In Georgia, the state legislature is considering a law that would de-criminalize prostitution by minors. Hookers under age 16 would no longer be prosecuted, but would be treated as victims:
The bill introduced by Sen. Renee Unterman (R-Buford), would steer girls under the age of 16 into diversionary programs instead of arresting them as prostitutes.
“This bill makes sure people are aware that young girls are victims,” Unterman said. “A 12-year-old laying on her back don’t know what sex is.”
Unterman – who has championed the rights of young girls – said the bill has been around for at least two years. She said she revisited it because a plan is now in place to rehabilitate the young prostitutes. The age of consent in Georgia is 16.
This seems like a reform, if you assume that all 15-year-olds are incapable of making their own decisions and should not be held responsible for those decisions. But 15-year-olds make all kinds of bad decisions, and 15-year-olds can be prosecuted as adults for many sorts of crime.
What Unterman’s law proposes is to create a “teen hooker loophole,” making prostitution the only crime whose juvenile perpetrators are automatically classified as victims. The teen hooker’s brother who deals dope or steals cars doesn’t get a “diversionary program.”
OK, that was a devil’s advocate argument. I really don’t have any serious objection to Unterman’s law, but I wanted to demonstrate that there might be valid arguments to be made against this legislation. Indeed, the proposed law has opponents, and those opponents were demonized by Jim Galloway of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Georgia’s Christian right comes out
against bills aimed at child prostitution
That headline spurred the kind of blog reaction you’d expect — from Little Green Footballs, among others — as if there could be no legitimate objection to Unterman’s law. And let us grant that the “Christian right” is easy to demonize, based on some of the remarks quoted by Galloway:
“Who will benefit from the passage of H.B. 582 or S.B. 304? I’ll tell you who – the very profitable and growing pedophile industry,” said former state Sen. Nancy Shafer. “It is imperative that these bills be defeated. . . .
“Decriminalizing that means the police would have absolutely no interest in it at all,” said Sue Ella Deadwyler, who writes a Christian conservative newsletter. “They wouldn’t arrest the girls, they wouldn’t pick the girls up, they wouldn’t protect them from influence on the street from the pimps and the johns. It would be an absolute cultural upheaval in our state. Never in the United States, as far as I know, has juvenile prostitution been legalized.”
Maybe that sounds like crazy-talk, but think about this question: If non-prosecution of teen hookers is such an obvious and logical reform, why is Georgia the first state to try it?
Are the other 49 states of the Union — which we presume will continue to treat underage prostitutes as criminals, or at least as juvenile delinquents — just backward and benighted? Could there be unintended consequences if Unterman’s bill becomes law?
Indeed, many other well-meaning “reforms” have had consequences unintended by the reformers, and skepticism is always in order when legal innovations are advocated. Yet Galloway seems to believe that no responsible citizen could object to Unterman’s legislation, and therefore depicts these “Christian right” opponents as fanatical kooks — which, I hasten to add, they may actually be. But Galloway’s treatment of them is prejudicial, amounting to an effort to short-circuit opposition to the proposed law.
Does this make Jim Galloway an agent of the “growing pedophile industry”? No, but neither is it fair to depict the bill’s opponents as “anti-reform,” merely for opposing this specific measure. Having seen that rhetorical game played with health-care reform and immigration reform, its employment in this instance ought to provoke automatic skepticism from conservatives, Christian and otherwise.
Exit question: If Unterman’s law passes, who should be appointed as Georgia’s Teenage Hooker Czar? (I nominate Charlie Sheen.)