Is Throwing Prostitutes In Jail Another Women’s Right Issue?

And is it another way that others are invading the privacy of women to control their own bodies?

October 28, 2017: Why is it illegal in the United States to work in the world’s oldest profession? If you’ve seen enough Westerns, you may be aware that hasn’t always been the case. All those early cowboys on the lone prairies, and the men panning gold from streams far from females, well, they were glad when a bevy of prostitutes would set up business nearby.

But the Women’s Christian Temperance Union added prostitution to its war on alcohol as an abomination, and other self-appointed morality groups joined the cause. By 1915 the states began defining prostitutes as criminals. Now there’s a law against prostitution in 50 states.

Prostitutes, of course, feel singled out of the job market. “I don’t feel I do anything illegal,” one told me when I was reporting on the subject for a series of newspaper articles in Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s. “It’s what I want to do with my body and my time.” Another complained, “I get tired of being picked up for nothing.” Maybe they wouldn’t put it in those words but there are quite a few law officers who question the legality of prostitution.

One, I found out on my first assignment for the series, an interview with the head of the District’s Women’s Detention Center, Pat Taylor. She turned out to be a pragmatic overseer of its inmates, and shortly told me: “I don’t think there is anything wrong with prostitution. There’d be many an unhappy family without it. ” Moreover, she added, “It’s not my place to legislate morality.”

No, I thought, that was the place of the Prostitution, Perversion and Obscenity Branch of the Morals Division of the Metropolitan Police Department. So off I went to pursue the subject with its chief, Lt. Joseph Palmisano. Prostitution isn’t illegal in the District, he told me, “It’s the act of solicitation that’s against the law.” Of course, the police can’t get close enough overhear the muttered offers and the johns aren’t about to squeal on them. “Who’s going to get up in court in front of his wife and children and say he was over on the strip and got tricked,” Pat Taylor commented.

So, Lt. Palmisano sent out the police in plain clothes as decoys to hear the offers in person and that’s how prostitutes got arrested in D.C. “Prostitutes are out in the streets in droves, and its our job to arrest them,” he said, “and not having them running all over the place and degrading children. The prostitute is immoral.”

Superior Court Justice Charles Halleck did not agree. He said he was not for or against prostitution but against laws that “make the police the keepers of the city’s conscience.” He had recently explained why in a 60 page brief he was hoping would reach the Supreme Court. He ruled that criminalizing for solicitation was unconstitutional because it discriminated against women, violated free speech and was an invasion of privacy of the individual to control “the use and function of his or her own body.”

Judge Halleck’s judgement was a noble try. But nearly 50 years later, prostitution still has not been decriminalized in the United States. There are many reasons, of course, and many come down to a view that the women providing sexual intercourse are immoral. There are those, too, who are concerned that others in the sex trade — pimps, sex cartels, sex traffickers — would benefit.

Little attention is given to the prostitutes, themselves. In their profession they are in danger of violence, theft, abuse and other crimes with no recourse, no protection from the police. Since they, themselves, are the criminals, there’s no way they can call 911. Once in awhile there’s another vain try to give those women who work in the world’s oldest profession a break. In 2015, Amnesty International recommended the decriminalization of prostitutes as a matter of human rights. A recommendation only, of course, with no power to make it happen.

Not that everyone has given up. In Washington, D.C. this year, two councilmen are trying again to decriminalize prostitution. They’ve introduced the Reducing Criminalization to Improve Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2017. It’s a thankless attempt, especially now in a climate and in an administration that’s roughly tearing down women’s rights, right and left. David Grosso, one of the two D.C. councilmen who introduced the act, explained that it is “about protecting the human rights of our residents.”

Good luck in getting that past through the U.S. Congress!

1. Linking Women Criminals with Women’s Lib Riles Conference: “I’ve never met a woman who has said, ‘I’ve been liberated, I’m going to rob a bank,” said one enraged participant. The Washington Star, February 27, 1976.
2. Pat Taylor Runs the D.C. Women’s Jail, Says Very Few Get Rehabilitated: With twice as many prisoners as cells, they’re piled in with two or three others, causing “constant turmoil.” The Washington Daily News, January 11, 1972
3. Women’s Detention Chief Thinks It’s a Crime to Jail Prostitutes: Since it is a criminal offense, she says, let the johns be jailed, too. The Washington Daily News, January 13, 1972
4. Should Prostitution be Legal? The Police say No, The Judge says Yes! He says he’s not for or against prostitution but he’s against the laws that make the police the keepers of the city’s conscience and morality. The Washington Star News, December 17, 1972

[Section M (#88) in a collection of more than 100 newspaper articles by Judy Flander from the second wave of the Women’s Movement reflecting the fervor and ingenuity of the women who rode the wave.]