...OK, that's different.
SPRINGFIELD -- Prostitutes would be able to sue their pimps for emotional anguish and other damages under a measure that the Illinois House overwhelmingly passed Tuesday.
Rep. Constance Howard (D-Chicago), the bill's sponsor, said her intent is to empower men, women and children trapped in desperate situations. "This is for someone who says, I cannot take this any longer. I've been used and abused. I'm ready to try and get some help," Howard said.
Under the measure, which now goes to the Senate, the prostitute would have to prove in court that the pimp profited from the sex trade, recruited prostitutes or trafficked and maintained them. The pimp could be held accountable for his victim's financial losses, personal injuries, diseases and mental and emotional anguish. [...] While most House lawmakers supported the idea, Rep. Patricia Bailey (D-Chicago) expressed concerns about Howard's measure. During floor debate, Bailey made the point that some pimps take care of the sex workers who work for them. "Do you know that when a prostitute gets arrested, it is that pimp who gets them out of jail?" Bailey said. "Also, when that prostitute gets sick, it's the pimp that takes care of her. But the problem I'm looking at is that if the prostitute turns on that pimp, you've created another situation whereby you're jeopardizing the reality, the safety and well-being of that prostitute, who by choice is doing what she's doing."
After casting a "present" vote, Bailey told reporters the bill has sweeping implications. "It's going to legalize prostitution," she said.
(Purely a side note: given the type of prostitution envisioned by the bill -- it's fairly clearly aimed at street prostitutes -- "choice" is a very malleable idea. On the one hand, yes, they did choose, sort of ... but on the other hand, usually it's very poor women with few job skills who may also be drug addicts, so choice of occupation becomes a very slippery concept.)
The main problem I foresee is this: How do you allow someone to sue another person with whom they've engaged in illegal activity? How exactly can they recover? Both halves of this equation are illegal; it's just that if abuse and other issues are involved, the pimp's actions are more illegal. I'm just not certain that you'll be able to get a jury past that hump, even if the law survives its first appeal.
More interesting is the bill buried in the second half of this article:
... House lawmakers gave tentative approval to a bill that would ban fake guns in schools. Under the measure, students who bring look-alike weapons to schools could be charged with a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail.
Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) is worried the bill might be enforced differently across the state. She said that for the same offense, white suburban students might get a simple slap on the wrist, while black students in the inner city would be hauled off to jail. "In black neighborhoods, the kids are going to be handcuffed, arrested, taken to jail for 30 days," she said. Davis argued it would be more effective to ban retailers from selling fake guns to children.
But Rep. Roger Jenisch (R-Bloomingdale), the bill's sponsor, defended the measure, saying he is just trying to make schools safer. "It's an issue of creating safe schools so every child can have a safe environment to learn in," he said. "It doesn't matter if you're white, black or Hispanic."
Lawmakers agreed to make an amendment to correct a typographical error in Jenisch's bill, but they left the question of final passage for another day....
You know, it's very probable that there will be differential enforcement of this law in cities versus suburbs and small towns. I'm just not certain that it will run the direction that Rep. Davis fears. For one thing, in all locations, how the law is enforced likely depends on what exactly the student is doing with the gun, and how it's discovered. If the student is actually trying to convince someone that it's a real gun, trying to rob or scare someone, the charge is likely to be thrown in as an enhancement in all locations, regardless. However, if you look at recent cases, the strongest reactions seem to be coming in smaller cities and suburbs where, shall we say, there is a smaller minority presence:
And so on, and so on....
Mind, I do think that Rep. Davis has the right of it in this case, or at least part of it. There's no valid excuse for having fake guns in school -- there are too many people with real ones around for you to be able to bluff your way out of many situations with them, and you're likely to escalate things beyond where you want them. But you ought to attack the other side of the problem, as well. Ban retailers from selling realistic looking toy guns. There's no practical need for toys to look real -- there's not even a practical reason for paint pellet guns (which are real in the "yes, they fire projectiles, albeit usually nonlethal" sense) to look real. Say that they have to be some lurid color that people will immediately realize isn't a normal "gun" color. That would at least help police know that they might be facing a fake gun, and possibly prevent some kids from being shot by accident.
Posted by iain at April 07, 2005 01:49 PM
