Vague Criminal Statutes and Police Harassment

• Pages: 106-108

Contenidos

• The Issue.
• Legal and Policy Considerations.
• Practice Example.
• References.

Page 106

The Issue

Regardless of the official legal status of sex work, police and other government officials often interfere with the rights of sex workers. Instead of using criminal statutes against prostitution, the police may target sex workers using various other laws. Police may harass sex workers based on vague statutes on loitering, vagrancy, breach of public order, or hooliganism (among others), or for the lack of appropriate documentation (passport, residency permit, etc.). These actions often contribute to the marginalization of sex workers, which in turn heightens the possibility that they will become infected with HIV.

Legal and Policy Considerations

Legislators, policy makers, the courts, and the police have a role to play in ensuring that laws are not overbroad, vague, or arbitrarily or discriminatorily enforced. Regardless of the legal status of sex work, sex workers must have access to the legal system to protect themselves against rape and violence. The police must be allies in public health and safety. Proper training and enforcement and oversight mechanisms can ensure that this is the case.

There may be little or no relationship between the legal regulations regarding sex work and the practices of police in some regions. Even where individual sex work is legal, police may arrest or detain sex workers on the basis of alternative legal provisions. Police may also use their power or the threat of arrest to extort bribes or sexual favors. Vague laws, such as those that aim to prohibit loitering or breach of public order, are open to interpretation and exploitation by police. Such vague laws offend important tenets of the rule of law. Clear laws give people a reasonable opportunity to know what is permitted and what is proscribed. Vague laws do not provide fair warning, and may trap the innocent. In addition, vague laws provide room for curbside determinations of what is permitted, allowing arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. By promulgating vague laws, policy makers delegate basic policy decisions to police officers and the courts on an ad hoc basis, undermining the clarity and predictability of the law. Because vague laws open the door to arbitrary and discriminatory application, legislators and policy makers should take care to avoid undue vagueness.

In addition to using tangentially-related or vague laws to persecute...