Kansas bans cops from having sex with people they are arresting
Kansas, last week, became the 18th state in the United States to pass a law, making it illegal for police officials to have sex on the job, particularly with the people in their custody, according to reports.
Kansas Governor Jeff Coyler signed the Bill into a law last week which forbids police officers in the state from having sexual intercourse with someone during work hours, for example, at a traffic stop, while interrogating someone into custody or during an interview in a criminal investigation.
Representative Cindy Holscher, while talking to Wichita Eagle, said that she had introduced the Bill after reports of multiple sexual abuse allegations emerged in a police investigation into a wrongful murder conviction, reports state.
According to the affidavits in the particular case, a white homicide detective, Roger Golubski, who is now retired, allegedly threatened to arrest black women and their family members repeatedly unless they agreed to have sex with him.
The Democratic Texas representative told Eagle that a particular New York City case also spurred her to introduce the bill. She said that two New York Police Department (NYPD) officers allegedly raped an 18-year-old woman in their police van after arresting her on marijuana charges.
The rape kit reportedly matched both the officers' DNA, however, they claimed that the sex was consensual. The particular case is still ongoing and the judge in the case has declined to drop charges against the officer, reports state.
A report, released by Buzzfeed, in February, highlighted certain legal loopholes in at least 35 states in America which allow law enforcement officers to have sexual intercourse with the people in their custody.
Holscher, in a written testimony submitted to Kansas’ Juvenile Justice and Corrections Committee, said: "While the current laws in Kansas prohibit sexual relations between law enforcement and individuals in jails, etc., the law does not protect persons who are detained, or say, stopped in their neighborhoods."
"Of course, most of our police officers work every day to serve and protect our communities. But we do have to protect our citizens from the ‘bad apples’ in the batch," the Texas Representative added.
Although state legislation generally prohibits sex between other law enforcement officers like prison guards and inmates, most of the states in the country do not have specific language in the laws to address sexual relations between police officers and people in their custody, according to reports.
However, ever since the NYPD case garnered nationwide attention, lawmakers in multiple countries are introducing bills to close the loopholes in their legislation. The latest states who have moved to introduce such laws include New York, Kansas, Georgia and Maryland and others.