GREAT ARTICLE on the Berkeley Ballot measure to decriminalize. As I have
often said, including to the backers, this has no chance of passing since
it includes street hookers. If all the energy doomed to failure would have
been directed to private outcall and incall it would have probably had a good
chance of passing. This article is outstanding in reflecting my views. Unfortunately
most of the sexworker advocates insist on a all or none approach to get ALL
prostitution decriminalized. That will never happen for very good reasons
since citizens will not and should not accept street hookers in their neighborhoods,
unless in agreed to areas of tolerance as in a few countries.
Why prostitution initiative misses
Measure Q in Berkeley fails on 3 counts
September 26, 2004
Berkeley's Measure Q on the November ballot seeks to make enforcement of all
prostitution laws the lowest priority of Berkeley's police department, and
instructs city officials to lobby the state government to repeal such laws.
The measure is welcome because it is generating serious public debate about
prostitution policy -- something that seldom happens in America. Unfortunately,
it is the wrong choice for Berkeley and for any other city in the country
-- for at least three reasons.
First, the initiative rests on some dubious claims. The authors of the measure
try to justify it by invoking privacy rights, claiming that it is not the
law's business to control what people do "in private." Street prostitution
is hardly a private affair. Both the initial transaction and often the sex
act itself takes place in public.
Moreover, street prostitution is far from innocuous. In cities throughout
the country, it is associated with a host of problems -- not only sex acts
in public places, but also disorderly conduct, harassment of local women by
johns and pimps, and violence against the workers.
These problems help explain why residents living near San Pablo Avenue in
Berkeley are up in arms over Measure Q. Last year, Berkeley police received
294 calls from residents complaining about street prostitution in their neighborhoods.
Street prostitution is not a "victimless crime" -- it victimizes the host
communities as well as the sex workers. Removing criminal penalties will only
make the problem worse.
Second, Measure Q is designed to "help stop violence against women." This
is a noble goal. But there is nothing in the initiative that will reduce the
risk to workers of assault, rape, robbery and other types of victimization.
Measure Q does only one thing: It instructs police to treat prostitution as
a low-priority offense. Robyn Few, a convicted prostitute and the inspiration
for Measure Q, and other backers of the initiative seem to assume that workers
will be more inclined to report victimization to the police, but this is only
likely once prostitution is thoroughly de-stigmatized and normalized, which
no ballot measure can accomplish.
Indoors is different
Third, Measure Q ignores a crucial distinction made by researchers -- the
difference between street prostitution and indoor prostitution. Indoor prostitutes
include people who work for escort agencies and massage parlors, as well as
independent call girls. Although both types involve sex-for-sale, they also
differ in important ways. Indoor prostitution typically involves much less
exploitation, much less risk of violence, more control over working conditions,
more job satisfaction, and higher self-esteem. Indoor prostitution also has
far less impact, if any, on the surrounding community than the street trade.
This is not to romanticize indoor work, but studies clearly indicate that
street prostitution is much more of a problem.
I have advocated a "two-track policy" with regard to prostitution. Track One
is devoted to street prostitution, and holds that law enforcement on the streets
should be intensified, not relaxed. In most cities, including Berkeley, arrests
are sporadic and the penalties are mild. Arrests need to be sustained and
carry meaningful sanctions, both for the prostitutes and the johns. And instead
of fines or a short jail sentence, community service is more appropriate.
But increased law enforcement is only the first step. What happens afterward
is equally important. What is needed is a comprehensive program of counseling,
housing, job training, health care, and other needed services for street workers,
many of whom desperately want to leave the sex trade. Unfortunately, most
cities provide very few alternatives to prostitution. The prevailing approach
is punitive, not rehabilitative.
Busting massage parlors
Track Two involves indoor prostitution, and it is here that Measure Q makes
a lot of sense. Many cities, but not all, devote enormous resources to combating
escort services and to busting massage parlors -- even though citizens rarely
complain about this indoor commerce. Some cities spend as much as half their
vice budget on the indoor trade, and such operations typically involve elaborate,
time-consuming stings to entrap the workers. Louisville, Ky. , for example,
has recently spent a great deal of time and money on an undercover investigation
of massage parlors, and the federal government has conducted its own stings
in several states. Cracking down on discrete, indoor prostitution often has
the unintended effect of increasing the number of streetwalkers, thus exacerbating
the most dangerous side of the sex trade.
Unwritten policy needed
The Berkeley police, and other police departments, should adopt an unwritten
policy of nonenforcement against indoor prostitution. In some cities, this
de facto decriminalization is already standard practice, and it is a sensible
policy. It has the advantage of freeing up resources to deal with the more
pressing problems on the street. As San Francisco's blue-ribbon Committee
on Crime concluded more than 30 years ago, "Keeping prostitutes off the streets
may be aided by tolerating them off the streets." Two Canadian commissions
have reached the same conclusion. (In Canada while outcall is perfectly legal,
the 1850's bawdy house law is still on the books, although seldom enforced
unless suspect under aged, illegals, drugs or neighbor complaints)
Any such policy change should be done without fanfare. A public announcement
that the city has decided to take a "hands off" approach to indoor prostitution
might attract outside workers and clients into the city. This also means that
Berkeley city officials should not be involved in lobbying the state government
for changes in prostitution law. Measure Q states that the "City Council is
directed to lobby in favor of the repeal of these laws." This is not the job
of city officials. Activists, such as those behind Measure Q, have every right
to lobby state legislators on their own.
Ronald Weitzer is professor of sociology at George Washington University in
Washington, D.C., and the author of "Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography,
and the Sex Industry.''
URL:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/26/INGAG8T3GP1.DTL
As "Counsel" of C4P - The California group Citizens 4 Privacy says, "The
public is not opposed to decriminalizing that which goes on behind closed
doors out of the public view. They are very opposed to having their faces
rubbed in it, which is the impact caused by street prostitution and its attendant
problems (drugs, pimps in the street, local residents' teenage daughters being
harassed by guys on the cruise, etc.).
SWOP's vision got tested, and crushed, even in the People's Republic of Berkeley
in the Measure Q debacle, precisely because the city fathers and mothers were
able to paint a picture of Berkeley becoming a magnet for street prostitutes
The poll said we more or less have the public with us (over 50% in every region
of the state) on the privately conducted prostitution issue.
SWOP's position has a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding in a statewide
effort not confined to the liberal bastions of San Francisco and Berkeley
(where it has already shown it couldn't even muster 40% of the vote)."
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