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)."