting, or what are they getting so they feel there’s no other choice?”
A sign of a shift in law enforcement’s approach to the sex trade was apparent in the November arrests surrounding the alleged brothel ring, advocates said. Three alleged brothel operators were charged and authorities have filed applications for criminal charges against 28 men accused of paying for sexual services. Authorities did not charge any of the women, who they said were predominantly Asian immigrants shuttled between Cambridge, Watertown, and D.C.-area apartments.
“We’re already largely practicing a lot of this bill,” Speta said. But, she said, there’s still a long way to go, as evidenced by the disparity in charges between the buyers and sellers. And the new bill still would not help everyone.
Audra Doody, co-CEO of the Safe Exit Initiative, has drug-related criminal charges on her record from her time as a sex worker, which wouldn’t be wiped out under this bill targeting prostitution charges. Massachusetts law does have avenues for people who can prove they were trafficked to have other convictions expunged, and she’s been try to do so for the past two years.
Still, the proposed bill is a step forward that’s “right in the middle,” Doody said.
“It still holds the buyers accountable,” she said. “That’s the best part.”
Edwards said it’s clear the system in place is not effective.
“If the goal is to stop the sex trade, what has our current legal system gotten us so far?” she said. “A brothel in Cambridge?”
Sean Cotter can be reached at sean.cotter@globe.com. Follow him @cotterreporter.