Since the City Council January 2013 voted for the Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution (SOAP) and the protest that followed against the harassment by this ordinance. Mayor Kasim Reed that created the Working Group On Prostitution (WGOP) that recently changed their name to Working Group to Reduce Prostitution (WGRP), has had four meetings from April-July each month to discuss what other alternatives on the issue of prostitution.
The issue of banishing prostitutes from Atlanta is more about who has more rights: men, women, children, teens, parents, johns, pimps, brothel owner, or other property owners.
The WGOP or WGRP currently consists of 15 members:
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Kristin Wilson, Innovation Delivery Team, City of Atlanta
Candace Byrd, Chief of Staff, City of Atlanta
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Melissa Mullinax, Public Affairs/Office of COO, City of Atlanta
Amber Robinson, Law Department, City of Atlanta
Lt. Scott Kreher, APD, City of Atlanta
Raines Carter, City Solicitor, Atlanta Municipal Court
Rosalie Joy, Public Defender, Atlanta Municipal Court
Stephanie Davis, Executive Director, Georgia Women for a Change
Peggy Denby, President, Midtown-Ponce Security Alliance
Xochitl Bervera, Director, Racial Justice Action Center
Jeff Graham, Director, Georgia Equality
Tracee McDaniel, Director, Juxtaposed Center for Transformation
Pastor Donna Hubbard, Women at the Well Transition Center
Douglas Dean, Resident, Pittsburgh Community
Bill Cannon, Resident, Booker T. Washington Community
The July 12, 2013 meeting was to frame potential polices, proposals and programs by the members and other groups. The SOAP Order was again sponsored by Alice Johnson representing the City of Atlanta and some members want to evaluate this like McDaniel, Denby, Carter, Cannon and Mullinax.
Other proposals were suggested at the July meeting like John Photos placed on websites with names to publicly shame them and John impound fees, both sponsored by Mullinax with members like Davis, Bervera and Dean wanting to evaluate this proposal. Carter sponsor the proposal of a John School, like San Francisco, with Davis and Mullinax to evaluate this proposal.
The In-Jail program with after care treatment, counseling, and family acceptance services with county cooperation was sponsored by Joy, with members Byrd, Pastor Hubbard and Cannon wanting to evaluate this proposal. The Juvenile Education with county coordination was suggested with members Johnson, Carter, Pastor Hubbard, Cannon, Davis and Joy willing to evaluate this proposal.
Jeff Graham sponsored the enforcement of Atlanta's current human rights ordinance.
The assessment on the first 15 days after an arrest was suggested by the Work Group to feed into program like referrals, post-program followups, focus on the family impact and jail programs, but few members wanted to evaluate this proposal.
At this July meeting, the Racial Justice Action Center (RJAC) and The Solutions Not Punishment Coalition (SNapCO) sponsored their People's Proposal program calling for Atlanta's Pre-Booking Diversion Program for Street Level Sex Work Offenses; to redirect sex workers to community-based treatment and support services. This Pre-Booking Diversion would consist of law enforcement and social services to tailor individual needs through case management and services, instead of jail to reduce recidivism and save tax dollars.
SNapCO that consist of concerned citizens, including former and current sex workers joined with the WGRP or WGOP, with other groups like: LaGender, Women on the Rise, Georgians For Alternatives Death Penalty, Atlanta Harm Reduction Coalition, Trans(forming), Occupy Atlanta's Women Caucus, and Transgender Individuals Living Their Truth, Inc.
The principles behind the Pre-Booking Diversion program is: training and policies for law enforcement officers; immediate access for needed services; funding for direct services rather than just administration; reducing harm by moving to a new life; peer outreach programs by former sex workers as guides, coaches and advocates to help with educational programs, housing, and job training; neighborhood watch and other groups involved in the role of referrals; and outreach, case management and service providers involved in the Pre-Booking Diversion.
At the July meeting, the members Johnson, Pastor Hubbard, Graham, Davis, Mullinax and Cannon wanted to evaluate on this Pre-Booking Diversion program proposal.
SNapCO wants Atlanta to adapt this Pre-Booking Diversion program that was inspired by Seattle's Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD); a pre-booking diversion to help Seattle's low-level drug and sex work offenders. LEAD involve community leaders, advocacy groups, government, criminal justice agencies, service providers and contract administrators. Seattle's LEAD Pre-Booking Diversion program, has been more successful after Seattle's SOAP Order failed to reduce sex work.
