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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
In a follow-up to a mass public meeting at Vestal School in September, a smaller group met last month at Portland Community College in Southeast Portland to look at possible responses.
The 50 people in attendance was a respectable number, but small compared to the 300 at the Vestal meeting. Dawn Rasmussen of the Save 82nd Avenue Coalition, who organized the earlier meeting, attributed the lower turnout to a presidential election debate that occurred at the same time and said she wasn’t concerned by it. “It was great,” she said of the October meeting. “It was a perfect follow-up.”
One set of attendees at the Vestal meeting, the 82nd Cares Coalition, distributed flyers that opposed arrest or harassment of prostitutes. At last month’s session, they distributed a new set opposing the arrest or harassment of johns as well, on the grounds that it would make life harder for the prostitutes. During the discussions some members championed legalizing prostitution.
Mica, a coalition member who spoke to the Memo via phone in response to an e-mail invitation to do so, said the coalition consists of concerned neighbors, representatives of social service organizations and present or former sex workers. She repeated arguments in the flyers that the best way to combat prostitution is to combat the economic conditions — a lack of jobs, social services and treatment for situations like drug addiction — that cause women to pursue this life. “A woman can wait six months to get into a drug treatment program,” she said, repeating points made by Lila Lee of the Council for Prostitution Alternatives and Jeri Williams of the Office of Neighborhood Involvement. However, this does not mean that a majority of prostitutes are drug addicts. Asked if the group favors legalizing prostitution, Mica said, “Not necessarily. We are just concerned about unforeseen consequences (of the law enforcement approach).”
Dr. Melissa Farley, a guest speaker at the session, took strong exception to legalization as an approach. “Once there’s a culture of prostitution in an area, any woman is a target for johns and pimps,” she said. In such places all women are subject to sexual come-ons, “not just the ones with for sale signs hung on them,” she said. Women living near 82nd Avenue and other areas with high prostitution traffic have complained of being solicited when they walk on the street.
Legalization of prostitution in Nevada, Amsterdam and elsewhere, which was undertaken to reduce the incidence of related crimes, has not worked. When prostitution is readily available, “men tend to normalize sexual assault. In a survey of college men in Nevada, a majority said it would be fine if their daughters became prostitutes, sex workers or exotic dancers. The rape rate in Nevada is twice as high as in New York.” She quoted an Amsterdam police official to the effect that the rate of prostitution-related crime there has not diminished since the practice was legalized.
In response to this, Mica said her coalition is against sexual harassment of anyone, and suggested that there should be a way to distinguish women who want to be solicited from those who don’t. Mica did not explain how this could be done in a system where prostitution is still against the law.
At the October forum, following speeches by Farley and Williams, those present broke into small groups by different constituencies concerned with possible approaches to the problem. Possible actions proposed included the following:
• Neighbors: increased involvement with neighborhood associations, staying organized and “call(ing) for more resources with a united voice.”
• Relations with prostitutes: discouragement of picketing or attacking prostitutes and working to engage them. Call for more services and expunge criminal records that could prevent honest employment.
• Johns: stronger enforcement and education to make them aware that they are both oppressors and part of a community problem.
• Faith community: working with social services on strategies to get women off the street.
• Judicial/government: lobbying for more consistent sentences for prostitution-related crime, and making solicitation of prostitutes by men a felony rather than a misdemeanor.
• Environmental design: working with businesses to make their property less usable as a haven for prostitution and soliciting.
Other suggestions ranged from decriminalization, education programs in schools (at the Vestal meeting, some speakers said high schools are used by pimps as a prime recruiting ground), and “holding businesses accountable for their clientele.”
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