Breckinridge and the Chicago Morals Court: A Step Towards Justice for Sex Workers

           Beginning in the 1870s, an international anti-prostitution movement swept Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Abolitionists fought against any proposed legislature to regulate brothels or improve the health of sex workers (Jabour, 143). However, as the Progressive Era ended, these efforts had resulted in legal policies that neither ended prostitution nor helped prostitutes. These new policies allowed legal prosecution and police harassment of prostitutes (Jabour, 144).

The Chicago Morals Court was formed to deal with “vice cases,” e.g. minor city ordinance violations, adultery, and streetwalking, but primarily prostitution. Journalists praised the court for using “socialized justice” ideals that took into account the conditions of the suspects’ lives which led them to crime, such as their class status (Jabour, 144).

However, the execution of this “socialized justice” was lacking. Suspected sex workers were often forced to submit to pelvic examinations to check for venereal disease and sent to “lock hospitals” for long and torturous treatments. This forced treatment was most often applied to African American women, whose neighborhoods were targeted at the highest rates (Jabour, 145). Corruption abounded in the 1920s. Often, plainclothes officers drove through "the vice district, invited women on the streets into the car, then threatened them with arrest if they did not provide money, sex, or both" (Jabour, 165). If you were a sex worker in early 20th century Chicago, the criminal justice system was a significant danger to you.

Chicago feminists, some of whom advocated for the formation of the Morals Courts in the first place, unsuccessfully demanded reforms during the 1920s (Jabour, 145). When feminist and social work professor Sophonisba Breckinridge became the chair of the Citizen’s Committee on Social Work in the Municipal Court in 1930, she was able to lead and implement a feminist reform of the Morals Court.

Breckinridge's first priority in the Morals Court was "the protection of the constitutional rights of the accused," including prompt booking, the opportunity to post bail, the abolition of pre-trial examinations, a record of courtroom proceedings, and legal counsel. Next she insisted that defendants should receive social services, including housing assistance, medical care, and vocational training. Finally, she suggested eliminating fines for prostitution, abandoning the use of plainclothes police, and offering probation more frequently. These changes collectively would both secure the civil rights of female defendants and advance the goals of socialized justice, providing women offenders with "constructive service" rather than "harsh punishment (Jabour, 147).

            Clearly, Breckinridge brought something new and important to the table. She actually cared about the sex workers' rights and well-beings, rather than fussing over the morality or the sinfulness of the work. Targeting instead the morality of the court system was the key step towards justice for sex workers.
            Breckinridge worked alongside civil rights lawyer Pearl Hart to expose corruption in the justice system and violations of suspected sex workers' rights (Jabour, 147). Women could be held in jail for a night or longer and forced to have a pelvic exam on an "open charge," i.e. a charge without enough evidence to be legitimately charged of a crime. Judges would opt to send some to the "lock hospital," which was essentially still a prison, to protect the public from the spread of venereal disease (Jabour, 148). Breckinridge protested the way that pelvic examinations were done to almost exclusively women, arguing, "Since it is common knowledge that venereal disease attacks males as well as females, is not the Health Department derelict in its duty . . . when it makes no attempt to examine men?" (Jabour, 149).
            Hart objected to the Court's pattern allowing male suspects involved with prostitution to be discharged while prosecuting such a high number of women. The Assistant State's Attorney at the time explained away this phenomenon using the logic "that the woman should be fined because she engages in the act 'commercially' while 'the man does it for pleasure only.'"  (Jabour, 150). Unsurprisingly, the pattern of arresting and charging high numbers of women compared to men for prostitution, especially black women, is still a problem today. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 43,190 women and 19,480 men were arrested under charges of prostitution in 2010.  33,990 of those arrested were Caucasian, and 26,590 were African American (Snyder, 2). African Americans were arrested at a disproportionately high rate compared to whites, as the white population in the U.S. is roughly 5 to 6 times as large as the black population (2010 Census Data). (Note: data from Snyder was not collected at the intersection of race and gender, so I was unable to find out specifically how many black women were arrested for prostitution.)
            Breckinridge and Hart worked together to persuade police and legal officials that mandatory, invasive medical examinations violated Illinois state's Bill of Rights, which stated that people could not be forced to give evidence against themselves (Jabour, 152).  The Chicago Police Department issued General Order #113 in February 1932, based on a draft by Breckinridge and Hart, which stated:

"Hereafter, in all cases where women are arrested to be brought before the Morals Court, whether under Municipal Ordinances or under any section of the Criminal Code, said women defendants shall be booked and allowed to give bail immediately as in all other cases. All orders heretofore issued that such defendants shall be held for the Health Department for medical examination, are hereby revoked, and are no longer in force or effect" (Jabour, 153).

          After the elimination of mandatory examinations, Breckinridge continued to work for reform in the Morals Court, which was renamed the Women's Court in 1932 (Jabour, 154). Instead of viewing prostitution as religious or moral issue, she believed prostitution should be considered from a social work perspective. She ensured that appointed court social workers were well-educated and had "a knowledge of the community resources, a real respect for the client, and a capacity to deal frankly and sympathetically with the sitting judge" (Jabour, 155).
          In 2010, a writer for the University of Pennsylvania Law Review called for "a response to sex trafficking Chicago style," referring to the changes made in the Morals Court towards establishing justice for sex workers (Jabour, 157). What I love about Breckinridge's work is that it prioritized sex workers' civil rights in a world positioned to treat sex workers as less than human. While Breckinridge did hope to abolish the sex trade entirely, she recognized that Chicago's abolitionist policies were wildly unsuccessful and only worked to oppress sex workers further. If we try to view sex work from a "sex-neutral" feminist standpoint, considering Breckinridge's actions is an excellent place to start.

Works Cited

"2010 Census Data." 2010 Census. U.S. Census Bureau. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.

Jabour, Anya. "Prostitution Politics and Feminist Activism in Modern America: Sophonisba Breckinridge and the Morals Court in Prohibition-Era Chicago." Journal of Women's History 25.3 (2013): 141-64. Women's Studies International [EBSCO]. Web. 7 Mar. 2016.

Snyder, Howard. Arrest in the United States, 1990-2010. Rep. no. NCJ 239423. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2012. Print.