On September 9, Logan Township police arrested a 56-year-old woman on prostitution-related charges at the Altoona Grand Hotel in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The woman has been charged with corrupt organizations, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activities, and two counts of conspiracy. She is being held at Blair County Prison with bail set at $100,000. She waived her preliminary hearing, and formal arraignment is scheduled for November 1.
On September 9, police responded to an advertisement on a known prostitution site and arranged a meeting time. Upon arrival, an officer entered the hotel room and arrested the woman. The police seized about $5,610 from the room. The woman reported having sex with two or three men a day in exchange for about $15,000, half of which allegedly went to a man she referred to as “NewNew.”
The CSE Institute is once again disappointed in WTAG News for choosing to publicize both the first and last name of the woman in this case. In publishing her name, the news outlet promotes the notion that people in prostitution are criminals, rather than victims of exploitation.
Additionally, the CSE Institute is frustrated by the continued criminalization and targeting of persons in prostitution. Paid-sex stings, such as the operation orchestrated in this case, disproportionately target victims of exploitation while ignoring the perpetrators, which does nothing to lessen the demand for the commercial sex trade. Criminalizing people in prostitution exacerbates the problem by trapping the most vulnerable populations in a cycle of incarceration, abuse, and instability. Paid-sex stings only furthers the traumatization and stigmatization of people in prostitution, making it harder for them to access exit services. Ultimately, this hostile method of policing is wholly ineffective at targeting the root of commercial sexual exploitation, being the traffickers and buyers who drive the demand for commercial sex.
The CSE Institute advocates for the Equality Model, which directly targets the demand by criminalizing the buying of sex while decriminalizing individuals who are bought and sold for commercial sex. The Equality Model consists of four key elements: (1) decriminalization of persons in prostitution, (2) criminalization of sex buyers and facilitators with a commitment to treating buying sex as a serious crime, (3) a public education campaign about the inherent harms of prostitution, and (4) funded, robust, holistic exit services for victims of commercial sexual exploitation. The Equality Model appropriately identifies people in prostitution as survivors of gender-based violence whose needs should be centered in all efforts to combat the sex trade.
In this case, the woman identified a potential sex trafficker to the police: the man taking half of her earnings. The CSE Institute encourages Logan Township police to conduct thorough investigation into the man identified as “NewNew,” as well as the potential victimization of the woman arrested in this case. We also encourage investigation into the potential culpability of the Altoona Grand Hotel, as hotels can function as a safe haven for sex buyers and traffickers. Scrutinizing whether the Altoona Grand Hotel turns a blind eye to suspected trafficking could push its owners and operators to implement trainings for management and employees on recognizing and reporting suspected sex trafficking.
The CSE Institute urges Logan Township law enforcement to target sex buyers and traffickers, rather than people in prostitution. Criminalizing survivors of gender-based violence neither makes communities safer nor combats the commercials sex trade. Rather than allowing perpetrators of crime to avoid responsibility while punishing their victims, the police should focus their resources at targeting those sustaining the market for commercial sex: the traffickers and sex buyers.
The CSE Institute will continue to provide updates on this matter.
All views expressed therein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.