Bervera tells APN that SNapCO was impressed and inspired by Seattle's LEAD program. After several meetings SNapCO created the People's Proposal or Pre-Booking Diversion for Atlanta. SOAP was a failure in Seattle, which created LEAD and it's success.
It is amazing how Atlanta will look at SOAP to propose in Atlanta, instead of the Pre-Booking Diversion program of LEAD. Both ideals of LEAD and SOAP that influenced Atlanta, ironically originated from the same city, but SOAP was ineffective in Seattle. Why would SOAP be more effective in Atlanta?
RJAC and SNapCO has made contact with the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundation and other private and community foundations from Seattle, WA and Dallas, TX Pre-Booking Diversion programs. The Ford Foundation has offered to finance the City of Atlanta and Working Group members to travel to Seattle, to see how the Pre-Booking program works for themselves.
Atlanta should learn from another program, instead of just arrest-only policies, like Unsheltered No More initiative to reduce homelessness. This could be used like the Pre-Booking Diversion program with many community stakeholders, including current and former sex workers.
The June 11, 2013 WGOP meeting press release, Bervera of RJAC said “It's great to finally see the City of Atlanta and law enforcement following the community’s lead to create a solution that makes our neighborhoods safer and stronger while protecting all community members from harassment and discrimination.”
Vicki Fatima of SNapCO said “Giving someone a criminal record makes it almost impossible for folks to find an alternative means...(of) work to meet their basic needs, so it is not effective.”
Dee Dee Chamblee with LaGender, was concerned with criminalizing of transgendered.
When asked what came out of the prior meeting from the Working Group before July; Bervera of RJAC tells APN the two meeting before it, from April-May, laid down the ground work.
The June meeting was different because the Work Group was hearing from the community directly on relevant programs during an evening meeting. The June meeting was also about sharing data or facts on issues like the costs of arresting and jailing sex workers, but the data was not detailed or helpful to groups, like RJAC or SNapCO.
The SOAP banishment ordinance has been tabled or on hold since February, Bervera tells APN.
Both RJAC and SNapCO cannot get accurate data on how much it costs to arrest-jail sex workers, nor other information by the City of Atlanta.
RJAC and SNapCO did find statistics from the Atlanta Police Department (APD) and the Municipal Court Public Defender’s Office that shows in 2012 Atlanta's arrest-only approach resulted in over 1,400 arrests for solicitation. Only 300 of the 1,400 or 9% were john arrests and 1,100 or 91% were solicitation arrests of sex workers. This means arrest-only policies goes after sex workers.
The July meeting suggested two more meeting on August 9, 2013 from 9-11am at Atlanta's City Hall and another in September, but the Working Group refuses to have afternoon meetings.
Bervera of RJAC tells Patch:
“We're excited about the possibility of Atlanta doing something cutting edge and moving away from criminalization as the only response to street-level sex work. And you think what is great is that an acknowledgment of failure actually. The fact that bring forward the SOAP order to begin with and in fact. An admission on the part of the Atlanta police department, the city of Atlanta, and the mayor's office and the committee on how they were doing; how they were approaching the issue has been a failure. And so it is a great time for us looking forward to such programs like pre-booking diversion in order to really successful address the issue.”
Misty Novitch, an organizer-coordinator with SNapCO tells Patch:
“Harm reduction, treatment and services is the most impact-full, cost-effective, and humane way to address problems associated with street-level sex work.”
“We really have a chance in Atlanta to have policies around street-level sex work that we can truly be proud of, in line with the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, that nonviolently resist backwardness and respect the dignity of each person.”
“We have a chance, in this moment, at this time, to become a model in this country for addressing the problems of street-level sex work, but we have to seize it - we have to let the Working Group on Prostitution (WGOP), the City Council, and Mayor Reed know which way the wind is blowing.”
When asked about the prior meetings, Novitch believes not many decisions have been made, but the Working Group is more about advisory, voting on issues to show they are on the books, where they stand, and that they are accountable to the City and the community. Novitch has heard plenty of talk, but no decisions have yet been made. Only one evening Work Group meeting has been allowed, for the community to hear the debate, instead of morning meetings.
