Thursday, March 22, 2007

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Prostitutes 'R Us

What a surprise! Craig’s List is in the prostitution business! Like the Internet and the The Yellow Pages, unless you are standing on the street corner, you have to advertise your business somewhere. Of course, there are those people who insist that adult web sites like AdultFriendFinder, massage parlors with untrained masseuses and water beds, photography services which allow a man to photograph naked girls alone in a booth, taxi dancing, go go clubs, and strip joints, and, of course, the escort services that the Duke University dancer came from, in no way permit females to exchange sex for money; they are all legitimate businesses that just provide girls for companionship and innocent amusement. Well, if you believe that, then you must believe that Anna Nicole Smith was a girl scout.

Sadly, on a more serious note, most communities really do ignore the many prostitution services out there and they are rarely shut down. Either we should make prostitution legal or we ought to do something about these blatant sex services that are proliferating in our towns and in cyberspace. We as a society should decide what we believe is legal or illegal and stand behind it. I would like to see massage parlors with masseuses who haven’t completed any accredited school required to give massages with a video camera taping them. The monitoring agency could then come by unannounced and view the tapes straight out of the machine. Want to see how fast massage parlors go out of business?

Of course, prostitutes don’t get much in the way of sentencing nor do the johns that use them, or the pimps that manage them, or the owners of the establishments that hire them. There is a tendency to think of these crimes as victimless, but this has never been true. Many of the women who get sucked into the life are only there because it exists as a means to make money, some of the johns get robbed or murdered, the wives of the johns get diseases, crime proliferates in the area, and the surrounding community suffers from the sliminess of it all. In some instances, children pay the price as they get pulled in as homeless teens to a life that will ultimately destroy them. No society benefits from prostitution; it is degrading and despicable. If you ask anyone if they would like to have prostitution on their street, the responses would be unquestionably in the negative. If this is the way we all feel, perhaps we ought to work on eradicating humankind's oldest profession instead of pretending it doesn't exist just because we can't see the girls in plain view on the corner.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

3 comments:

Levi said...

Pat, I agree. We need to crack down on prostitution. There is really nothing I can add on to that post. I can't expand any further because you have hit the nail on the head.

I don't understand why some feminists are for legalizing prostitution. When it dehumanizes women & so many women are abused in the profession.
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Here is some good info I got from http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/issues/prostitution_legalizing.html

Legalization of prostitution and decriminalization of the sex industry increases child prostitution.

Another argument for legalizing prostitution in the Netherlands was that it would help end child prostitution. In reality, however, child prostitution in the Netherlands has increased dramatically during the 1990s. The Amsterdam-based ChildRight organization estimates that the number has gone from 4,000 children in 1996 to 15,000 in 2001. The group estimates that at least 5,000 of the children in prostitution are from other countries, with a large segment being Nigerian girls (Tiggeloven: 2001).

Child prostitution has dramatically risen in Victoria compared to other Australian states where prostitution has not been legalized. Of all the states and territories in Australia, the highest number of reported incidences of child prostitution came from Victoria. In a 1998 study undertaken by ECPAT (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking) who conducted research for the Australian National Inquiry on Child Prostitution, there was increased evidence of organized commercial exploitation of children.

Ronni said...

How about we work on ending child prostitution? That's the more serious problem, I think. Prostitution has been always with us. It has periodically been "cracked down" on, and lo and behold; it's still here.

I agree that it's dehumanizing to those who practice it, but I'm pretty sure that, like drugs and gambling, it will always be around.

Levi said...

Ronni, but the Legalization of prostitution & decriminalization of the sex industry increases child prostitution.