Seattle’s ‘Keep Out’ Zones Will Restrict Civil Liberties, Not Crime

Can this really be constitutional? Seattle is on the verge of making it illegal for some people accused of low-level prostitution and drug offenses to frequent certain popular areas of the city. It calls these spots “stay out” zones, and violating a stay-away order can result in nearly a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Under the policy adopted by the council last week, people can be subject to stay-out orders for up to two years, barring them from businesses, family, friends, employers, entertainment or educational opportunities in those areas. And the orders don’t even necessarily require a conviction; a judge can issue one to someone charged with a crime as a condition of being released from prison before trial.

The city is also bringing back penalties for loitering for prostitution, after repealing an earlier version of the restriction in 2020. Loitering for prostitution laws allow police to arrest people simply for being a suspected sex worker or for associating with a sex worker; they do not require officers to prove that sex for money or offers of sex for money occurred. They have been widely criticized as encouraging police harassment, particularly of groups—such as transgender people—who are more likely to view officers as sex workers. The new loitering law is much like the old one, except it targets prostitution clients and promoters rather than sex workers per se.

SOAP & SODA

SOAP and SODA sound like an odd but potentially fun party theme. They’re not. These are the nicknames given to the six “stay out” zones approved by the Seattle City Council last Tuesday. SOAP stands for “Stay Out of Area of Prostitution” and SODA stands for “Stay Out of Drug Area.”

These aren’t small or isolated parts of the city. The SOAP zone encompasses a large portion of Seattle’s Aurora Avenue North and surrounding blocks, from North 85th Street all the way to North 145th Street. And six SODA zones are spread across the city, including areas around downtown Seattle, Chinatown, the University District, and Capitol Hill. “The SODA and SOAP zones include a number of locations where nonprofits provide services,” notes The Seattle Times.

Mayor Bruce Harrell has not yet signed the new bills, but a spokesperson for his office told the Times that Harrell “supports additional tools to keep neighborhoods safe.”

The SOAP bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Cathy Moore, would also create a new prostitution loitering offense, targeting prostitution clients. A person is guilty of the offense “if he or she remains in a public place and intentionally invites, induces, entices or induces another to engage in prostitution,” the bill states.

Police may find someone guilty of loitering for prostitution if they “repeatedly… engage passersby in conversation,” make a “physical gesture” that “indicates solicitation for prostitution,” stop a car to talk to someone they suspect is a sex worker, or “drive around an area in a motor vehicle and repeatedly wave at, contact, or attempt to stop pedestrians,” and more. (Woe betide the errant driver who tries to ask for directions, or someone who stops to talk to a friend the police think is scantily clad!) People are considered particularly suspicious if they are “in a known prostitution area or have been designated a Keep Out Area.”

The bill also creates the serious offence of “promoting loitering for the purpose of prostitution.” This offence targets people “who act in a manner and under circumstances which indicate that they have the purpose of directing, supervising, recruiting, arranging, enticing or inducing another person to engage in loitering for the purpose of prostitution.”

Finally, the bill creates the prostitution “stay out” zone and provides that a judge may bar “any person charged with or convicted of” either prostitution loitering offense from the area, “either as a condition of release…or as a condition of sentence.” A judge may also issue a SOAP order to anyone charged with or convicted of a crime that occurred in a SOAP zone if the court determines that there is “a nexus between the offense and prostitution-related offenses.”

Violating a SOAP order can subject an individual to an additional serious offense charge, punishable by up to 364 days in jail and/or a $5,000 fine.

Unlike the old law on loitering prostitutes, this is theoretical does not do people who sell sex. But it’s easy to imagine sex workers still being charged under these laws for colluding or talking with each other, which police could easily classify as “promoting” each other’s prostitution. The fear that this law will target sellers is bolstered by an amendment that requires the city’s Office of the Inspector General to report arrest figures “with arrests for prostitution loitering as a buyer disaggregated from arrests for prostitution loitering as a seller.”

Interestingly, the bill’s findings section states that it’s needed because “the federal government’s April 2018 shutdown of Backpage resulted in increased prostitution activity in public spaces” — an acknowledgement that shutting down online sex work advertising doesn’t actually stop it. And yet somehow the council thinks the same principle doesn’t apply to banning sex from certain streets?

