Bush Administration wants to make all prostitution a felony.
Proposal could turn FBI into a vice squad
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Local vice cops, who for decades have led the law-enforcement crackdown on prostitutioni, could soon have an unwilling partner: FBI agents.
The Justice Department is fighting legislation that would expand federal law to cover prostitutioni cases, saying that it would divert agents from more serious crimes. Although police still would handle the majority of cases, Justice officials said the law would force them to send agents to investigate pimps and bring cases in federal courts as well.
Some activists and members of Congress think prostitutioni should be a federal crime.
"It's mind-boggling that the Justice Department would be fighting this," said Dorchen Leidholdt, a founding board member of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, a group pushing the change. "They have the power to pick and choose the cases they want to prosecute. They don't have to prosecute local pimps if they don't want to."
The new provision is part of a bill reauthorizing the federal human trafficking statute, which passed Congress in 2000. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has approved the legislation, which has bipartisan support and is expected to be taken up by the full House next week. Its prospects in the Senate are unclear.
The battle against trafficking is a major priority for the Bush administration, which is attacking the problem with 10 federal agencies reporting to a Cabinet-level task force chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. But there has been heated debate - even among the dozens of organizations fighting trafficking in the United States - over whether prostitutes should be considered trafficking victims.
This article appeared on page A - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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