"But your Honor, she's a Whore": Make it an Aggravator, not a Defense

In 2019, a Fairbanks prosecutor offered a man accused of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a minor a plea that amounted to not much more than time served, saying his defense would be that the minor victim was a prostitute. Winfred Hipp's original charges carried a sentence of 40 years to life, but he is scheduled to be released in May of this year.

We are asking our Alaskan legislators to disallow using a victim's status as a sex worker or sex trafficking victim as a defense, and to make it an aggravator (a longer sentence) if the victim of a crime was a sex worker or sex trafficking victim.