This Is How We Rise

By now you have heard about Brian Steven Smith and about the hero who turned him in. Valerie Casler.

But, did you know that she was afraid of being arrested, yet she still did the hard thing? She had stole his phone when he couldn’t muster up the money owed.

She looked on that phone and what she saw is the thing very few of us ever see. Ever want to see. A horror movie that came to life right here in Anchorage Alaska.

A monster. Pure darkness and evil, in the abyss, in videos and pictures that cannot be picked, pried, cleansed, from memory.

She knew she needed to get that information to the police but she couldn’t give them the phone, how could she explain that? She was worried about getting arrested for prostitution and theft.

Being a sex workers and calling the cops isn’t an easy thing to do.

She didn’t know she could turn the phone in. Not many knew or even know now that sex workers have immunity. State legislation included in HB 91 in 2016 provided protection from prosecution if a sex workers reports a serious crime and cooperates with investigators. This was hard fought by members of Community United for Safety and Protection, CUSP, who spent months in Juneau talking with the legislature representatives and senators that would take the time to listen to sex workers.

Yet, in 2017, according to the Anchorage Municipal Prosecutor Seneca Theno, the law did not provide the protection under city code. Specifically, Ordinance 84.

This details the 2017 the Anchorage Assembly meeting that discussed immunity for prostitutes. The comments and concerns were at times absurd, but mostly concerning.

Sex workers, prostitutes, were asking for immunity.

Immunity from being arrested for prostitution, a Class A misdemeanor, when reporting felony level crimes.

The first clip I want to point out is an anonymous statement from a woman who was arrested by Anchorage Police for prostitution, this was beautifully read by an Anchorage CUSP ally, Vered Mares.

The anonymous reading details how an older Alaskan Native woman had been assaulted by a man at a hotel. She called out, asking the hotel staff to call the police for help, while he was assaulting her. When the police arrived the man who assaulted her said she was a prostitute.

She was not a prostitute, and had never been a prostitute.

She was arrested, and an older Alaska Native woman, a grandmother, now had a stigmatizing prostitution charge on her record.

The man, never charged with assault, had his soliciting prostitution charge dismissed.

The grandmothers prostitution charge was not. This charge impacted her life. She felt she could never call the police again for help. This caused her shame, anxiety and fear, and she ended up moving out of Alaska, away from her family, due to this charge.

Click on images for the clips.

Sex workers, along with many people who do not do sex work, deal with whore stigma for breaking with, or being perceived to have broken with, what has been called “compulsory virtue”, writes Melissa Gira Grant in “Playing the Whore”.

Whore stigma, Jill Nagle, author of “Whore and other Feminists” is “a mandate not only to be virtuous, but also appear virtuous.“

You don’t need to be a whore to suffer a whores punishment or stigma. As in the case of grandmother, being an older Alaska Native woman who had alcohol on her breath was enough for her to be considered a prostitute. Less virtuous. Less.

Assembly Member Christopher Constant wanted to hear from the Law on their thoughts. Anchorage Police Department Deputy Chief Gilliam, an officer for 38-39 years, stepped up and shared his concerns.

“I have some concerns, I will agree that they are at high risk, there are some issues, I do know that we do have Crime Stoppers,” said the Deputy Chief.

Besides the dig at how high risk “they” are, we know how well Crime Stoppers investigated Brian Steven Smith when Alicia Youngblood had reached out to them about a video he had shown her, detailed in a previous blog. That call to Crime Stoppers was about a year after this statement from the Deputy Chief.

Deputy Chief Gilliam went on to say he had concerns about child pornography. Assembly Member Forrest Dunbar wanted to clarify why he thought granting immunity for prostitutes to report would impact child pornography.

“Well, if someone had witnessed child pornography or participated in some effect and then get arrested for prostitution, they might use that as a mechanism to get out of the prosecution,” answers Deputy Chief Gilliam.

Assembly Member Eric Croft pointed out that someone that is a perpetrator of a crime can bring up the crime in order to not be charged with a prostitution charge.

Croft goes on to say someone would have the ability to say “Because I told you of an assault I did, you can’t get me on the prostitution charge.”

Sex workers own words, Croft is saying, cannot be trusted.

When Assembly Member Felix Rivera pointed out that in current law sex workers were not able to come forward about murders, Bill Falsey, who served as municipal attorney in Anchorage from 2015 to 2017 and the as municipal manager from 2017 to 2020, answered “My understanding is that is not the case, that at least through the Crime Stoppers mechanism one can make an anonymous report of felony level activity.” Here we go again, Crime Stoppers to save the day. That, we know, is not the case.

Rivera shares that this is about more than just immunity, “…bridging the trust of alleged sex workers, we’ve heard examples today of people who wouldn’t report regardless of whether the prosecutor would or would not prosecute, there’s that level of of distrust between the sex worker community and law enforcement so this is a way to build that trust.”

Croft goes on to say it would just be a get out of jail card, forgetting the fact that sex workers actually give a damn, contrary to popular belief.

I wonder what Croft would say to Valerie Casler if he ever met her.

The immunity win in Anchorage wasn’t covered in the media but for two small articles; Alaska News Source when it was being proposed to the Anchorage Assembly; and Alaska Public Media after it was granted.

It is important for sex workers to know that there is immunity in reporting.

Thanks to the tireless work of CUSP, sex workers can come forward about certain heinous crimes and not be worried about getting arrested for prostitution if they have information about murder, kidnapping, assault 1,2,3, and child pornography.

In the words of Molly Smith and Juno Mac in “Revolting Prostitutes”, “Predators are a recurring symptom of any legal system that frame prostitutes as worthless and disposable criminals. The criminal body is a vulnerable one. The criminalized woman is easy pickings for predators.“

Sex workers have been made invisible, yet we are not. We are going before legislature asking for laws to be changed for our safety, although more recently we are just trying to not be charged with felony prostitution or put onto the sex offender registry just for being sex workers working together for our safety.

We are showing up in spaces that would rather us sit in the Google Meets waiting que, like the Council for Human and Sex Trafficking that spends hours talking about sex trafficking, yet will not let sex trafficking survivors or sex workers that do not fit their carceral feminist narrative speak.

Assembly Members like Felix Rivera make all the difference by including sex workers in conversations that promote safety in Anchorage. By creating trust and encouraging communication that can bring long term change, we can be heard.

We can be a part of, rather than apart from.

We can be visible.

We can turn in serial killers to the police without fear of an arrest for prostitution.

We aren’t going anywhere, you might as well hear us out.

To learn more about CUSP, visit the Community United for Safety and Protection.

Get involved, in the words of Melissa Gira Grant, “Even those who are not whores can rise up with whores, can put their own respectability to work through their willingness.”

Watch the full video of the Anchorage Assembly – Ordinance 84 – below