AUGUSTA, Maine — Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill into law Monday that will partially decriminalize prostitution in Maine.
The bill from Rep. Lois Reckitt, D-South Portland, eliminates Maine’s Class E misdemeanor of engaging in prostitution. At the same time, it elevates the crime of soliciting sex from a child or person with a mental disability from a misdemeanor to a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
The support of Mills, a former attorney general and prosecutor, is somewhat of a surprise given that she vetoed a similar bill from Reckitt in 2021 over fears traffickers would use decriminalization to entice more into their trade. The governor’s office confirmed that Mills signed the bill Monday, but it did not provide additional comments on her rationale.
Reckitt said she worked on this year’s measure with numerous survivors of human trafficking and that other countries have seen success with partial decriminalization, also referred to as the “Nordic model” or “entrapment model,” among other terms.
Both groups on the left and right opposed Reckitt’s bill, with Republicans mostly voting against it in the Legislature. The Maine Women’s Lobby, a progressive group that Reckitt co-founded in the 1970s, wanted her bill to also decriminalize the buying of sex. Conservatives argued it would lead to more prostitution and trafficking in the state.
Decriminalize Sex Work, a nonprofit in favor of full decriminalization, said Reckitt’s bill and others like it “are misguided and misinformed, driven by harmful and stigmatizing ideology and the false promise that they will abolish the sex industry,” spokesperson Ariela Moscowitz said.
“Enacting this law will cause real harm to Maine’s most marginalized individuals,” Moscowitz said.
But Reckitt said Monday she looks forward to the next steps now that Mills has signed her bill, including sealing the records of women previously convicted of engaging in prostitution and providing more resources to trafficking victims.
“It’s the responsible, effective way to help the sex trade’s most vulnerable,” Reckitt said of her bill. “And I hope it impresses upon Maine’s citizens that buying another human being is a criminal being in Maine and has been so for some time.”