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Legalize it?

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Via Matt, Radley Balko and Kerry Howley discuss some data that supports my inclination to decriminalize and regulate prostitution. Because sex workers engaged in illegal activity can’t go to the police, they face the Hobson’s Choice of violent assault from their customers or violent assault from pimps. And, worse, police with the arbitrary power to arrest prostitutes at their discretion take advantage of this by raping prostitutes with disturbing frequency. And because illegal prostitution isn’t regulated, 80% of the johns don’t use condoms. All of these problems, as Balko says, seems pretty directly tied to criminalization.

On the other hand, decriminalization isn’t a panacea. Brad Plumer points out that legalization led to increased trafficking, doesn’t stop many sex workers from feeling coerced and unsafe, and brothels proved difficult to regulate. This doesn’t fully convince me because these problem seem like they could be at least partially addressed by more careful regulatory regimes whereas the problems of criminalization seem inevitable. But as an alternative, Brad suggests the Swedish model of criminalizing the buying but not the selling of sex, which would at least eliminate many of the perverse incentives of criminalization. The Swedish model also “provided ample social service funds for helping any prostitute who wanted to get out of the business to do so, as well as funds for educating the public.” This system has its own serious flaws, although it would seem better than the American status quo. The depressing lesson here seems to be that given existing gender inequities we’re choosing among least bad policy options.

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