It has always struck me as odd that something which is completely legal to do for free can be illegal to do for money, but such is prostitution and the buying of sex. But an OpEd in Tuesday’s Philadelphia Inquirer raised a point that I suspect the authors didn’t realize:

Want to eradicate the sex trade in Kensington, Mayor Parker? Arrest the people buying sex.

Traffickers and sex buyers perpetuate sexual exploitation and keep the commercial sex trade alive. Philadelphia police should arrest them instead of those who are already exploited. 

by Shea Rhodes, Mary DeFusco, and Ann Marie Jones | Tuesday, June 18, 2024 | 5:00 AM EDT

As experts in sexual exploitation, sex trafficking, and systems of prostitution, we disagree with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s recent decision to empower the Philadelphia police to make arrests for prostitution in Kensington.

People in prostitution should not be arrested or charged with prostitution offenses. The practice of prosecuting people in prostitution perpetuates a harmful ideology that they are criminals, rather than people who are being exploited.

Traffickers and sex buyers perpetuate sexual exploitation and keep the commercial sex trade alive. Police should arrest them instead.

Parker’s decision will also create additional barriers for victims attempting to exit “the life” of sexual exploitation. Criminal convictions serve as an additional hurdle for survivors to seek meaningful employment, housing opportunities, immigration opportunities, federal student loans, and more.

There’s more at the original.

The Inquirer has pushed several OpEd pieces which shows their doubt about Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins plans to clean up the embarrassing Hellhole that the Kensington neighborhood has become, so bad that the government of Mexico, of all places, used images of the junkies in the streets there in a campaign to persuade Mexicans not to use drugs. On March 25^th, they gave OpEd space to José DeMarco, a homosexual activist, to decry Mrs Mullins cancelling city money to fund needle exchange services for addicts, thereby enabling the junkies a bit more. Six days later, they ran another outside OpEd on the same thing. The Editorial Board itself advocated some form of continuing ‘harm reduction’ programs in that blighted area.

But think about it: the logic used by the authors above would be, if applied to the drug problem, arresting the addicts — which I have previously stated should be done — but leaving the drug dealers alone. Or, perhaps, arresting the consumers of child pornography, but not the producers and sellers of it. The authors did admit what everyone already knew: many of the prostitutes are junkies themselves. If prostitutes are arrested, local demand for drugs decreases, at least for as long as they are locked up. If prostitutes are arrested and jailed for at least long enough for them to detox, they can be put into rehab and on the road to recovery, which is what the authors said they wanted in the first place.

To fully combat commercial sexual exploitation in Philadelphia, authorities must recognize the victimization of those exploited in the commercial sex trade. The “choice” to commit the “crime” of selling sex is often rooted in a place of economic insecurity, addiction, and other vulnerable situations. .  .  .  .

On the other hand, sex buyers always have the choice to not purchase sex, and to refuse to further the exploitation of an already vulnerable population. While the city’s Police-Assisted Diversion program does provide resources and services to people in prostitution, the program operates pre-arrest. Mayor Parker’s plan for Kensington involves the police warning people about future enforcement, and later arresting these individuals if they do not engage with addiction and housing services.

This is a wholly strange argument. The authors themselves included the quotation marks around to refer to “the ‘crime’ of selling sex,” but if they do not see the selling of sex as an actual crime, then how can the buying of sex be a crime?

Even ignoring that point, the economics of their argument are poor. If they enable the hookers to keep using drugs, by leaving them out on the streets, but reduce their income by reducing the number of johns to whom they can sell sex, aren’t they pushing the women — and men: see Josh Kruger! — addicted to drugs into committing other crimes to support their habits?

There is no compassionate solution to any of this, to drug use or to prostitution. But what the authors want is about as bad an idea as there could be.