A Total Toughie! (Should prostitution be legalised?)

Member Name: jatkinson100

Product:	Should prostitution be legalised?
Date:	13/11/00 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Safer for both client and prostitute. Taxable industry and controls over working standards and pay. Take prostitution off of the streets and into privacy.

Disadvantages: It won't happen. Look at Amsterdam.

The legalisation of prostitution is one of the most commonly talked about, and high profile, discussions at the moment, probably only beaten by the Cannabis debate.

Many of the people discussing the situation speak of the benefits of legalised brothels, but the fact is that these, to all intents and purposes, exist already in the form of massage parlours. These are widely advertised in the personal sections of newspapers, and every city and town, I would think, has one or two tucked away.

When one thinks about the word prostitute, the picture of a woman standing on a street corner plying her trade comes to mind, and it is these people, and their customers, who are the problem. In my home town of Bradford, prostitution has been in the news a lot, from the Yorkshire Ripper to "Band of Gold" to the attacks on prostitutes which, although not regularly, do happen. It is these people who need to be protected.

I believe the answer lies with the Police and local government and how they handle the situation, as I doubt that any national government would have the balls (no pun intended) to make a decision on such a contentious issue. If the police crack down on the prostitutes who walk the streets, and the curb-crawlers who provide them their trade, they will be forced off of the streets. However, the prostitues will find a way past this by relocating or using advertisements in phone-boxes, so local government could license "massage parlours", keeping the number down to a more respectable level, and bringing in stringent controls and checks on who actually owns the company, thus making it harder (though not irradicating) the role of the pimp. This would, as it says on the description of the discussion, swell the coffers of the treasury and get people off of the dole, as I would imagine that many prostitutes are also claiming job-seekers allowance.

If this happened, then men wanting to visit a prostitute would have a release, but not drive a
round the streets looking for a paid companion. If people change their ideas about prostitution, although I doubt that many high-profile people would condone it, and condemn those who work on the streets, then the "massage parlours" would have the lion's share of the trade. If the parlours are then accountable as companies, the health issue would, in theory, look after itself as a company wants you to return and use its services again, and could face the possibility of legal action, and therefore closure, from a dissatisfied customer.

However, my argument still leaves open the door for some corruption. Pimps could still own the parlour, pay poor wages, and rule their "property" with an iron fist, or needle. Also, I'm sure that, were such a style of control to be implemented, it would not be long before the News of the World comes out with stories of bribes to local government officials to secure a license.

My answer means that prostitution in a licenced Massage Parlour would be overlooked by the Police, rather than legalised, and the law could be used against prostitutes on the streets, and parlours that do not look after their customers (by making sure of health checks, etc). The local government would then still have the ability to close and prosecute a sub-standard establishment, and control the location and number of such places in their area.

People speaking on this subject often ask you to look at Amsterdam as an example of how legalised prostitution can and does work. I would refute that, having visited Amsterdam myself. Most people visiting Amsterdam now do so for the drug and sex industry which has rocketed there, and the architecture, windmills and tulips now don't get a look in due the type of tourist that Amsterdam attracts, and because other tourists are put off by this reputation. If you believe that Amsterdam is a good model for how a 21st Cebtury City, with morals reflecting the age, should be, then I urge you to visit and
ask if that is a place in which you would want you and your family to live? I doubt that you will say that it is. Amsterdam is over run with drug dealers, openly offering their wares on the street. Most of the shops are either coffe houses, full of stoned kids, sex shops, or brothels. Violence is rife, and drugs are a major problem. I do not want to see my City, or any other in this country, become like that.

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