This woman says that carrying three or more condoms is grounds for arrest on prostitution charges.
Whats the straightdope on this?
Is it as crazy as it sounds?
So if you buy a box at the store they can arrest you in the parking lot?
The article linked to in the original article, aka “the source” has been updated to say at the front:
So, they’re taking a couple of factors into account:
- Women in the PFZ (I assume means “Prostitution Free Zone”), which implies it’s an area currently disrupting a neighborhood with street trade.
- Congregation of several possible prostitutes.
- Warned off.
- Found again in the same area, with
- Multiple condoms
That may be the DC police official line, but NGOs working in the field (e.g. Different Avenues and Alliance for a Safe and Diverse DC) have reported a number of false arrests based on inaccurate “profiling” as prostitutes in the PFZs. I don’t have a web cite but this was discussed in an article about the DC law in the Summer 2009 issue of $pread magazine. Seems the police aren’t quite so careful IRL to be sure all those boxes are ticked.
Of course, you’d also have to question the wisdom of a law which gives sex workers an incentive not to carry condoms at all.
Or to just carry one and rinse it off between tricks.
I should point out that while I think that prostitution should be legal, I’d prefer it not to be on the street in front of someone’s house or place of business. I prefer the Dutch/German business models, which mostly, although not entirely avoid this problem.
In the Netherlands (and I suspect Germany too, although I haven’t read very much about it) there is still a significant amount of prostitution taking place outside the “business” model. It mainly tends to be people who aren’t able to work in the legal industry for one reason or another e.g. undocumented migrants, people with serious drug or mental illness problems, transgenders or older women.