he Florida legislature passed legislation within the past week, Senate Bill 540 and House Bill 851, to establish a public database that tracks people convicted of, or who have pleaded guilty to, soliciting paid sex.
While the legislation’s bipartisan authors consider it to be a step toward ending human trafficking, critics call it a means to publicly shame clients and others associated with people who do consensual sex work.
The Soliciting for Prostitution Public Database will include anyone convicted of or pleading guilty to “soliciting, inducing, enticing, or procuring another to commit prostitution, lewdness, or assignation,” according to the Senate version of the bill, drafted by Democratic Senator Lauren Book.
“This isn’t creating a list of bad or dangerous clients; it’s just a list of clients who got caught by the police,” Bailey told Filter. “It’s impossible to tell the good guys from the bad if you lump them all together. Men who pay for sex aren’t predators. Predators who pose as clients are. When you make potential clients scared of giving sex workers the information they need to screen, you make it impossible to tell the difference between men who are scared and men who are scary.”
And inclusion in the Database would have ripple effects across a client’s life. “Putting them on a registry and imposing a mandatory sentence of five days for a first offense could result in lost wages and lost jobs,” wrote Andrews. “Public shaming of a consensual act could result in the breaking up of a family. A lost job could result in losing health insurance benefits. A lost job might mean they can’t pay the rent or the mortgage or buy food. They may not be able to get another job because they are on this registry. It perpetuates poverty.”
“Research does not support punitive public shaming. Our legislators need to listen to sex workers and victims of trafficking.”
I’m surprised there is still anybody left in Florida! The insanity down there doing nothing but grow worse. And the 11th circuit Court of Appeals is made of karmic entities that once presided over the Great and General Court of Massachusetts, who denied all the appeals of the 19 women who were hanged as witches in Salem Massachusetts. 90% of the criminal legislation against all forms of sex and sexual expression involving anyone below the age of 18 is a contravention of natural law – God’s law if you happen to be an evangelist. The age of consent should be lowered to menarche for females, especially those willing to seduce older males to simply test their developing powers of attraction. I don’t understand why legislators don’t understand that they shouldn’t play around with Darwinian law. Millions of years of evolution have produced the men and women of today, and by men and women I mean anyone who has developed secondary sex characteristics as recognized by medical science.
with the pro-choice crowd yelling about and defending the right of a woman and her body, they defend the womans right to have to a choice whether she has a child in her womb or have it removed, where are they now defending the womans right if she want to have a man inside of her? the $$ exchanged is just background noise and a way to control people. the way I see it, she has sex for free with some random guy, gets pregnant, he has to PAY for child support, or she charges some random guy, either way he will be paying.
This database will INCREASE sex trafficking! It will bring more money to those who exploit! Pimps will be able to traffic more victims since they will have a database of potential customers for the women they exploit! Why not have a database of people and addresses of people who have purchased heroin? That way heroin dealers can easily market their product! Are our legislatures that dumb?
Perhaps the registry can be posted directly on “Backpage” so that it is easy for the pimps to find the customers.
so they realize this is punishment but the other registrys are not…lmao..Hypocrisy knows no boundaries .
it is an opportunity though..the more people abused by the government the more people to stand up and battle the government. and battle is what is needed.
“[D]rafted by Democratic Senator Lauren Book.” So, it’s not just Republicans…it is both parties.
I’ve stated this multiple times, but both parties get something out of sex offender registration.
For Repubs, they get their appearance of the moral high ground and their “tough on crime” stuff.
For Dems, they get “justice for victims” and give the appearance of “protecting the children.”
Unlike many other issues where the parties may have a similar goal (like balancing the budget) but have various means to achieve them, in this instance they have different goals with the same means to achieve those goals.
FYI Polk county people a silver Yaris is making a trip to my house every couple weeks and taking pictures of my autos. My guess is operation karma.
“…drafted by Democratic Senator Lauren Book.”
Oh I see, this is the same Scumbag that is sponsored by GEO, SGS and other For-Profit Prison groups.
I do question the thinking capabilities of voters in Florida:
Why vote for someone that will keep creating laws to ensnare more people into the criminal justice system to reward her sponsors?
How’s voting ‘Conservative’ been working out for you, Florida? One of the most ass-backwards, Beautiful states. What a waste.
