Prostitution in Rhode Island
On November 3, 2009, Republican Governor Donald Carcieri signed into law a bill which makes the buying and selling of sexual services a crime.
[1] Prostitution was legal in Rhode Island between 1980 and 2009 because there was no specific statute to define the act and outlaw it, although associated activities were illegal, such as street solicitation, running a brothel, and pimping.
The law makes selling sexual services a misdemeanor crime punishable with a fine of $250 to $1,000, or up to six months in prison, or both for first offenders.
[1] The legislation includes a provision that empowers judges to erase any record of charges of convicted prostitutes after one year.
The drafters of the law removed the section that addressed committing the act of prostitution itself, and only street solicitation remained illegal.
Rhode Island State Senator John F. McBurney III was the only member of the General Assembly at the time of the 2009 vote who had served in 1980.
"[4] An article by Scott Cunningham and Manisha Shah published in the Review of Economic Studies found that the judicial decriminalization of indoor prostitution in 2003 caused a 30% decline in reported rapes with female victims and a 40% reduction in female gonorrhea incidents during the six years that prostitution was not an illegal offense.
"[10] Two front-page articles were published in the Providence Journal before the General Assembly returned for a special session, and Happy Endings?
On November 3, 2009, at a State House ceremony, Governor Donald Carcieri signed into law the bill which outlawed prostitution in Rhode Island.
State Police Col. Doherty said that the new law "sends a distinct message to any group (which) thinks they could use Rhode Island in furtherance of their illicit business".
[20][21] Research published in 2017 in the Review of Economic Studies found that after the decriminalisation of prostitution Rhode Island in 2003, gonorrhoea decreased by 40% in females, and that sexual violence fell by 30%.
[22] The main support for a full prostitution ban has come from the Governor, Attorney General, police,[23] Donna M. Hughes of the University of Rhode Island,[24] and Citizens Against Trafficking (CAT).
CAT was formed by Donna M. Hughes and Melanie Shapiro after leaving Rhode Island Coalition Against Human Trafficking (RICAHT) when that group refused to support Representative Giannini's version of the bill.
[23][25] Also providing testimony for support of the law was Concerned Women for America, Laura Lederer, and Margaret Brooks, a professor of economics at Bridgewater State College.
