NYPD Will Stop Seizing Condoms from Suspected Sex Workers
The New York Police Department announced this week that its officers would stop seizing unused condoms as evidence of prostitution, which is a significant win for public health advocates. Because prostitution charges rarely go to trial, advocates have long argued that the main consequence of arresting suspected sex workers for carrying condoms is to discourage protected sex—and sabotage efforts to bring down the rate of HIV/AIDS.
On Monday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed. "A policy that inhibits people from safe sex is a mistake and dangerous," he said. "And there are a number of ways you can go about putting together evidence [without condoms.]"
Still, New York police may continue to use condoms as evidence for arrests in sex trafficking and promotion of prostitution cases, which civil rights and health advocates say leaves a huge loophole in the law. And the practices of counting condoms as evidence of a crime or confiscating them remain widespread in urban centers across America, with devastating health effects.
Police departments in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco all use similar tactics, even as these cities spend millions distributing free condoms and trying to protect sex workers at risk for contracting or transmitting HIV. In these cities, a 2012 Human Rights Watch report found, "Police stops and searches for condoms are often a result of profiling, a practice of targeting individuals as suspected offenders for who they are, what they are wearing and where they are standing, rather than on the basis of any observed illegal activity."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/nypd-sex-workers-condoms-evidence
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