Soliciting for sex (Kay Chernush, US State Department. Public domain)
Across the country, several prosecutors elected in the last few years have won by saying they won’t prosecute certain crimes. Manhattan District Attorney (DA) candidate Tahanie Aboushi won’t prosecute prostitution or some burglaries or possessing weapons or stolen property. If she wins the November election, she also plans standard policies of dismissing certain assaults, larcenies, and most firearms charges for perpetrators who don’t get arrested and charged again within six months. In fact, each of the eight Manhattan DA candidates are struggling to be more decarcerating than their challengers. And big money is backing candidates who won’t prosecute law violations they cite as inherently biased. Billionaire George Soros is bankrolling many races through his Real Justice PAC. They say “all politics are local”, but Soros and Bernie Sanders are trying to subvert local elections.
Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner also doesn’t charge gun possession or sex workers. Candidates in Chicago, St. Louis, Orland, and Los Angeles won elections as reform prosecutors intending to institute similar agendas. Don’t misunderstand: the so-called “War on Drugs” has been an abject failure, resulting in the United States imprisoning more per capita than any other country in the world. But prosecutorial discretion is not the same as criminal justice reform, which falls to the legislative branch of government.
Big cities are not the only place where prosecutors don’t want to prosecute. Washtenaw County MI DA Eli Savit won’t charge illegal guns or contraband found during traffic stops because they’re the result of racial profiling. He also won’t charge “consensual sex”, meaning prostitution.
Apparently actual crime doesn’t enter into the equation. Gun violence is up 75% in New York state but the Manhattan DA candidates don’t plan to charge gun crimes. And how do these progressive Democratic reform prosecutors not prosecuting existing gun law violations square such policies with mainstream Democratic calls for a “War on Guns” to replace the War on Drugs?
On the surface of it, decriminalizing sex work seems a personal autonomy issue. But there is research suggesting sex work is traumatizing regardless of legality. Decriminalizing prostitution likely will result in decreased human trafficking investigations despite legalized prostitution resulting in greater human trafficking, including children. So, sex work is not victimless and, while the hookers should get the counselling and support they need, the people profiting off selling them for sex should still be held to account. And that includes the buyers who create the market, just like child pornography. Prostitution is not as “consensual” as some may think.
We need criminal justice reform. That’s why we elect legislators—to enact and change laws. It’s not up to radical DAs to arbitrarily decide to change a country based on the rule of law into a land where laws aren’t upheld.
