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<\/p>\nA new billboard went up earlier this year on Main Street in Barrio Logan.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuyers of Sex – Beware,\u201d it warns. \u201cCalifornia law, AB 379, makes it illegal to loiter in an area for the purpose of purchasing sex.\u201d<\/p>\n
The law went into effect in January. The city of San Diego and Mayor Todd Gloria sponsored it. Proponents argued it was needed to combat sex trafficking.<\/p>\n
On the left of the billboard, a man\u2019s pale wrists are handcuffed. On the right, a faceless pale woman huddles in the shadows.<\/p>\n
The images might not be the best reflections of how the new law is playing out in San Diego.<\/p>\n
Police data show they are mostly citing Latino and Black men for this new crime. Only 12 of the 95 citations and arrests through July were of white men.<\/p>\n
And while proponents argue the law is necessary to save trafficking victims, it may be harming non-trafficked sex workers trying to survive a dangerous industry and an increasingly costly economy.<\/p>\n
Mayor Todd Gloria did not respond to KPBS\u2019s questions sent to the city\u2019s communications office.<\/p>\n
For those in charge of enforcing the law, the line between trafficked and non-trafficked sex work isn\u2019t so clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink of street level prostitution and human trafficking as hand in hand,\u201d said Lieutenant Daniel Hall, who oversees San Diego Police Department\u2019s enforcement of the law. \u201cChances are no one woke up and said, this is what I want to do with my life and try and become a street level prostitute. Like I stated before, chances are there was abuse involved, coercion involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hall said going after street prostitution makes San Diego less appealing to traffickers.<\/p>\n
SDPD data only show a single citation under the general law against buying sex in the first half of this year.<\/p>\n
Hall said that\u2019s because this new law \u2014 against loitering with intent to buy \u2014 is a more efficient use of resources. It\u2019s easier to bring cases to court.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the beginning of this year, we have made a concerted effort to employ this new law to hopefully create a better and more efficient impact,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Of the 95 citations made through July, nearly all were in Barrio Logan and National City. It\u2019s a mostly Latino and low-income area that surrounds Naval Base San Diego.<\/p>\n
Hall said it\u2019s a known area of prostitution. It\u2019s also zoned for mixed use \u2014 businesses and homes sit side by side.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have kids trying to get to school that are seeing this. You have businesses that are trying to operate with this activity going on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Police data show they cited mostly Latino and Black men, in proportions far greater than their share of San Diego\u2019s population.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hall said that\u2019s not intentional.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s no identity of the driver of the vehicle that’s known in advance. You just have the actions of the vehicle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Those actions include circling around, or stopping to talk to someone who looks like they could be a sex worker.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe find out who the race and the gender can be once we go up to the car,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Studies show<\/a> no connection between<\/a> race and the likelihood of being a sex client.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody wants to have sex work services. It\u2019s not only specific Black or brown community,\u201d said Jamie Arangure, a local sex worker.<\/p>\n She advocates for other workers through her organization Proyecto Trans Latinas.<\/p>\n She said this law targets San Diego\u2019s most vulnerable workers.<\/p>\n \u201cThe streets is like more like dangerous but more cheaper,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s more dangerous, and cheaper, than finding clients online or operating out of motels, she said. Street workers are often desperate for income. Many don\u2019t have access to traditional employment. Some, like Arangure, are trans immigrants.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want to find a job, but they’ve been discriminated, so they cannot pay the bills. And how they gonna survive? They need to eat,\u201d she said. \u201cThey don’t have any other options.\u201d<\/p>\n Arangure said business has slowed since the law went into effect.<\/p>\n The law is endangering workers, too, said Minouche Kandel, Senior Staff Attorney in the LGBTQ, Gender & Reproductive Justice Project at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.<\/p>\n \u201cThey cannot take the kinds of safety precautions that they need to, because their clients are worried they’re going to get arrested, and are saying, \u2018Get in the car, get in the car!\u2019 so they might not have the time to check, \u2018Oh, does the car open from the inside? Does it have a handle? Am I going to be trapped?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Kandel points to a long history of loitering laws like this one being used in America to control minorities.<\/p>\n The first loitering law, enacted by the first California Legislature in 1850, enabled law enforcement to arrest Indigenous people \u201cfound loitering and strolling about\u201d and place them into forced labor.<\/p>\n Post-Civil War Black Codes made it a crime to be \u201cstrolling about in idleness,\u201d functioning to force newly freed Black Americans into low-wage labor and reemerging as Jim Crow era loitering and vagrancy ordinances.<\/p>\n Kandel said solicitation laws have also been used for decades to police sexual activity by LGBTQ+ people.<\/p>\n Sexual orientation and transgender identities aren\u2019t always tracked in police data. They\u2019re not present in the SDPD data released to KPBS for citations and arrests under this new law.<\/p>\n Anecdotally, Kandel said the last iteration of this law \u2014 loitering with intent to sell sex \u2014 was used so often against trans people it became known as the \u201cwalking while trans\u201d law.<\/p>\n That law was repealed in 2022. An analysis by the ACLU of Southern California found that it was overwhelmingly enforced against Black women.<\/p>\n ACLU staff found that between 2019 and 2021, 79% of SDPD arrests for loitering with intent to sell sex were of Black people, despite them making up only 6% of the city\u2019s population.<\/p>\n Before lawmakers passed the new law against loitering with intent to purchase sex, advocates warned the vagueness of \u201cintent\u201d opens the door for racial bias in policing.<\/p>\n For Kandel, the line between non-trafficked sex work and trafficked sex work matters deeply.<\/p>\n Not all sex work is trafficked sex work. This law targets potential clients, not traffickers.<\/p>\n Kandel shared a hypothetical.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we see trafficking in other industries, let’s say, like, in agriculture or the garment industry,\u201d she said, \u201cwe don’t say, \u2018Oh, we’re gonna outlaw the manufacture of clothing, or we’re gonna arrest people who are purchasing things at the Gap.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n If the city\u2019s goal is to reduce sex work, Kandel said research supports a public health approach: providing sex workers with housing, mental healthcare and paid job training. Not policing.<\/p>\n Ultimately, though, she sees sex work as an issue of autonomy.<\/p>\n \u201cTwo consensual adults engaging in sex work is, you know, having control over your body,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Arangure doesn\u2019t think any law can get rid of an ancient industry.<\/p>\n \u201cNo matter how many bills they can make or any laws they\u2019re going to do, is still going to be the sex work,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause sex work is work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new billboard went up earlier this year on Main Street in Barrio Logan. \u201cBuyers of Sex –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-455623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}