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Legalizing Prostitution

The issue of legalizing prostitution has entered public discourse around the world, and opinion is sharply divided. One view is that legalizing prostitution would protect public health because it legalization would entail licensing, which could be conditioned on medical examinations guaranteeing prostitutes free of infection from sexually transmitted diseases (Bovard, 1995). An opposite view is that prostitution demeans practitioners and sanctions routine human-rights abuse, offering protections, if any, to customers, not prostitutes (Volkonsky, 1995).

Those favoring legalized prostitution cite violent crimes against prostitutes and assert that victimized prostitutes would have recourse to the law for physical protection. Also, they note, police resources now disproportionately directed against prostitution practices and merchandising could be aimed at more serious offenders, which would result in a safer society. Indeed, say advocates, as an underground business prostitution is now controlled by organized crime and is ipso facto violent. Legalization would help limit organized crime's influence (Bovard, 1995).

There is a view that laws against prostitution criminalize what is really a moral offense (Snider, 1998) and disproportionately target women as offenders (Lefler, 1999), while on the whole failing to prosecute those who solicit prostitution services or abuse prostitutes. Katyal's view is that forced prostitution is a form of slavery, hence a violent crime, and puts pimps in physical control of prostitutes, yet law enforcement authorities are "sadly ineffectual at best" in rescuing prostitutes from their situation. It is argued that decriminalization would (at least in theory) make sanctions available against clients, pimps, and police who harm prostitutes (Scivelli, 1987). Katyal continues:

Instead of trying to combat the root of the problem--pimps--law enforcement's typical response is to arrest its victims--prostitute...

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Legalizing Prostitution. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:33, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1689345.html