Black people, indigenous people, and people of color are targeted by police more often than white people for low-level crimes such as drug possession or loitering. The same is true for sex work. Black women, indigenous women and other women of color are targeted, harassed, and arrested for prostitution crimes at much higher rates than their white co-workers (The Equi Institute).
The current policing and criminalization of Black people, indigenous people, migrants, and people who do not conform to gender “norms,” are part of a legacy of using state violence and penal laws to control identities and behaviors that threaten white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.  The criminalization of sex work is part of criminalizing poverty in this country.  The decriminalization of adult consensual sex work is linked directly to the decriminalization of the sale, purchase and possession of marijuana, performance enhancing supplements and many other things that are victimless “crimes,” and that always disproportionately target Black and indigenous people.