Prostitution in Rhode Island

Prostitution in Rhode Island was outlawed in 2009. On November 3, 2009, Governor Donald Carcieri signed into law a bill which makes the buying and selling of sexual services a crime.

Prostitution was legal in Rhode Island between 1980 and 2009 because there was no specific statute to define the act and outlaw it, although associated activities were illegal, such as street solicitation, running a brothel, and pimping. With the passing of the new law, Nevada is the only US state which allows legal prostitution.

Exchanging sex for money is illegal, for both the prostitute and the customer, and is classified as a misdemeanor.

The law makes selling sexual services a misdemeanor crime punishable with a fine of $250 to $1,000, or up to six months in prison, or both for first offenders. The legislation includes a provision that empowers judges to erase any record of charges of convicted prostitutes after one year. Multiple offenders face a fine of $500 to $1,000, or up to a year in prison, or both.

Customers face a fine of $250 to $1,000, or up to a year in prison, or both, for first offenders, and a fine of $500 to $1,000, or up to a year in prison, or both, for multiple offenders. The law offers no provision to allow a judge to expunge the record of the customers. The crime is also classified as a misdemeanor.

Landlords who knowingly profit from prostitution on their property also face fines of $2,000 to $5,000, and one to five years in prison for first offenses. Multiple offenders face fines of $5,000 to $10,000, and 3 to 10 years in prison.

Prostitution was decriminalized in Rhode Island in 1980, when the prostitution laws were amended, reducing prostitution from a felony to a misdemeanor. The drafters of the law deleted the section that addressed committing the act of prostitution itself, and only street solicitation remained illegal. Prostitution remained legal in the state until November 2009, when it was outlawed again.

It has been argued that the lawmakers who amended the Rhode Island prostitution laws in 1980 had decriminalized indoor prostitution by mistake, without realizing that the new laws were creating a "loophole." Rhode Island State Senator John F. McBurney III was the only member of the General Assembly at the time of the 2009 vote who had served in 1980. He stated in 2009, "We probably vote on 500 bills a year (...) They didn’t know what they were voting for." John C. Revens Jr. is a former Senate Majority leader and a lawyer who served in the General Assembly for nearly four decades. He agreed, “They would never sponsor a bill decriminalizing prostitution if they knew what it was. No way. Not in a million years.”

...
Wikipedia