Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement

by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

At first sex workers didn’t trust us because they didn’t feel comfortable with surveillance and worried it would scare off clients. But eventually they began to trust us more and preferred to screen out known abusers even if they couldn’t call police. Sex workers would let their clients see that they had surveillance to deter problems. If we had video of an aggressor, we’d take a shot of his face and make a poster and share it with everyone. If the aggressor was spotted in the neighborhood, we’d follow the guy, get a picture, and send to others. We wanted them to feel watched and afraid of getting charged with possession of weapons and stolen goods. We used our position as a “social service organization” to negotiate with police. The sex workers couldn’t call police, but we could call and report someone with a weapon. We arranged with police so that sex workers could make a collective complaint without identifying themselves and giving their work addresses. Sex workers would call the organization in front of the client and pretend that they were calling their boss. We would be the workers’ safe call. We would wait for their call at the end of the service and if they didn’t call us back, we would contact a friend of the workers (pre-arranged) who would go to their workplace to check on them.