The End For an Odd Exemption

Hawaii After nearly four decades, a provision in Hawaii law that allows police to have sex with prostitutes while in the line of duty will be taken off the books. The exemption was meant to shield undercover officers on prostitution stings from prosecution, but complaints of abuse led to calls for its removal.

Honolulu police initially lobbied to preserve the measure, saying it allowed police to accept verbal offers of sex from suspected prostitutes. But testimony in the state senate from a lawyer who said his client had been raped three times by officers before being arrested for prostitution led to a public outcry. “If the police are abusing the exemption,” says state representative Karl Rhodes, chair of the house judiciary committee, “we need to take it away.” After a meeting with state senator Clayton Hee, who called the law “surprising and bizarre,” the police agreed to give up the fight.

A similar law is on the books in Michigan, and legal experts say these measures, enacted at a time when law enforcement targeted prostitutes more than their pimps or johns, have little justification. “The idea that providing police with this tool to gather ‘evidence’ will in any way address the core problems of human trafficking and sexual exploitation seems quite absurd,” says Andy Harris of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

–ELIANA DOCKTERMAN