Should Prostitution Be Legalized?

[Mint]

No, but not for moral reasons. Pretty much all the research I've come across points towards legalization being a failure. There has been no significant decrease at all in terms of trafficking in countries like australia or the netherlands, actually the opposite. I do think that putting women in jail for prostitution is asinine though.

[Mint]

I'm with BRTD on this one, make it legal, but keep busting streetwalkers.  There should be some regulation there, but I'd prefer if it was above the board SELF regulated like doctors and electricians not state regulated like teachers and pilots.

Eh, I'm not so sure this would regulate itself very well.  Too much power in the pimps.  Doctors and electricians are more independent while prostitutes are often controlled.  Of course, there could just be safety measures in place to make sure abuse doesn't happen and safety is kept a priority.  Amsterdam has some good lessons to be learned as does Nevada.

 Out of all Amsterdam's 8,000 to 11,000 prostitutes, more than 75% are from Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia according to a former prostitute who produced a report about the sex trade in Amsterdam, in 2008. Le Monde in 1997 found that 80% of prostitutes in the Netherlands were foreigners and 70% had no immigration papers. Recent reports in general indicate that the problem has worsened, not improved and the same has been found in countries like Australia too. Why? Because the number of native girls who want to enter the trade and go through the hassle of registration are small and the demand is high. Now admittedly, it might be less of a problem if we had much stronger border control, but...

[Mint]

You know I meant immigration enforcement in general.

[Mint]

I said stronger, that doesn't mean simply cracking down on the immigrants or migrants. You could implement new measures like much tougher sentencing for corruption, streamline the application process for visas (if people meet requirements), etc. Although I think more people patrolling and speedy enforcement would certainly help stem a lot of it, especially in the states.

Anyway yeah, ignore whatever I said earlier I'm just frustrated lately.

[Mint]

No, but not for moral reasons. Pretty much all the research I've come across points towards legalization being a failure. There has been no significant decrease at all in terms of trafficking in countries like australia or the netherlands, actually the opposite. I do think that putting women in jail for prostitution is asinine though.

Should people like Eliot Spitzer also go to jail? Should there be sting operations against high class escorts who obviously aren't like that?

(Yes I know he didn't, but that's because the burden of proof for such a case is extremely high and anyone needs to be basically caught in the act. Even if he was he still obviously wasn't dealing with trafficking victims.)

Anyway the law like in Canada would solve all this...

Spitzer should be in prison because of his position, but I don't think it makes sense to put prostitutes in jail. At most have some sort of treatment or relocation program depending on circumstances. My main problem with this is honestly how it's worked in practice in areas that have legalized it (re: large black market still). Give me counter examples and maybe I'll change my mind.

[Mint]

Mint, you've explained that legalization has not solved problems associated with prostitution.....but how is that an argument against legalization per se?

If people are going to make claims regarding harm reduction and how regulating and licensing brothels will reduce organized crime, then we should be examining the actual effects on nations that have done so. I see nothing good to have come out of the areas where it's been legalized other than perhaps less transmission of disease (and only the prostitutes are tested, not clients).

Even putting aside the issue of trafficking, Amsterdam is actually attempting to scale back their red light district because of the negative impact it's had on their economy and reputation. In the areas where prostitution is legal in Nevada, it too is not seen positively (in fact the ban on advertising for those services was only recently lifted) and many sources maintain that pimping is a serious problem in a lot of these supposedly safe and humane brothels (e.g. Alexa Albert; Oregon police - and that's just the stuff you can find on wikipedia I'm sure I could get plenty of other studies from my texts if I was inclined to).