Fierro votes 'no' on indoor prostitution bill

WOONSOCKET - As a husband and father of two daughters, state Rep. Christopher M. Fierro says he's adamantly opposed to prostitution, regardless of its form.

But the first-term Democrat from District 51 also emphasizes he's equally adamant against bad legislation.

So when the time came for Fierro to cast his vote on a bill to close a legal loophole allowing prostitutes to ply their trade indoors, the freshman legislator concedes he faced a dilemma.

He had to choose between making, what he considered, was a politically popular choice or casting his vote for what he believed was right, Fierro says of the struggle raging within him as he weighed his vote.

He chose the latter.

Although passed in the General Assembly last week, Fierro, nevertheless, voted against legislation making prostitution a misdemeanor offense regardless of where it occurs.

Under the legislation, prostitutes face a maximum six-month prison sentence for a first offense, while prostitutes convicted of a subsequent offense and customers face up to a year in jail.

State lawmakers inadvertently legalized indoor prostitution in 1980 when they passed a law targeting prostitutes and their customers operating in public as part of an attempted crack down on rampant outdoor solicitations in a Providence neighborhood.

But the statute did not address indoor prostitution, making Rhode Island the only place outside Nevada where this practice is legal.

Fierro said he turned thumbs down on the legislation because he believed the bill was flawed and did not adequately address the issue of legalized indoor prostitution.

"I don't think it was well thought out," he said of the legislation.

Fierro also found the economic impact of the bill, especially with state finances in shambles, onerous.

Sending prostitutes to prison for six months would cost the state $25,000 each and $50,000 each for a one-year term, as called for in the bill, Fierro said, which the state cannot afford in its current dismal financial condition.

"I support the ban against indoor prostitution wholeheartedly, but I don't support sending people to jail at $50,000 for prostitution-related offenses," Fierro said in explaining his vote.

"This (jail time) is not the way to fix it," he said about closing the legal indoor prostitution loophole.

Sending more individuals to prison at a time when "we're trying to reduce the population at the ACI" is irresponsible, Fierro said.

The state legislator said it was unpalatable to him to have to tell his constituents they would have to do with less state aid while, simultaneously, raising taxpayers' costs by putting more people in prison.

Fierro said he became increasingly frustrated during the bill's debate because "no one wanted to talk about the mechanics of the bill."

"I would've liked to have seen a compromise," he said.

One alternative the General Assembly could have weighed, Fierro said, would be offering job or some other skill training to arrested prostitutes instead of prison.

No prostitute should be sent to jail before that individual is afforded "another avenue out of that type of life," he said in explaining his position.

Furthermore, sending prostitutes to prison is counterproductive, Fierro continued, because prostitution has a high rate of recidivism.

Fierro admits he agonized over his decision to reject the legislation.

"It's not a vote I took lightly," he said.

When the House version of the bill came up last spring, Fierro said he supported the measure.

But the more he pondered his decision, the more "it weighed on me heavily," he said.

As a result, after careful reconsideration, Fierro said he decided to reject the bill when he got a second chance to vote on it.