Ald. Jason Ervin wants crackdown on ‘prostitution-related loitering’

Chicago would outlaw “prostitution-related loitering” and designate areas of the city where hookers could be ordered to disperse for an eight-hour period, under a crackdown proposed Wednesday by a West Side alderman.

Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) has railed repeatedly about petty crimes like drinking, gambling and urinating on the public way that set the stage for more serious crimes by people with “no respect for our community.”

Now’s he’s moving against prostitution, a more serious crime with the potential to destroy the fabric of Chicago neighborhoods.

At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Ervin introduced an ordinance that would make it a crime to engage in “prostitution-related loitering.”

The offense was defined as “remaining in any one place under circumstances that would warrant a reasonable person to believe that the purpose or effect of that behavior is to facilitate commission of prostitution.”

The ordinance would empower Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson to “designate areas of the city” where enforcement is necessary “because the areas are frequently associated with prostitution-related loitering” after consulting with elected officials and community leaders.

In those designated areas, police would be empowered to: inform people they are engaged in prostitution-related loitering in an area where that activity is prohibited; order them to “disperse and remove themselves from within sight and hearing of the place where the warning was issued” and finally, arrest those people if they fail to leave or return to that area within eight hours of the initial warning.

Ervin could not be reached for comment on the ordinance.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois was adamantly opposed to, what it called the “criminalization of prostitution.”

In an email to the Sun-Times, ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka further noted that the “vague” language in Ervin’s ordinance “seems to encourage police to order people to disperse or even arrest them for what may be innocent and constitutionally protected behavior.”

He noted that a similar ordinance in New York “has resulted in people being arrested based on how the person is dressed, where they are standing/walking, whether they are carrying money, and who they are associating with or talking to.”

“That doesn’t help anything,” Yohnka said.

Chicago’s initial crackdown against street-corner gang activity in 1992 resulted in more than 42,000 arrests in three years before a string of adverse court decisions forced the city to suspend enforcement in December 1995.

During the summer of 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed the ordinance was too vague but gave the city a legal road map to rewrite the law so it might pass constitutional muster.

Then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Law Department followed it to the letter.

In 2000, Daley was shouted down by protesters concerned about police “sweeps” as he took the wraps off a watered down anti-gang loitering ordinance tailor-made to satisfy the nation’s highest court.

The city’s decision to clearly define “gang and narcotics loitering” and limit enforcement to designated “hot spots” identified by police and neighborhood residents was not enough to satisfy civil libertarians.

They questioned what good designated “hot spots” would do if there were no signs posted on street corners to warn people ahead of time.

“Take the language of the ordinance and superimpose it on the reality of Chicago-style law enforcement. This is giving tactical officers carte blanche to sweep the streets . . . and drag in non-gang members,” said Harvey Grossman, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said on that day.

The City Council ultimately approved the watered-down ordinance amid warnings from a divided Black Caucus that it would “legalize racial profiling.”

Four African-American women — Dorothy Tillman (3rd), Toni Preckwinkle (4th), Leslie Hairston (5th) and Freddrenna Lyle (6th) — united in opposition to a measure they called a “racist” attempt to sweep up the innocent with the guilty. Ald. Helen Shiller (46th) joined them in the 44-5 vote.

“This law is anti-black. . . . It’s inhumane,” Tillman said on that day.

Hairston agreed, declaring she “can’t support something that legalizes racial profiling and redlining.”

Fifteen other African-American aldermen argued with equal passion that it was time to stand up for senior citizens “incarcerated in their homes,” and children who cannot play on streets overrun by gang members and dope dealers.

“Brothers in prison own those corners. They rent the corners out to other drug dealers. They pay a piece of that drug money so . . . your kids can’t walk down the street. . . . This is a shame. This is ridiculous. People in our community want relief,” Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) said then.