DENVER — A bill introduced in the Colorado Senate on Feb. 11 would eliminate all criminal penalties for prostitution, solicitation, and patronizing between consenting adults — making Colorado the first state in the nation to fully decriminalize sex work.
Senate Bill 26-097, sponsored by Sens. Nick Hinrichsen and Lisa Cutter and Reps. Lorena Garcia and Rebekah Stewart — all Democrats — would repeal six offenses from the state criminal code while preserving felony penalties for pimping, coercion-based pandering, human trafficking, and all offenses involving minors.
The bill has been assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which holds a 5-2 Democratic majority. No hearing date has been scheduled.
It arrives in a legislative session already consumed by a parallel debate over how Colorado handles child sex trafficking — and amid data showing the state’s trafficking problem is getting worse, not better.
SB 26-097 would repeal criminal penalties for prostitution, soliciting for prostitution, keeping a place of prostitution, patronizing a prostitute, prostitute making display, and a subset of pandering involving the knowing arrangement of consensual adult activity.
It would preserve pimping as a Class 3 felony carrying up to 12 years in prison. Pandering involving menacing or criminal intimidation would remain a Class 5 felony. The bill does not touch Colorado’s human trafficking statutes — including trafficking for sexual servitude and trafficking of a minor for sexual servitude — or the state’s sexual exploitation of a child laws.
Commercial sexual activity would remain illegal for anyone under 18. The bill adds explicit protections for minors: trafficking victims under 18 would receive immunity from criminal liability or juvenile delinquency proceedings, and law enforcement encountering a minor whose conduct suggests trafficking would be required to immediately report it.
The bill also declares sex work regulation a “statewide concern,” preempting all local ordinances. And it would allow individuals with prior convictions for the repealed offenses to petition to have their records sealed.
“I don’t think this is something that we should shy away from because it’s uncomfortable,” Hinrichsen told The Colorado Sun. “I am convinced that the outcomes for individuals who are involved in sex work are really harmful.”
The policy debate is unfolding against a backdrop of worsening trafficking numbers in Colorado — numbers that are particularly stark when it comes to children.
An analysis of FBI and CBI data by Mitch Morrissey, former Denver District Attorney and Owens Early Criminal Justice Fellow at Common Sense Institute, found that Colorado ranked 13th nationally with 88 reported trafficking incidents in 2024. Seventy-nine percent of those cases involved sex trafficking.
Morrissey’s analysis of the underlying law enforcement data found that roughly two-thirds of trafficking victims identified through criminal cases were minors, and that 60% of all trafficking victims since 2008 were children — some under age 10. In 2023, the FBI and CBI recorded 113 trafficking cases statewide, a record. Victim counts increased 63% during the 2020s compared to the late 2010s.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline, which tracks a different data stream based on calls, texts, and tips rather than law enforcement cases, reported 185 cases in Colorado in 2024 — a 123% increase from 83 cases in 2015. Of 318 identified victims in the hotline data, 40 — about 12.6% — were minors.
The gap between the two data sources is significant. Law enforcement case data, which Morrissey analyzed, may skew toward minors because agencies prioritize cases involving children. Hotline data captures a broader cross-section of contacts, including labor trafficking and self-reported cases. Both paint a picture of a problem that is growing, but they disagree on the proportion of child victims — a central point of contention in the decriminalization debate.
In July 2023, the FBI and state agencies rescued 27 trafficking victims in a two-day operation across Colorado. Eight were minors, including a 16-year-old who had been trafficked by her father in exchange for drugs.
Of 86 people convicted of soliciting sex from a child in Colorado between fiscal years 2022 and 2025, only 20 received prison sentences, according to Denver7.
Supporters argue that criminalization is itself a driver of trafficking and violence — that punishing sex workers makes them less safe, not more.
The core harm-reduction argument: when sex workers face arrest for their own activity, they cannot report violence, exploitation, or trafficking to police without risking prosecution. Decriminalization, advocates say, would bring sex work out of the shadows and make it easier for workers to identify and report trafficking — including of minors.
The ACLU of Colorado is listed as supporting SB 26-097. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both support full decriminalization globally. Freedom Network USA, the largest anti-trafficking coalition in the United States, has formally endorsed decriminalization as a strategy to reduce trafficker power over victims.
The American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics published research in 2017 arguing that criminalization creates a “climate of impunity” that enhances vulnerability to trafficking.
Supporters point to two data sets. New Zealand, which fully decriminalized sex work in 2003, saw no reported increase in trafficking in the years that followed. And a study by researchers at UCLA and Baylor University examining Rhode Island’s accidental indoor decriminalization from 2003 to 2009 found that reported rapes fell 31% and gonorrhea cases declined 39% during the period. The study’s authors cautioned that their findings have “internal validity but not necessarily external validity” — meaning they may not generalize to other policy contexts — and the study could not measure effects on trafficking due to data limitations.
Supporters also note that Colorado’s current approach is failing on its own terms. Despite full criminalization, trafficking cases have grown 123% since 2015 and child victim identification has not improved. “Sex workers deserve clarity and certainty that they can safely conduct business within the state, regardless of the local governing authority,” the bill’s sponsors wrote in the legislation, according to Westword.
