Sex workers (as well as people who use and/or sell drugs) have always known they can’t rely on police for protection because cops regularly use laws that criminalize prostitution, drug possession, and living outside to harass, coerce, extort and arrest them. Research shows sexual misconduct and sexual assault is endemic among police officers in the United States. A 2017 study based on interviews with 250 women selling sex on the streets of Baltimore found that 71 percent reported “abusive” encounters with police. Police get away with it because the law is currently on their side, and their position as law enforcement officers with powerful unions almost guarantees that they will not be held accountable.

Spellman said police are notorious for extorting money from sex workers in exchange for “protection” from being arrested. However, that protection only extends to the officers who get paid off, and with others, it’s a “crapshoot.” And what about protection from abusive clients and other risks that come with working on the street?

So, sex workers have developed practices for keeping each other safe and providing mutual aid outside the purview of the state, providing models for addressing public health safety without police. Activists say their knowledge and experience should be centered in conversations around defunding the police, redistributing those resources to communities and dismantling police altogether:

Sex workers need to be at the center of talking about alternatives to policing when it comes to addressing violence.

Sex working communities have been creating different ways to keep each other safe from those who wish us harm (INCLUDING THE COPS) for decades.

— The Prodigal Whore (@MPDreamWhore) June 7, 2020

“In the face of criminalization and whorephobic violence, sex working people have always sought to create our own systems of support and protection outside of the cops, criminal legal processes and societally accepted channels because most sex workers know those systems will never bring justice and have no interest in listening when harm happens,” said Red S., an organizer with a mutual aid organization for sex workers in Chicago and New York City called Support Ho(s)e, in an email.