Enhance penalties for pimps, johns
Changes proposed by state AG Dave Yost would address both supply, demand of human trafficking.
The Editorial Board
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 05:00:00 GMT
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Ohio’s General Assembly has appropriately moved to raise the penalties for the crime of promoting prostitution, especially where it involves minors caught up in human trafficking.
However, state lawmakers might want to remove from the legislation the proposed creation of a “johns” registry, which would serve as a mechanism of public shaming in the hopes of reducing solicitation of prostitutes.
Under Senate Bill 5, adopted unanimously by both houses of the General Assembly, the fourth-degree felony of promoting prostitution becomes a third-degree felony if the prostitute involved is a minor, or if the offender previously has been accused of promoting prostitution, or if a drug-trafficking conviction is involved. The charge can rise to a second-degree felony for multiple offenders.
Promoting prostitution is not confined to transactions involving willful, consenting adults, but increasingly involves minors and young women who are being trafficked. That’s why law enforcement needs to have tougher penalties to deter would-be offenders, take active offenders off the streets, and liberate the girls and women who live under their control.
Still waiting to be formally introduced in the General Assembly is a set of law changes proposed by Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost.
In what Mr. Yost calls a multipronged approach, the package would address both the supply and demand of human trafficking. For the supplier, the pimp, it creates a separate criminal offense of knowingly receiving proceeds from a prostitute. For the demand side, the john, it adds to the already illegal action of soliciting sex with a prostitute listing of the conviction in a public registry.
In doing so, Ohio would follow the lead of Florida in publicizing the convictions for johns as a deterrent for those considering engaging the services of a sex worker.
Not only would johns be shamed under the Ohio law changes, but they would be required to undergo counseling, what Mr. Yost called “john school.”
State Sen. Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo) said she was invited by the author, state Sen. Tim Shaffer (R., Lancaster), to be the primary co-sponsor on the human-trafficking initiative proposed by Mr. Yost, and she has agreed.
A johns registry, however, may not be practical. It may be no more than a means for shaming and have no impact.
If going after traffickers of minor girls is the goal, the ability to register and shame the johns already exists. Prosecutors can charge johns who have sex with underage prostitutes with unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, which can put them on a sex-offender registry.