Prostitution law reform welcome: This is no ‘victimless crime’

Editorial by Winston-Salem Journal, October 24, 2013.

For too many years, criminal law punished the victims of prostitution and not the perpetrators. North Carolina law now has a fairer balance.

Starting this month, state law is harder on pimps, traffickers and johns while recognizing that prostitutes are often crime victims, women being held in sexual slavery.

Sen. Thom Goolsby, R-New Hanover, one of the new law’s primary sponsors, told the Wilmington Star-News that North Carolina is now “the toughest in the union on pimps and johns.”

Lindsey Roberson, a New Hanover prosecutor, told the newspaper that the law would crack down hard on the people profiting from crime, the traffickers who often drive young women into prostitution and the grip of pimps. While previous state law provided only for misdemeanor offenses for these crimes, they are now felonies.

This is as it should be. Much research has found that traffickers and pimps prey on young, troubled girls, often leading them into a life of drugs and alcohol abuse at an early age. For many of these girls, even when they get older, there is no escaping the life in which they are trapped.

State law should be harsh on the trappers, and the legislature was absolutely correct to make these crimes felonies.

As for the “johns,” the men who actually create the market demand for this crime, there should be strong penalties. They might think they are out for a little bit of fun, but they are helping perpetuate a horrible form of human abuse.

The flip side to the equation is the prostitute. Society has long turned its back on a crime it considers dirty and unsavory. Here is where the legislature acted in an astonishingly progressive way. Under the new law, girls 16 and 17 will be considered victims and will no longer be charged with prostitution. Women 18 and older will be offered deferred prosecution and, we hope, opportunities for counseling and recovery.

It is time that society awoke to the human trafficking and abuse involved in prostitution. Finally, North Carolina is punishing the criminals and not the victims.