Novitch believes SNapCO has not been given much data by the City of Atlanta nor the APD on arrests and the cost of probation to punish sex workers. Novitch believes the costs of in-jail programs to be at $50K a year, while the Pre-Booking Diversion programs costs $15K a year, but this is only an educated guess, with little data from the City.
Novitch of SNapCO is concerned with good public policies, like the Pre-Booking Diversion program that will costs less tax dollars than arrest-only policies. Novitch tells Patch she believes “The current approach is wrong, ineffective and inhuman, and (will) make it more inhuman” for sex workers.
Novitch agrees with the use of pronouns when it comes to those arrested that Tracee McDaniel said in a prior meeting that if women call themselves women, it is better than calling them transgender. Call them women, not trans-women; it is disrespectful to call them trans-women, not women.
Call a man a man and a woman a woman, not what is between their legs when they are arrested. Novitch agrees with McDaniel that said “sex is between your legs, gender is between your ears.”
When it comes to the difference from volunteer sex work for income and forced sex trafficking, Novitch tells Patch she believes:
“It is really related as well, because most prostitutes become prostitutes at 12-14 years old, so they are children getting into it and eventually maybe they accepted it; and children technically can't consent. They don't necessary see themselves as trafficked or slaves..., but I think there is a big difference between actual slavery types of situations or exploitation of kids and women, but it is all very connected, even if not necessarily the same thing.
Either way we don't want to say, 'oh you are choosing to do this' there for, you are bad. Like you know, we are trying to avoid (this). How are they bad, they are trying to make money? We might question in the first place, why is this so bad?
But overall this is a nonviolent crime...so if we were to decriminalize we can go to (the) real root of why people do it in the first place. If you want to stop it that bad, you don't banish people.”
Novitch has a valid point, criminalizing behavior will not solve the root of why some voluntarily choice to become a sex workers, while others are forced into sex. Atlanta needs to differentiate from volunteer sex worker and forced sex trafficking, which are two different issues.
Human trafficking in Atlanta and the world is a broad subject, incorporating both cheap labor and cheap forced sex work, which differs from volunteer sex work. Most sex workers are low-income women and men, so criminalizing them is based on class and ethnic oppression.
The U.N. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking defines Trafficking as: “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation...”
Trafficking differs from volunteer sex work. If criminalization of human trafficking is the issue, then sex worker victims need more rights by laws, not criminalization.
The U.N.'s Global Commission report on “HIV and the Law: Risks, Rights & Health,” tells nations should repeal laws prohibiting consensual voluntary adult sex work and decriminalize voluntary use of illegal injection drugs to combat HIV. This Commission also want nations to clearly distinguish the difference in laws, between sex trafficking and prostitution.
The International Labour Organization, believes sex work should be an occupation and regulated “that protects workers and customers.”
The last meetings from April-July by the Work Group, has narrowed ideals to give to Mayor Reed.
Novitch fears of tight control by the Mayor or another “medieval ordinance” to be created again. This is why SNapCO was organized and created their Pre-Booking proposal to save the city money, to be more humane and “create something worthy of the city of Martin Luther King.”
Seattle is looking at Atlanta and SNapCO People's Proposal on Pre-Booking Diversion program just needs the City of Atlanta to coordinate this program and get more private funding to manage case loads. Atlanta has the infrastructure if the City wants to address this, not just have a revolving door and keep putting more people in jail.
Seattle's LEAD program was a model for Atlanta People's Proposal to decriminalize sex workers and change attitudes of their needs to limit stereotypes. Focus groups from beat officers and others, could change attitudes on issues that face all sex workers.
How can a criminal record for sex workers create a new life for them, if they are criminalized and have few alternatives for income?
Novitch tells Patch if she lost her job tomorrow as an organizer like many other Atlantans, she would not know want to do in this current economy with very few jobs. The same applies for some sex workers, “You got to pay the bills. You got to do whatever you do, to pay the bills. People have kids.”
This is a standard American saying of 'do what you have to do' mentality to survive economically. This is why another alternative by a Pre-Booking Diversion is needed, not just an arrest-only criminalization option, to create a new life for sex workers.