The final bill, CS/CS/CS/HB 851, Engrossed 2, requires this information on the “Johns:”
(3) The database must include all of the following on each offender:
(a) His or her full legal name.
(b) His or her last known address.
(c) A color photograph of him or her.
(d) The offense for which he or she was convicted.
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2019/851/BillText/e2/PDF
I find disingenuous the language in the bill that “The Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) shall perform a study of the effectiveness of the database,” since legislators have repeatedly ignored OPPAGA’s findings on the efficacy of the “Sex Offender” Registry.
http://www.oppaga.state.fl.us/MonitorDocs/Reports/pdf/1808rpt.pdf
I wonder how long it will take before more information is needed on the Johns or the solicitation for prostitution will be included on the “Sex Offender” Registry?
As to FDOC’s alleged recidivism rate of 28% for “Sex Offenders:”
http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/recidivism/RecidivismReport2018.pdf
I question it’s legitimacy.
Will these folks be allowed into shelters when evacuation orders are given or prevented from entering and staying like others who are also on a public registry are?
Loss wages and lost jobs because of data base of public shaming Sure in the hell sounds like the Sex Offender Registery hmm What the hell are people smoking in the public held offices? Because they surely lost their minds I got a great idea to solve this !! Lets just make one big badlist of crimes for EVERY Thing and Call it the “minority Report” and just be done with it
It seems a given fact that anything and everything that could be construed involving sex Lauren Book has her nose in it and wants to make a law against it. It almost seems that she will soon want to make it so that simply using the three letter ‘S’ word could be a criminal offense.
It’s just a cover up to make it look like they are “combatting human trafficking”.
In West Texas, many people are very well aware about a sex ring that brings in prostitutes every year during the oil show, for wealthy men that attend that event. It’s been going on for many years. It has also been said that some oil companies even provide prostitutes for their employees (or at least they have in the past).
There is no way that law enforcement is not aware of this. If law enforcement were really interested in combatting human trafficking, that is the first place they would be looking. It all comes down to money and who is paying them off.
The dangerous people are the people who pay big bucks to keep things like this covered up and those who accept these payments.
This is where human trafficking victims are very likely to be found (women who are forced to serve as “high class” prostitutes and who have their entire lives controlled by these “high class” pimps). It’s real.
To make it look like they are combatting “human trafficking”, police have to arrest somebody. So, they focus on trapping vulnerable people on adult sites, who are looking for mutual agreements.
I’m sure Texas is not the only state where this is going on.
How about uncovering and exposing this reality (using good police work) and creating a registry for these truly dangerous people? (since they’re so “registry” happy)
How about really rescuing the victims who are being sex trafficked against their will?
How about putting integrity before money?
Integrity before money? With many politicians that just may be asking too much.
Prostitute Data Base?
If this follows suite they will make it retroactive meaning someone who in a moment of weakness, frustration etc. Years ago will now be shamed what a waste of tax dollars. With all the evidence that registries dont work they keep coming up with them. Why do we not have a registry for DUI, repeat drug offenders, armed robbery and the list goes on and on and on. The answer is sex sells headlines. Its all about the money. Remeber of the 70plus thousand on the registry only 24,000 approximately live in Florida communities. Surely that is a fraud being perpetuated against the federal government to secure more tax dollars.
Another “Scarlet Letter” attempt by Florida legislator ‘do-gooders’. It’s just a matter of time until Lauren Book gets caught in one of her ‘traps’ and that will be a day of celebration.
Sure – it’s “just a list now”, but soon thereafter they’ll start passing that information out to the IML and INTERPOL will start turning everyone away at their borders…
I doubt it. Prostitution is legal in almost all of Europe and in every nation on continental North and South America except the United States the the Guianas. I’m sure the rest of the Americas and Europe will look upon this law and think, “how twentieth century of them…”
Just another way for the state to shame people.
More like make money. For the most part people today are desensitized to anyone’s family and wellbeing. After a mass shooting you don’t even hear about it after a couple days. This is law and order which would go broke if petty shit wasn’t punishable. And really I don’t think most people give a crap who’s hired a hooker or a SO. Law Enforcement will always be the most hated in America they target the poor and down trodden and issue them a PD who isn’t gonna miss a good lunch with friends going against the grain. Private attorneys too. Not all but people’s not studied. Mom and pops that goto church and don’t cuss know who the bad guys is the ones saying they are the good ones and that’s that everyone knows this is common knowledge.