The SODA law would create “Keep Out of Drug Zone” zones, similar to the “Keep Out of Prostitution Zone” zone. A judge would be able to issue a SODA order to “any person charged with or convicted of a criminal violation of the Controlled Substances Act” that occurs in a SODA zone, or to anyone “charged with or convicted of assault, harassment, robbery, criminal trespassing, destruction of property, or unlawful use or possession of a weapon in a designated SODA zone in which the court finds a nexus between the offense and illegal drug activity.”

‘Performative regulation’

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about these laws is that they are such a gross violation of civil liberties for so little return. What do city officials expect to happen? That people will suddenly stop selling or buying drugs and sex if they can’t do so on certain streets?

It seems fairly obvious that some drug and prostitution activity will simply move to other areas, that some people subject to stay-out orders will simply ignore them (these are, by definition, people who are already okay with breaking some laws), and that some prohibited individuals will find workarounds (such as sending coworkers into prohibited areas to do whatever business needs to be done there). What will certainly not happen—as decades and decades of failed prohibition policies have shown—is a substantial decrease in drug use, drug sales, or prostitution.

At least one city council member gets this. Tammy Morales voted against both bills, calling them “performative regulations” and “band-aids” that wouldn’t be “really meaningful solutions to the problems we’re trying to address,” according to the Times.

But Morales was the only one to vote against both bills.

The SOAP and SODA bills have many opponents, including among community organizations, civil rights groups and public defenders.

“Since the bills were introduced this summer, opponents have accused the council majority of trying to push poor people out of Seattle’s core neighborhoods instead of addressing the root causes of addiction, gun violence and sexual exploitation by investing more in social services,” the Times“They have said the exclusion laws will give police the power to arrest people simply for being in a public space, particularly people of color, who are disproportionately arrested for relevant crimes, council staff said.”

“Proposals like SOAP and SODA don’t work and cruelly target our most vulnerable populations, including those struggling with poverty and substance abuse,” Jazmyn Clark of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a press release. “Exclusion zones like SOAP and SODA have been tried before and have consistently failed to achieve their intended goals,” Clark added.

The SOAP and SODA laws “raise serious constitutional concerns,” the ACLU of Washington told city council members in an Aug. 7 letter. “SODA and SOAP orders are likely unconstitutional as conditions of pretrial release for people who have never been convicted of crimes related to drug possession or sex work. SOAP and SODA orders raise identical concerns about violating the constitutional right to travel and engage in sexual intercourse.”

More sex and technology news

• A preposterous new California law bans tech companies from showing an “addictive feed” to minors unless a parent gives permission. It’s another example of lawmakers pretending that problematic internet use is just a matter of product design, rather than a complex mix of mental health issues, life triggers and other issues beyond the control of tech companies. The new law also imposes additional rules on minors, such as not sending notifications during school hours, except in the summer. “Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they can’t verify their age,” the Associated Press notes. “Some argue it would threaten online privacy by allowing platforms to collect more information about users.”

• Former University of Wisconsin–La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow is fighting to get his teaching position back. The university fired Gow after he posted sex videos of him and his wife on pornography sites. They are also authors: “Gow and his wife’s e-books were written under pseudonyms: ‘Monogamy with Benefits: How Porn Enhances Our Relationships’ and ‘Married with Benefits—Our Real-Life Adult Industry Adventures.'” The New York Post reports. They also “star in a YouTube channel called ‘Sexy Healthy Cooking,’ in which the couple cooks meals with porn actors.” Gow claims that all of this is protected First Amendment activity, which is true. But the First Amendment doesn’t apply to employment contracts; bosses can generally fire you if they don’t like your speech. Where this case gets a little tricky is the fact that the bosses in question are a public university system.

• Actress Gillian Anderson’s new book, Want tocontains 350 anonymous sex fantasies that Anderson collected from women.

• I spoke to people who call themselves pro-life but are concerned about the current wave of abortion bans.

• “Freak-offs are inherently dangerous,” a federal prosecutor in the Diddy case said in court. (More on that case in last Wednesday’s newsletter.)

• “A federal appeals court on Friday upheld an Alabama policy that requires people to provide proof of ‘sex reassignment surgery’ before the gender marker on their driver’s license can be changed,” AL.com reports.