Busting the John Instead of the Hooker - Good Policy or Potential Disaster?

[Foxfyre]

Seems to me that Nevada probably has the right approach. Legalize and regulate it including mandatory periodic health exams for the working girls, etc. I suspect that doesn't stop gals who can't get hired by a legal brothel selling her wares on the cheap on the side though, and there are no doubt guys willing to pay the cheaper amount for a 'quickie' but the law can deal with that in the same way they deal with any other business that's operating without a license or otherwise illegally.

I imagine those who can afford it and are inclined to purchase that kind of service would choose the regulated and health inspected brothel rather than take a chance on an unknown.

So what are the laws and penalties for folks who knowingly buy other kinds of illegal merchandise, i.e. stolen cigarettes, guns, jewelry, television sets? Who pirate music and videos? Are they fined? Jailed?'

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Prostitution seems to cause a host of problems around it. As it general rule, it seems that when you want to end a market, it is more effective to remove the customer from the equation than the supplier.

The drug market is a great example of this. As long as the customer base is constant, the supply will come in. No mater what the interdiction methods.

The Reagan policy on cocaine and the Kennedy Johnson policy on opium derivatives caused problems way beyond just the enforcement on the streets, and hurt US foreign policy.

Make it expensive for the johns, the hookers will go away. There are always more hookers, but the supply has to meet the demand. Reduce the demand, you reduce the supply.

This is what the "Freakonomics" guys say. Don't know, but I'm intrigued by the contrariness of it.

I'll tell you something that may surprise some on the board, but the reason they don't hit drug BUYERS or sex BUYERS too hard is that yes, many of them are white (drugs) or white men (sex). Police and prosecutors and judges just have a little bit of a harder time seeing "one of their own" suffer too much, so, they lay off.

I would only disagree about the race part of it. Justice is more income based than race based. Or course, since minorities are generally lower income, it amounts to the same thing.

There was a time the local NBA team seemed to have most of the players on probation for one thing or another. If they hadn't been millionaires, most of them would have been doing time.

 

[MikeK]

I also resist your underlying assumption that prostitution is a victimless crime and hurts nobody. It certainly hurts the neighborhood that gets turned over to pimps and whores.

If prostitution were legal and controlled there would be no need for the kind of activity which negatively affects neighborhoods.

It hurts the women who are forced into it, or forced to remain in it.

These are serious crimes and would be prosecuted whether prostitution is legal or illegal. The major difference is this kind of criminal activity is much easier to control when prostitution is legal because prostitutes are entitled to protection from it.

It hurts the sex partners of men who use whores, and infect them with everything from AIDS to herpes.

It is a well established fact that in places where prostitution is legal and controlled the STD rate is significantly reduced.

It hurts the children and loved ones of the whores.

In situations where children and loved ones of a prostitute are negatively affected the same circumstances will exist whether prostitution is legal or illegal. In situations where it is legal there is much greater latitude for social services intervention

 

[MikeK]

Seems to me that Nevada probably has the right approach. Legalize and regulate it including mandatory periodic health exams for the working girls, etc. I suspect that doesn't stop gals who can't get hired by a legal brothel selling her wares on the cheap on the side though, and there are no doubt guys willing to pay the cheaper amount for a 'quickie' but the law can deal with that in the same way they deal with any other business that's operating without a license or otherwise illegally.

I imagine those who can afford it and are inclined to purchase that kind of service would choose the regulated and health inspected brothel rather than take a chance on an unknown.

So what are the laws and penalties for folks who knowingly buy other kinds of illegal merchandise, i.e. stolen cigarettes, guns, jewelry, television sets? Who pirate music and videos? Are they fined? Jailed?'

When I was stationed on Japan and Okinawa (in the mid-50s) all of the bars in the liberty towns were brothels which were licensed and diligently monitored by the Far East Occupation Command. All of the girls were tested for VD on a weekly basis and were required to display their approval certificates in their rooms, which were randomly inspected for cleanliness by Navy nurses who had MP authority.

I'd heard about girls ("boonie bitches") who did business outside those protected environments but I never knew anyone who was foolish enough and self-destructive enough to patronize those potential disease-carriers when there was absolutely no good reason to do so. The very fact that those girls weren't working in a certified house almost certainly meant they couldn't get medically certified.

Bottom line is I left the Far East after eighteen months of (frequently) patronizing those approved brothels and I never caught so much as a single crab -- nor did any of my whoring buddies.

 

[William Joyce]

I generally support laws outlawing prostitution, horndog that I am. Disease-spreading is a real harm. But so is the simple social fabric tearing of this practice. I realize it's probably going to be found in every society, and I don't suggest the death penalty for it. But keeping it in tight check by making it illegal and doing the occasional law enforcement sting is a good thing.

I'll bet you don't believe that legalizing and controlling prostitution is the surest way to reduce the spread of STDs.

Right?

No, but it does give some "actual harm" teeth to what is otherwise a more moralistic law.

 

[Zander]

Why bust either? What happens between two consenting adults is really none of the states business.