California May Repeal ‘Loitering’ Law Used to Arrest Sex Workers

LOS ANGELES—The state of California may be taking a step toward decriminalization of sex work. Last week, San Francisco State Senator Scott Wiener introduced a bill that would repeal California laws against “loitering for the purposes of prostitution” — laws which are often invoked to arrest sex workers and which have also, statistics show, been used to discriminate against trans and LGBTQ people, and other people of color. "This is one of those laws based exclusively on stereotypes and profiling," Wiener said in an interview with CNN. "You don't have to actually do anything to commit this crime. This is based on how you look and how you're acting." If California’s legislature passes the bill, the state would follow New York which passed its own bill in February, repealing the “walking while trans” law. "This outdated, discriminatory statute has led to hundreds of unnecessary arrests of transgender women of color and a broader culture of fear and intimidation for transgender and gender nonconforming New Yorkers," New York State Senator Brad Hoylman, who sponsored the bill, said in a statement.  California’s “loitering” ban has been in effect since 1995, while New York’s anti-loitering law took effect in 1976. Both laws were designed to make it easier for police to “clean up” streets by arresting sex workers. But in practice, the laws have largely served as excuses for racial profiling and arbitrary arrests by law enforcemnet.  According to a UCLA Law School study cited by Wiener, Black adults accounted for more than half of all loitering arrests in the city of Los Angeles, even though the population there is just 8.9 percent Black.  Hoylman also said that the law led to “arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement by targeting women from marginalized groups that are at high risk for sex trafficking and other exploitation and abuse.”  “It's just a horrible law, and it's really un-American," Wiener added. "If you are a woman and you are dressed in tight or revealing clothing and you're in an area where sex work is known to happen, some police officer might decide you are loitering for the purposes of prostitution and arrest you." In his memo introducing the bill, Wiener said that “loitering” laws ‘do nothing to stop sex crimes against sex workers and human trafficking.” Repealing the loitering laws does not decriminalise sex work itself, but cold serve as a first step toward broader decriminalization, by prevebting sex workers from simly being rounded up in law enforcement sweeps, or taregted based solely on their appearance, race, or manner of dress. In New York, a 2016 lawsuit on behalf of several transgender women whi said they had been unfairly singled out by police forced the New York City Police Department to revise its guidelines for loitering arrests. As of 2019, the police rule “now specifically prohibits officers from relying on 'gender, gender identity, clothing, and location' alone or in combination to establish probable cause, and requires more detailed factual narratives about officers' observations.” Photo By David Monniaux / Wikimedia Commons