Your help is needed to pass Proposition K, a groundbreaking San Francisco ballot measure

Posted on behalf of Maxine Doogan,  Please direct *all* questions and correspondence to persons and organizations reference below.

Dear _____________,

Your help is needed to pass Proposition K, a groundbreaking San Francisco ballot measure that will increase worker and public safety by decriminalizing prostitution.

The current criminalization of prostitution deters many sex workers from reporting violent crimes committed against them and deprives them of the right to legally seek safer working conditions. Proposition K removes these barriers and ensures that sex workers have basic legal protections and the right to organize.

Proposition K Will Improve:

· Worker Safety by ensuring that crimes committed against sex workers can be reported without fear of prosecution and requiring that the Police Department and District Attorney’s Office vigorously enforces laws against extortion, battery, rape and other violent crimes; regardless of the victim’s status as a sex worker

· Public Safety by freeing up the critical resources used to enforce prostitution laws and focusing instead on higher priority crimes like human trafficking, child sexual assault and child labor.

· Public Health by lessening the social stigma that prevents many workers from seeking basic health care services

Momentum is on the campaign’s side. Over 12,000 San Franciscans signed the petition to put Proposition K on the ballot. Proposition K has recently been endorsed by the San Francisco Democratic, Green and Libertarian Parties. However, much work remains to be done.

Passing Proposition K will require an aggressive strategy that will educate voters through direct mail, media outreach and grass roots advocacy. Such an effort will not be possible without your financial contribution.

There are also many other ways to get involved with this critical campaign. Add your name to our growing endorsement list, sign-up to volunteer, or display a “Yes On K” sign.

To contribute make checks payable to:

CUSP Committee United for Safety and Protection
2215 Market St. #548
San Francisco, California 94114

To add your name to the endorsement list please sign below:

____________________ ____________________ ____________________

Name (please print) Signature Title

To be contacted by the campaign about volunteer opportunities or to receive a sign please call (415) 265-3302

Again thank you for your support and please vote Yes on K this November 4.

Sincerely,

Maxine Doogan

Erotic Service Providers Union

8 Responses

  1. A better propostion would be to criminalise the johns, pervs and pimps who feed off prostitution.

    It would force resources into exist-strategies and prevent young girls – and they are mostly teens at entry-level – from being sucked into this racket.

  2. In reference to freed from ideology’s post. John’s pervs and pimps who feed off prostitution are already illegal. Here is some first hand experience as one of those teens at entry level sucked into the racket. I was sucked into the racket, the john’s, pervs and pimps were illegal and that didn’t matter a bit.

    The reason I was “sucked into that racket” was need. Homeless and no money will do that. Criminalization did not force exit strategies, it did not prevent anything. If you wanted to keep me out of prostitution you had to address the causes that put me there as someone in the scenario you mention. Criminalization kept me in a far more dangerous situation. He was a criminal, I was a criminal, the johns were criminals. Decrim of only me solved what?
    Kidnapping is a felony. Forced imprisonment is a felony. Rape is a felony. It didn’t stop the pimp, didn’t stop the johns and sure as hell didn’t create a exit strategy.

    When you are homeless and without money and need a roof and food, you will make trade offs. Unless someone can solve that problem, those issues are going to exist and legislating them into criminal status solves nothing. If they pimps wasn’t afraid of going to jail for kidnapping, rape and long term captivity, the threat of jail for being a pimp isn’t going to scare him.

    If the above referenced teen does not have options other than the pimp, they are going to end up with him regardless. The answer lies in spending the money on solutions to the problem, not removing individuals. You can’t let your hatred for pimps and johns blind you to the reality of what puts the teens there in the first place. And please, save me the theoretical comeback. This was real world, first person to me.

    In the day that I met the predator and became caught up with him, I couldn’t have cared less about him being arrested or jailed. I needed food, money, clothing and shelter. On the day I got away from him, his arrest still meant nothing and never has. I still needed food, shelter, clothing and money. The reason I got away from him was not only his arrest it was the money I made the night before. Without that my only choice would have been another one of him regardless of whether he was a criminal.

    Theory is great in the classroom and in discussion groups. It doesn’t translate well to homelessness and poverty.

  3. Last thought, teens are sucked into the racket by need. Not by pimps and johns. Pimps and johns exploit the teens need. That is wrong and fucked up. But taking away the pimps and johns doensn’t remove the need and leaving a bunch of teens in need will always attract more predators. Criminalization hasn’t ever stopped that. Put the money into resources to address the need and substantially reduce the teens that are in the racket by virtue of need and the predators have no place to feed and have many less victims to feed on.

  4. Thank you Jill!

  5. Sweden has such a system, where the ‘john’s’ are criminalized but the SW’s are not. It hasn’t helped sweden any.

  6. Pimps and johns that prey on teens under 18 are pedophiles or those who supply teens to pedophiles in the case of pimps that do not have sex with them. That is already very illegal. It isn’t solving the problem. Personally I am all for putting a bullet in the head of pedophiles and certainly I am nothing but supportive of life time incarceration of those who do that shit to teens.

    But, we have that in place right now. It isn’t as though we are going to legislate solutions from that model, it is an existing model. The problems haven’t disappeared. And criminalization isn’t creating huge amounts of exit programs.

    While I understand and respect Freedfromideology is advocating possible solutions, I don’t believe anything new is being advocated here for teens. Given that it is already illegal, how is restating illegality going to change things. Granted I advocate decriminalizing the women anyway and do not believe the teens should be criminalized, I believe two separate issues are being merged here to save teens.

    Criminalizing adults with consenting adults, key consent, poverty isn’t consent, but criminalizing the actual consensual people is wasting limited resources that could be going to fighting teen prostitution and creating resources that end the reasons the teens and the non consenting adults are there.

  7. Why should the under 18 be subjected to the same life long discrimination as adults for being arrested for prostitution?
    They shoudln’t and neither ought the adults.
    If arresting the un-consentual is the best our society can do, we’re idiots!
    While we all agree on this, except for the haters, predators are getting away with it and criminalization hasn’t stopped them. Let me repeat: Criminalization has not stopped them and it’s prevented nothing.
    That’s why passing K is so important. Passing K will bring along equal protection in so many areas.
    We don’t need some poser to tell us that continuing to make arrests stops child abuse and human trafficking.
    Nobody is buying that bullshit because it’s not true.
    Nobody has even been charged with human trafficking under the state statue.

  8. Yet another reason to romanticize SF while stuck in Northampton, MA.

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