This is where people forced into prostitution will get their day in court.
New York State is setting up a groundbreaking new criminal court system designed to help prostitutes escape the clutches of their pimps — and the street.
“Human trafficking is a crime that inflicts terrible harm on the most vulnerable members of society: victims of abuse, the poor, children, runaways, immigrants,” New York’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, said Wednesday. “It is in every sense a form of modern-day slavery.”
The new Human Trafficking Intervention Courts will prevent “victims of trafficking (from slipping) between the cracks of our justice system,” Lippman said.
Then Lippman introduced a success story from the pilot program in Queens — a 27-year-old former prostitute named Lakisha who was in the audience at a Manhattan cafe for the announcement.
“It was a support system for me, it led me to a network of people who able to help me escape,” said Lakisha, who was forced into prostitution at age 12 and worked the streets for six years. “Receiving their services helped me to change.”
Lakisha said she now has an associate degree in public administration and is working toward her bachelor’s degree.
“I feel like it’s a going to have a big impact and change the way victims are dealt with,” she said.
Five of the 11 special courts will be operating in New York City by mid-October, Lippman said. The other six will be up and running around the state by the end of October.
Lippman said the bulk of the cost for the new system is already built into the current budget and will be staffed with prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges who have been trained to handle these kinds of cases.
Modeled on specialized domestic violence courts, they will handle handpicked prostitution cases and try to tackle the reasons that women and men end up turning tricks in the first place.
Instead of automatically putting prostitutes behind bars, the judge, defense lawyer and prosecutor will come up with a strategy for keeping them from returning to the streets.
Among other things, they will offer alternatives to jail like drug treatment, shelter, immigration assistance and health care, along with education and job training.
Women typically fall into prostitution between the ages of 12 and 14, and many are forced into that life by circumstances — or by pimps.
There has been a growing consensus in law enforcement that it’s high time to start treating people charged with prostitution as victims rather than defendants.
In recent years, the New York Legislature passed the Anti-Human Trafficking Act, which criminalizes sex and labor trafficking.
It also passed the Safe Harbor for Exploited Children Act, which mandates that anyone under age 18 who is arrested on prostitution charges be treated as “a sexually exploited child.”
The state also passed a law aimed at wiping the slate clean for trafficking victims by allowing them to have their prostitution convictions vacated.
