NEW YORK TIMES Editorial: A handful of cities across the country, including Baltimore and Phoenix, have specialized courts that deal with sex-trafficking offenses. On Wednesday, Judge Lippman announced the creation of the nation’s first statewide system of specialized criminal courts to handle prostitution-related offenses and make services available to help sex-trafficking victims escape their abusive situations and forge new lives…
Three courts created as pilot projects are up and running in Queens, Manhattan and Nassau County. Eight additional Human Trafficking Intervention Courts will be in operation in urban, suburban and rural areas around the state by the end of October. They will be overseen by judges familiar with the particular challenges facing trafficking victims — many of them lured into the sex trade as underage girls — and the services available to them.
The program borrows, in some respects, from the state’s system of specialized courts that deal with domestic violence and low-level drug offenses. It calls for prostitution-related cases to be evaluated by the judge, defense lawyer and prosecutor. If they agree, the court will connect defendants to critical services like safe shelter, medical and drug treatment, immigration assistance and education and job training that can help prevent a return to the sex industry. Contingent upon the defendants’ compliance with court-ordered services and programs, the charges may be dismissed or reduced, enabling the defendants to avoid a criminal record with damaging repercussions for housing, employment, college financial aid, government benefits and immigration status… (more)
EDITOR: We are not concerned about what consensual adults do with their bodies and have long advocated the taxation, regulation and control of sex workers. We do want to protect minors from pimps and predators.
Once we focus our attention where it belongs, everyone will be better off.
