Prostitution, Criminology Of

Support and Justifications

Those who would criminalize prostitution usually cite one of two justifications. First, they argue that criminalizing prostitution can eliminate or at least decrease it. Humanitarian or moralistic concerns generally motivate the desire to abolish prostitution. Prostitution often results in significant harm to prostitutes (for example, unwanted pregnancies, assaults, and so on) and puts prostitutes and clients at risk of contracting venereal diseases. This, in turn, places other sexual partners of both the client and the prostitute at greater risk. In addition, some clients become dependent on (or addicted to) sex with prostitutes. Some prostitutes and clients experience religious, moral, or economic guilt. Finally, areas of a city with (visible) prostitution often suffer economically. Wherever streetwalking is prevalent, more familyoriented businesses often do not survive. Visible forms of prostitution often increase other criminal activity in the neighborhood and decrease the overall appearance of the affected area.

Second, those who would criminalize prostitution argue that prostitution is immoral and that society must use the law to take a public stance on its immorality. Two discordant concerns can motivate this position. The traditional (conservative) position usually arises from religious or traditional moral convictions. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, among other religions, maintain that prostitution is a sin. For those who accept legal moralism, criminalizing prostitution is not only permissible: it is a moral obligation. Indeed, moralists often cite prostitution as the paradigmatic example justifying legal moralism, as illustrated in Patrick Devlin's book, The Enforcement of Morals (1965). Support for criminalization occasionally emerges from a feminist perspective. Although the vast majority of feminists reject criminalization, a few hold that failure to make prostitution illegal communicates societal acceptance of the treatment women suffer as prostitutes and the view [Page 1220]that women are merely sexual objects who can be purchased.

Objections

In response to the argument that the state should criminalize prostitution to decrease or eliminate it, opponents note that criminalization has never achieved those ends. Indeed, rates of prostitution are relatively unaffected by the adoption of differing policies. Criminalization of prostitution has failed: although prostitution is illegal in forty-nine U.S. states, the practice in the United States, and globally, appears to be on the rise.

On the other hand, criminalization clearly harms prostitutes. Arresting prostitutes often only serves to heighten their isolation and estrangement, from not only friends, family, and the community, but also from the social services they may need to leave prostitution. Criminalization strengthens the prostitutes' dependence on pimps, who post bail, arrange child care, and obtain legal counsel when prostitutes are arrested. Arresting prostitutes permanently and officially stigmatizes them, also often resulting in the loss of child custody and housing and deportation. Criminalization makes it difficult for prostitutes to organize for political rights, occupational safety, protection from corrupt police or exploitive bosses, and so on.

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