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Post by dianaholberg on Mar 27, 2006 22:18:39 GMT -5
You have shon to be extremely adept at it, even though you must constantly create strawman in order to do so. What evidence? I have yet to see a shred of evidence presented by you. littlepea, of course I would read something. Not all of them though -- pick one or two that best relate to your argument. If you can't link them, please email them. I will tell you, though, that most of the reason we are not seeing eye to eye on this is that you have made it "all or nothing" as though there are not degrees to the seriousness of criminal infractions. I absolutely believe prostitution should be illegal and punished. Where mercy comes in is in the sentencing.
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Post by littlepea on Mar 28, 2006 7:30:43 GMT -5
ok, i'll e-mail you the ericsson and nussbaum articles first of all - except i can't do it just now cos i'm on my parents' computer (i can only access the resources from university library computers, but i also have copies that i e-mailed to myself on my computer in my flat, so i'll send them from there as soon as i can (probably tomorrow, though maybe later on tonight)).
as for evidence which indicates that it is the criminalisation of prostitution that causes the most problems (rather than some inescapable factor involved in prostitution itself) - not enough studies have been done to fully establish this is as a fact (i'll quote the opening paragraph of one of the articles i read next time i can, though i couldn't cite it since i didn't refer to it in my essay). it seems, however, that most of the authors of articles take it for granted.
i would guess that since there is so much debate over the issue then it is likely that no such hard evidence exists.
i am fully aware that some criminal offences are more serious than others and this is reflected both in the sentencing, the social stigma and even in the names of the offences (to a greater degree than you might originally think). but i think that the prostitute herself does not deserve to be punished, nor her clients (other than where they commit assault and rape etc.). i believe that most experts on the subject feel that the prostitute herself should not be punished, and if that is the basis of public policy (as it is in the UK and most western countries other than the USA) then it must be decriminalised, since the criminal restrictions currently in place effectively do punish the prostitute.
we're not talking about mercy here, we're talking about tolerance. you could attempt to justify keeping it a criminal offence and say "we'll leave it to the police to decide whether to arrest them or not, depending on the situation", but that is verging on the totalitarian and is contrary to the rule of law (separation of legislative, judiciary and executive powers).
i'd say the reason we are not seeing eye to eye is because i'm talking about the issue of legality and you're talking about the issue of whether it is right or wrong. if it is right, then it might as well be legal, but if it's wrong then there may be other reasons for legality.
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Post by dianaholberg on Mar 28, 2006 11:01:10 GMT -5
I thought it would be nice to see some actual evidence, since Polytheist is so keen on my ignoring what has not been presented. Sex for Drugs Data obtained from surveys of approximately 60 Chicago area substance abuse treatment programs indicate that 60-100% of their women clients have regularly exchanged sex for drugs or money. When this percentage is applied to females in state-funded drug treatment programs in Cook County, a minimum of 11,500 females are involved in prostitution. Some of this number is duplicated in data for street-level prostitution and some off-street venues, but it well exceeds the estimated amount of all the categories in this report. When the number of women who need but do not receive treatment in metropolitan Chicago is factored in, the number could greatly increase.
Total CIR finds that a total of 1,800-4,000 girls and women are involved in off and on-street prostitution activities in the Chicago metropolitan area. However, when the number of girls and women who are regularly exchanging sex for drugs (11,500) is added to this number, the total rises significantly. Although some of these women are included in earlier estimates, clearly the bulk are not. SOURCE(Suggests that there is no honest living being made here -- only an exchange of one illegal activity for another. Also explains the moral spiral -- sex for drugs, for reduced inhibition, for increased criminal activity.) Age of Entry The age at which respondents first exchanged sex for money ranged from four to 50 years. About one third of the women entered prostitution before the age of 15, and 62% of the sample started in prostitution before their 18th birthdays. Early starters, those women who began between the ages of 12 and 15, were more disadvantaged in a number of ways:
- Seventy-two percent of early starters ran away from home.
- Early starters were more likely to have used drugs or alcohol growing up.
- Only one-fourth of early starters had completed a high school education or GED.
- Early starters engaged in a greater number of different prostitution activities.
- Over half of the early starters grew up in a household with prostitution.
- Eighty-seven percent of early starters had someone suggest that they engage in prostitution while they were growing up.
[/u] [/li][li] Early starters reported a greater number of health problems at the time of the interview.[/li][/ul][/i][/blockquote] SOURCE(Suggests that your "tolerance" is a strong contributing factor to girls becoming prostitutes in the first place.) Violence Regardless of the type of prostitution activity, high percentages of women had experienced violence while engaged in prostitution from customers, pimps, intimate partners, managers, police officers, and neighbors.
- Women on the streets, in drug houses, and in hotels reported high rates of forced sex and physical violence, with almost one-fourth of women in drug houses being raped more than 10 times.
- Women in escort services and exotic dancing were also subjected to high rates of sexual and physical violence, with 21.4% of women in escort services being raped more than 10 times.