A key distinction from prior decriminalization efforts: SB 26-097 preserves pimping as a Class 3 felony. The Washington, D.C. decriminalization bill that drew opposition from Polaris Project — the nation’s leading anti-trafficking organization — would have legalized pimping. Colorado’s bill does not.
Opponents argue that expanding the legal market for sex work will expand trafficking — and that the data on child victims makes the gamble unconscionable.
A 2013 study published in World Development by researchers at Harvard and the London School of Economics, analyzing more than 100 countries, found that the “scale effect” of legalization dominated the “substitution effect” — countries that legalized prostitution had larger reported trafficking inflows. The researchers noted that higher reported trafficking may partly reflect better detection rather than more actual trafficking, but concluded the overall effect pointed toward expansion.
Polaris Project, which operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline, supports decriminalizing people who sell sex but opposes full decriminalization that includes buyers and third parties. CEO Bradley Myles cited more than 200 trafficking survivors who opposed the D.C. bill, warning that if brothels become legal, police lose cause to enter venues where trafficking occurs. The Colorado bill’s preservation of pimping penalties addresses one of Polaris’s concerns but not the broader worry about reduced law enforcement access.
Shared Hope International, citing hundreds of survivors, argues that legislation “to decriminalize the purchase and sale of another for sex will perpetuate and normalize harm, especially to youth.” The organization advocates the Nordic or Equality Model — decriminalizing sellers while continuing to criminalize buyers and profiteers.
Critics also point to what would be lost. Repealing “keeping a place of prostitution” would eliminate an early intervention tool that law enforcement uses to investigate problem properties. Removing buyer-side criminal exposure would reduce leverage to investigate trafficking networks. And prostitution arrests, opponents argue, currently serve as contact points to identify minor trafficking victims who may not self-report.
New Zealand’s experience, while cited by supporters, carries caveats. Post-decriminalization studies found that 9.3% of sex workers entered the trade at ages 16 or 17, with another 9% entering before age 16. The U.S. State Department noted in 2021 that New Zealand had convicted child sex trafficking offenders but failed to identify the victims as trafficking victims. Gang members and family members continued exploiting children.
The preemption clause draws particular opposition from local government advocates. By declaring sex work a “statewide concern,” the bill would strip municipalities of the authority to regulate it through local ordinances. Towns including Fountain, Monument, and Woodland Park have expressed opposition, and policy analyst Scott K. James has called the measure a “statewide power grab — not genuine deregulation but statewide social policy backed by statewide preemption.”
For opponents, the through-line is the data on children. In a state where Morrissey’s analysis of law enforcement data shows roughly two-thirds of trafficking victims in criminal cases are minors — and where the problem is growing, not shrinking — expanding the legal market is a risk they say Colorado cannot afford to take.
SB 26-097 is not arriving in a vacuum. It is entering a legislature simultaneously wrestling with what to do about child sex trafficking — with sharply different outcomes depending on the bill.
On Feb. 10, 2026, the House Judiciary Committee voted 7-4 along party lines to kill HB 26-1082, the “Children Are Not for Sale Act,” which would have made child sex trafficking a Class 1 felony punishable by life without parole. Democrats opposed the bill, citing concerns about mandatory life sentences and judicial discretion. The ACLU warned it could affect trafficking victims themselves.
It was the second consecutive year a child trafficking penalty bill died along party lines. In 2024, HB 24-1092 — which proposed mandatory minimum sentences for child sex trafficking — was killed 8-3 in the House State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. More than 50 witnesses testified in favor, including trafficking survivors. Three opposed.
A narrower bill, SB 26-015, is advancing. The bipartisan measure — sponsored by Republican Sen. Byron Pelton and Democratic Sen. Dylan Roberts — would impose mandatory four-year minimum prison sentences for child sex trafficking offenses. It advanced 6-1 from the Senate Judiciary Committee to Appropriations on Feb. 11, the same day SB 26-097 was introduced. The fiscal note estimates a cost of $17 million over five years, reflecting an anticipated 25 additional prison sentences per year.
Survivor testimony has been a feature of the companion debate. Camryn Finnigsmier, a trafficking survivor, told CBS Colorado that “trafficking continues because there are virtually no consequences for those who seek out to buy children for sex.” Rebecca Layton, a survivor who opposed mandatory minimums, said that “under this bill, many would continue to be charged with the very acts they were coerced into.”
Gov. Polis has not taken a position on SB 26-097. His office told The Colorado Sun it would “monitor the measure.” Hinrichsen acknowledged that Polis “could be a hurdle,” telling the Sun, “I’ve opened up conversations with the governor — haven’t gotten any solid answers yet.”
Attorney General Weiser has also remained silent.
SB 26-097 awaits a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. No date has been set. If approved by the committee, it would move to the full Senate, then to the House, where it would need to clear its own committee before a floor vote. If enacted, the bill would take effect approximately 90 days after the legislature adjourns — around Aug. 12, 2026.
Meanwhile, SB 26-015 continues through the appropriations process, and the defeat of HB 26-1082 leaves an open question about whether Colorado will strengthen its penalties for child trafficking in the same session it considers weakening the criminal framework around the adult sex trade.
No Colorado law enforcement agency has issued a public statement on SB 26-097. No major anti-trafficking organization has released a statement specific to the bill. It has been four days since introduction.
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