Sex Work in New York and the Human Trafficking Intervention Court

In 2004, Judge Fernando Camacho, created New York’s first prostitution diversion court. The court gave women arrested for prostitution the opportunity to engage in counseling and social services to resolve their case instead of convicting them of a crime and sentencing them to jail time. In 2013, the court was renamed the Human Trafficking Intervention Court and implemented statewide. The court’s mission is to give women arrested for prostitution related offenses the chance to resolve their case by engaging in counseling services, recognizing that many of the women who come through the court are victims of trafficking.. Instead of incarceration, the court connects defendants with social services with the goal of addressing the trauma and abuse they have potentially suffered and thus empowering them. According to Judge Toko Serita, who now presides over all the Queens’ criminal court’s prostitution, cases, the program was not designed to end sex trafficking; it aims to address the immediate problem of people being jailed on prostitution charges.

A typical trajectory through Judge Serita’s court begins with an arrest, often the result of a police sting in which undercover police officers disguise themselves as clients and solicit sex from women. These police stings often take place in Flushing, a section of Queens, targeted by police due its large number of massage parlors and prostitution “strolls” (areas where women go to solicit sex). The arrestee is typically a woman of color and/or an immigrant: 58 percent of those charged with prostitution in Queens are Asian, and many are undocumented. Black and Latinx women are also overrepresented: from 2012 to 2015, 85 percent of people booked on “loitering for the purpose of prostitution” charges were black and Latinx.

At the defendant’s initial court appearance in the Human Trafficking Court. The prosecutor (whose role it is to prosecute individuals charged with crimes) and the defense attorney (whose role it is to defend individuals charged with crimes) and the defendant work together to develop an “alternative to incarceration” plan to the resolve the case. These offers include counseling sessions with social service agencies such as Garden of Hope and Girls Educational Mentoring Service (GEMS) and are tailored to the specific needs of the defendant. Judge Serita tells the defendant that if they complete a certain number of sessions and show up to regular court check-ins without getting re-arrested, the defendant will received what is called an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal (ACD), which means the case will be dismissed and sealed after six months’ time. In 2014, the court issued about 398 such adjournments in contemplation of dismissal out of the 639 cases heard. The HTIC serves as a model for a statewide program established in 2013 that includes eleven courts in New York state.

The Human Trafficking Intervention Court partners with local organizations whose goals are to help defendants address trauma and abuse they have suffered develop support systems, and assist them in transitioning out of sex work if they chose. . Whether a person who engaged in sex work faced coercive circumstances or chose “the life” voluntarily, each ended up doing this work for her own reasons. Many turn to sex work out of economic desperation. Some immigrants are in “debt bondage” due to exorbitant fees from smugglers; this financial precarity is compounded by the fact that undocumented people are barred from many legal jobs and thus vulnerable to exploitation. Many have criminal records (sometimes from prostitution-related charges) and are in debt for exorbitant bail bonds. Many face medical issues and housing instability. The court has found that over 80 percent of women arrested for prostitution have been victimized by traumatic experiences including domestic violence, sexual assault, and childhood sexual abuse. Social workers at the HTIC’s partner organizations help identify the specific needs of a defendant and provide support in a trauma-informed, culturally sensitive way.

In New York, about 1,800 people were arrested on prostitution-related charges in 2018. Law enforcement disproportionately targeted sex workers of color, transgender sex workers, and immigrants.

According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which gathered statistics based on contacts to the hotline, in 2018 there were 359 human trafficking cases reported; 135 of these cases involved a minor. Illicit massage parlors were the most common reported venue for sex trafficking. Among these, it is difficult to distinguish between trafficking, completely voluntary sex work, and a coercive middle ground.

Many people engaging in sex work, both trafficking victims and voluntary workers, face the daily threat of violence: from their families, clients, exploiters (colloquially known as “pimps”) and police. In a 2003 survey, 27 percent of street-based sex workers in New York City reported experiencing violence from police. Some reported being forced to perform sexual services for police officers in exchange for not being arrested. Nearly a dozen women interviewed by the New York Times at the HTIC said that they did not feel like trafficking victims, but rather like victims of the police. Sex workers’ rights advocates say that any approach to ending sex trafficking that relies on policing, even by way of a benevolent court system, is bound to fail because it does not address the underlying violence and economic conditions that make sex workers’ jobs so dangerous.

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Sex Work and the Law

Although there is no federal law banning the sale of sex, it is still illegal in most U.S. states, with the exception of some counties in Nevada. Justice systems around the world have experimented with different models for addressing sex work. In Amsterdam, full legalization means that sex work takes place in specific public establishments, which are licensed and subject to regulation and routine inspection. In the “Nordic Model,” which exists in Sweden and several other countries in Northern Europe, selling sex is not criminalized, however people who purchase sex and trafficking is still criminal. Although this system shifts the focus away from sex workers, critics argue that it is still unsafe because it keeps the sex trade underground: forced to work in isolated conditions to shield clients, sex workers have reduced safety and are less able to screen their clients. According to sex worker activist Cecilia Gentili, “It is not possible to police clients without policing people who trade sex.”

The model favored by the sex workers’ rights movement is decriminalization. Global NGOs including Amnesty International, World Health Organization and Human Rights Watch have also come out in support of this system, which exists in countries including New Zealand. Under decriminalization, prostitution is not fully legal but it is not regulated or subject to penalties, which takes policing and courts out of the equation (sex trafficking and underage sex work remains illegal). Supporters of this approach argue that it increases safety and self-determination for sex workers by removing the fear of arrest and allowing them to report crimes to which they’re victim. It also would allow them to better screen clients, share knowledge and collectively organize. Although coercion and underage sex work would remain illegal, opponents worry that decriminalization will facilitate trafficking. Opponents of full decriminalization argue that sex work is inherently coercive and a person cannot sell sex without being victimized.

In the United States, public opinion around sex work is shifting. Legislation to decriminalize sex work has been introduced in both Washington, D.C. and New York state. In 2019, New York State Senators Jessica Ramos and Julia Salazar co-sponsored a package of bills to decriminalize sex work, which would end criminal penalties related to the buying and selling of sex, repealing the loitering law and institute regulations to make sex workers safer. It would also allow sex workers to apply for their criminal records to be expunged. These bills met fierce opposition, including from some feminist groups. Although the decriminalization bills did not pass in New York’s State Assembly in 2019, they are expected to be reintroduced in future legislative sessions.