Her Crime? Sex Work in New Orleans

[ccharles000]

Tabitha has been working as a prostitute in New Orleans since she was 13. Now 30 years old, she can often be found working on a corner just outside of the French Quarter. A small and slight white woman, she has battled both drug addiction and illness and struggles every day to find a meal or a place to stay for the night.

These days, Tabitha, who asked that her real name not be used in this story, has yet another burden: a stamp printed on her driver’s license labels her a sex offender. Her crime? Sex work.

New Orleans city police and the district attorney’s office are using a state law written for child molesters to charge hundreds of sex workers like Tabitha as sex offenders. The law, which dates back to 1805, makes it a crime against nature to engage in “unnatural copulation”—a term New Orleans cops and the district attorney’s office have interpreted to mean anal or oral sex. Sex workers convicted of breaking this law are charged with felonies, issued longer jail sentences and forced to register as sex offenders. They must also carry a driver’s license with the label “sex offender” printed on it.

Of the 861 sex offenders currently registered in New Orleans, 483 were convicted of a crime against nature, according to Doug Cain, a spokesperson with the Louisiana State Police. And of those convicted of a crime against nature, 78 percent are Black and almost all are women.

http://www.colorlines.com/article.php?ID=673

[Luminous Animal]

1. Holy hell. We are a mean mean society.

[katandmoon]

2. Most especially to women

[cabluedem]

12. No joke. Even peeing in the bushes while driving is a sex offence in CA. NT

[TheWraith]

3. That should be illegal.

Lawrence vs. Texas in 2003 invalidated "sodomy" laws governing things like oral and anal sex. Sounds like NOLA needs to be sued.

[LuvNewcastle]

4. They should be sued.

What prostitute has never engaged in oral or anal sex? Why do they feel the need to not only punish someone for a crime, but humiliate them as well?

[Vidar]

5. K&R.

[undeterred]

6. Archaic laws

Lots of states have them on the books but no longer enforce them.

[TheMadMonk]

7. Or enforce them selectively to make certain people's lives hell. nt

[dysfunctional press]

8. if the prostitute is so charged, the john should be too.

and also flagged as a sex offender.

[JoeyT]

14. He probably was.

I'm not sure why, but they seem hell bent on loading the sex offender registry down with as many people as possible.
It's a useless system at this point.

[ccharles000]

9. kick

[DainBramaged]

10. Blame this fucker, it floats down from the top

[howard112211]

11. Another instance of the utter failure that "blacklisting" is in the US.

[surrealAmerican]

13. Why even maintain a registry?

If it's largely people who pose no threat, a sex offender registry only violates the privacy of the people on the list.