- Customers were most frequently identified as the perpetrators of violence, across all venues, followed by intimate partners, pimps, police officers, and neighborhood residents.
SOURCE(Suggests that littlepea is incorrect about brothels being some kind of "safe haven".) Sooo... what happens when prostitution is legalized? But the outcomes, as revealed in the Univ. of London study, in the states under review that had legalized or regulated prostitution were found to be just as discouraging or even more discouraging than the traditional all round criminalization. In each case the results were dramatic in the negative.
Legalization and/or regulation of prostitution, according to the study, led to :- A dramatic increase in all facets of the sex industry,
- A dramatic increase in the involvement of organized crime in the sex industry,
- A dramatic increase in child prostitution,
- An explosion in the number of foreign women and girls trafficked into the region, and
- Indications of an increase in violence against women.
In the state of Victoria, Australia, where a system of legalized, regulated brothels was established, there was such an explosion in the number of brothels that it immediately overwhelmed the system’s ability to regulate them, and just as quickly these brothels became a mire of organized crime, corruption, and related crimes. In addition, surveys of the prostitutes working under systems of legalization and regulation find that the prostitutes themselves continue to feel coerced, forced, and unsafe in the business.
A survey of legal prostitutes under the showcase Netherlands legalization policy finds that 79% say they want to get out of the sex business. And though each of the legalization/regulation programs promised help for prostitutes who want to leave prostitution, that help never materialized to any meaningful degree. In contrast, in Sweden the government followed through with ample social services funds to help those prostitutes who wanted to get out. 60% of the prostitutes in Sweden took advantage of the well funded programs and succeeded in exiting prostitution. SOURCEI'd say it is you who is ignoring the evidence.
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Post by dianaholberg on Mar 28, 2006 11:19:54 GMT -5
it seems, however, that most of the authors of articles take it for granted. i would guess that since there is so much debate over the issue then it is likely that no such hard evidence exists. A keen observation. It is a common trick of deception to take for granted what cannot be proved. This is why research is so important -- and I'm not talking about the kind that reads random articles. I'm talking about the kind that performs scientific analysis. No, that is not what I'm saying at all. They should be arrested. They should spend a night in jail. (Jail is probably preferable to where many of them normally spend their nights anyway.) They should receive instruction and sentencing from a judge. AND they should be offered assistance in leaving the sex business (and likely recovering from drugs). What they should NOT be given is a message that "it's okay to be a prostitute" and "it doesn't do any harm" and "it's just as valid a profession as any other". Those are flat out lies, and that is what is implied by decriminalization. With that statement I would agree. I have yet to see evidence supporting that statement with regard to prostitution.
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Post by littlepea on Mar 28, 2006 11:33:40 GMT -5
What they should NOT be given is a message that "it's okay to be a prostitute" and "it doesn't do any harm" and "it's just as valid a profession as any other". Those are flat out lies, and that is what is implied by decriminalization. not once have i advocated those messages - but how much of the problem can be attributed to the fact that it is a criminal offence? that's really all i've been getting at so far, hence the confusion: you seem to think this is a debate about whether it's right or wrong when in fact the debate is "should prostitution be legalised?". the mere fact that it is "wrong" is not the end of the story.
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Post by dianaholberg on Mar 28, 2006 11:46:04 GMT -5
Legalizing prostitution advocates those messages.
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Post by cenk on Mar 28, 2006 12:16:37 GMT -5
Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world. Prostituition should be legalized so the government can make money out of it because lets be honest - its not going to go away and its going be be with us until there aren't any humans left on this planet. It should be regulated and women should be given all the neccessary support they need/require if they want out. Or maybe there government should own the brothels itself, thus making it more safer and removing the crime that supposedly goes on in the brothels. The government could invest this money it earns from brothels into helping victims of rape and abuse, researching cures for AIDS/HIV and helping sufferers of other sexually transmitted diseases. Diana I dont agree with prostitution but at the end of the day if a student needs money she can become a prostitute, stripper or topless table dancer and earn herself alot more money in hours than some people earn in a week. The sad fact is that this world has become very materialistic, young people are saving less and less and people want to spend their money on things like ipods, computers, phones and other gadgets that are expensive and become out of date very quickly. Its just the moral decay of society that so many predicted and so many laughted at the very notion. People are living in the here and now and as this is the case people need money and they will do anything necessary to earn that money they wont care if they are harming themselves or displeasing God. The bottom line is that some people are naturally more conservative than others. Diana do you think that women should have the right to have an abortion? www.religioustolerance.org/abo_viol.htm infact lots of attacks of abortion clinics occur in the USA. This is despite the fact that if someone wants an abortion she should be entitled to have the choice to have one. If a woman wants to earn money by a way deemed corrupt and unmoral to some WHY cant she just be left alone to do so? What if a woman was RAPED by a man do you still think she shouldn't have an abortion? What if a woman had no education whatsoever, couldn't get any job at all or is an illegal immigrant do you think she still shouldn't become a prostitute as the only possible way to earn money?
