Where Better to Spend the Night?

 

A close look at the "business space" inside a residential brothel. Below, a clean, safe, holding cell in Orange County.

 

Here is an interesting topic for discussion for abolistionists!  Also,  I am currently teaching an online workshop on Human Trafficking for the Monterey Institute of International Studies and I am having my students give me their thoughts on this issue, too.  

 

Two images for you to consider: on the left we have the typical “working area” in a residential brothel where 5-10 men per day have sex.  Please not the box of tissues, the single sheet and pillow.  Please understand that the house has 3-5 rooms exactly like this with men entering and leaving every 30-40 minutes.

 

 

 

 

The photo above is the interior of a holding cell located in a municipal police department’s custody area.  Two beds, a toilet and sink, a phone.  No more than two people are held in this cell, and men and women are never housed together.  Windows allow guards to view inside the cell to verify the safety of those being held. 

 

Please consider this scenario.  You are involved in an investigation of the brothel where this photo was taken.  You have a search warrant and upon entry you find two women who you believe are engaged in commercial sex.  These women are both from Korea and you know that in your city Korean women are routinely duped into coming to town to work in legitimate jobs, only to be forced to work in a brothel and pay back a $20,000 debt.  While you are at the house, the women refuse to talk with you, even though you have victim-services providers with you to screen the woman for potential of being victims of human trafficking.

 

You have a choice: you can either issue these woman a criminal citation (a “ticket”) which tells them to appear in court in 45 days and you can leave the women there.

 

Option #2 is to take these women and book them into jail where they will spend their time in a cell like the one shown above.  The next day, professional anti-trafficking case managers will visit the women and attempt to gain rapport, explain to the women that they may be the victims of human trafficking, and, if so, the case workers will work closely with the Police and the local prosecutors to drop the charges for which they have been arrested, and begin offering the women the assistance and reliefs they are entitled under Federal and State.  Any woman who does NOT meet the criteria of a trafficking victim (or refuses to cooperate with the case workers and police) will be held until arraignment or released on her own recognizance.

 

This scenario brings up several issues, but at the moment the problem is a simple choice; let the women stay and sleep on the mattress on the floor, or arrest them and have them sleep in the cell pictured.

 

What would you do?

 

John

 

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