Police Reports Raise Questions about MPD’s Tactics During Undercover Prostitution Stings (Washington City Paper)

“Nefarious people look for the weakest link,” says Tamika Spellman, who is a policy and advocacy associate at the harm-reduction nonprofit HIPS and has been a sex worker by choice for more than 35 years. “And they know there’s a lack of concern for sex workers.” She analogizes the situation to mobsters killing people during Prohibition, or gun crime associated with marijuana—two industries that were very violent so long as they were illegal.  “The root cause [of violence] is not the sex worker. It’s the crime that surrounds the sex worker. I’m not a violent person, but I’ve had a lot of violence happen to me,” Spellman says. “People are going to do what they’re going to do. So we can try to at least make them safe when they’re doing it.”  [Read Article]