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Post by dianaholberg on Mar 28, 2006 19:19:58 GMT -5
cenk, please read my last post to see exactly what you are supporting.
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Post by littlepea on Mar 29, 2006 7:21:07 GMT -5
Legalizing prostitution advocates those messages. this is why we will not agree. i'm saying prostitution can be discouraged in ways other than the criminal law - the criminal law is not the appropriate mechanism for discouraging prostitution - nothing more.
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Post by dianaholberg on Mar 29, 2006 9:10:39 GMT -5
You're right... we won't agree. It's the same argument used to legalize drugs and other vices, and it simply won't fly with those who understand the full implications of these things. If there's no good at all in something, it should be illegal -- and there is no good in prostitution.
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Post by littlepea on Mar 29, 2006 13:27:55 GMT -5
on the other hand ... look at cigarettes - we all know there is no good in that yet it would be pointless making it illegal since that wouldn't stop people using them, it would just turn otherwise innocent people into criminals, force them to go to drug dealers, the black market supply would have no guarantees of quality and safety. most of the essays that i've read approach the issue as a matter of jurisprudence, some coming to the conclusion that some form of legal prostitution would be, on the whole, beneficial to society. the one article that i read that approaches purely the criminal law issue is the mcleod article, and it comes to the conclusion that it might as well be legal except where it infringes other general criminal offences. it seems to me that you think the message, "prositution is bad", can only be conveyed by making it a criminal offence. this is not the case. cigarettes are bad, everyone knows they're bad, no-one presumes that the government is in favour of smoking merely because it is not illegal. the only way you can justify criminalising prostitution is to say that you want to punish the prostiute herself - most western countries do not feel the prostitute should be punished (the USA might, i'm not sure) but still try and regulate prostitution via the criminal law. this, in reality, punishes the prostitute herself, therefore prostitution should be decriminalised. that is all i'm saying (as i also feel the prostitute herself does not deserve to be punished). only if you feel the prostitute should be punished can you advocate the criminalisation of prostitution - if this is how you feel, then fine. anyway, here's the thing i was referring to a few posts back (about the lack of definitive evidence). Consider the following situation. A feminist sociologist has just completed her Ph.D. thesis, and insightful and well-documented ethnogracphy of prostitution. The work is based on participant observation, an approach richly developed in urban sociology of the Chicago School as well as cultural anthropology á la Franz Boas. In terms of locale, the study contains an interesting comparative dimension, having been conducted both in the Netherlands and in downtown Chicago. However, participation for the dissertation research took place only in Amsterdam where prostitution has for some time been decriminalized: this was done to avoid the methodological complication of engaging in activity illegal in the American context. There, the sociologist was supported by a Dutch fellowship and donated whatever small monies she earned to an international organization dedicated to the rights and health care of prostitutes. At her Chicago site, the study was conducted equally intensively. Here, though, time was spent hanging out with sex workers, observing and sharing in a majority of activities exclusive of waged labor [sic ]. The sociologist was already acquainted with the sex industry since, as a college freshman, she has worked part-time as a topless dancer in order to earn money for her education. Following college, too, she gained direct experience with sex work, working for an escort service among a variety of other jobs taken before beginning graduate school.
It may not suprise a skeptical reader to learn that the above-described study does not, to my knowledge, exist. Lynn Sharon Chancer, "Prostitution, Feminist Theory, and Ambivalence: Notes from the Sociological Underground", 37 Social Text (1993) 143 (at p.143) - i haven't read it all, since i was getting a bit fed up with feminist papers (it's basically justifying support for the prostitute herself on feminist grounds), but if that introduction excites you then i will happily e-mail it to anyone who asks.
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Post by littlepea on Mar 30, 2006 20:54:24 GMT -5
it simply won't fly with those who understand the full implications of these things. i don't like this statement - it allows you to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you simply by saying "you don't understand", which is not conducive to intelligent discussion. it is also impossible to back up, since even if it is true there is no way you can know for sure that legalisation could never be beneficial if implemented in the right way (ie. even if it is correct, you have no right to state it as a fact until it is definitively proven). anyway, i hope no-one reading this believes that prostitution can ever be fully eradicated, do they?
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Post by dianaholberg on Mar 30, 2006 23:14:21 GMT -5
When your claims are backed up by something substantial -- evidence that legalization has been beneficial in any way, anywhere -- then we can talk about who understands what.
If the numbers don't prove what's correct, I don't know what does.
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Post by Mestemia on Mar 30, 2006 23:14:42 GMT -5
Which is precisley why I left the conversation to begin with. Diana is not arguing the topic, she is arguing something other than the thread topic. She refuses to stay on topic and then continuously attacks her strawmen at the same time as she counts her hits and ignores her misses. Add to this her ad hominem about her morality is allegedly so much better and you get a conversation that merely goes nowhere for anyone.
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Post by littlepea on Mar 31, 2006 6:31:13 GMT -5
do you at least agree with this conclusion:
if it turns out that most of the problems with prostitution occur purely because it is illegal, then it must be decriminalised.
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