Earlier this month, on May 12, the NYPD banned the use of condoms as evidence of prostitution in three misdemeanor prostitution offenses in New York City. Recognizing that this is not enough, the Access to Condoms Coalition (of which Red Umbrella Project is a founding Executive Committee member) has been working with the New York City Council to introduce a resolution in support of comprehensive, statewide legislation that would ban the use of condoms as evidence in all 14 types of prostitution offenses, not just three. This afternoon, Councilmembers Jumaane D. Williams and Carlos Menchaca introduction this resolution.
RedUP Community Organizer Emma Caterine testified at the City Council briefing this morning about why comprehensive legislation is key, and she told this story:
There is an unfortunately large number of cases that rest on misconceptions driven by practices such as using condoms as evidence in promoting, soliciting, and trafficking prostitution offenses. In the Human Trafficking Intervention Courts (HTIC) in Brooklyn and Queens, the courts handle the misdemeanor offenses that the new NYPD directive covers for banning the use of condoms as evidence. But many of the defendants in this court were originally under different, more severe charges such as promoting and trafficking which is why the new NYPD directive is not sufficient to protect the health of all New Yorkers.
Condoms are being used as evidence of promoting, soliciting, or trafficking for arrests and later being dropped to charges prostitution and loitering: this wastes the resources of the court processing innocent people who they will inevitably dismiss the charges of anyways. I recently saw a case involving a woman accused of trafficking that highlights this problem. The defendant, whom I’ll refer to as Ms. Zheng, was continually pressed by the District Attorney’s office to accept a plea that included a forfeiture of $8000 even after the evidence against Zheng was insufficient to prosecute her for trafficking and her charge was dropped to operating a massage parlor without a license and moved to the HTIC. Why did it get moved there? Because Zheng is what is referred to as a straw owner, a person who may even be trafficked themselves who is written as the owner of property to protect the person actually committing the trafficking. In Zheng’s case, condoms were used as evidence to make the case that she was a trafficker. Not receipts in her name, not proof that she made money from the massage parlor that she supposedly owned, but condoms. And even after it was moved to the HTIC the DA’s office continued to push for their original plea. Luckily the judge immediately saw through this paltry rubbish the DA’s office had the audacity to call evidence and gave the woman an adjournment for contemplation of dismissal the next week.
Condoms are part of the lifeline that people in the sex trades have to maintain some control of their lives. The only way to preserve this lifeline is to ban the use of condoms as evidence absolutely, by a state law not at the mercy of the whims of whichever police commissioner currently occupies the position. Incomplete bans like the recent NYPD directive may protect some but will also serve to encourage NYPD to profile those doing sex work as pimps, johns, and traffickers so they can use the most evidence possible.