'Red light zones would cause prostitution to rocket'

When Robert McIlveen proposed the legalisation of prostitution on ConservativeHome's 100policies.com, the idea was rejected - but only narrowly.  The topic is, of course, back in the news following the series of Ipswich killings.  Two of Britain's leading conservative female columnists tackle the issue today - Melanie Phillips and Janet Daley.

Referring to an article in favour of red light zones (in yesterday's Observer by Katherine Raymond), Melanie Phillips rejects the idea:

"[The proposal] was binned because it was rightly thought that, rather than reduce the harm done by prostitution, such ‘zones of tolerance’ would increase it by becoming magnets for sex tourism and trafficking.  Countries that have gone down this route, such as the Netherlands, Denmark or Germany, have seen a vast increase in prostitution — and worse still, child prostitution — which has helped fuel the stupendous rise in global people trafficking.  It is also hard to see how this policy would prevent such murders from occurring. Even Glasgow’s ‘tolerance zone’ did not prevent a murder from taking place there."

Phillips rejects the idea of legalisation of prostitution or drugs: "The idea that legalising drugs would get rid of crime is simply risible.  Legal drugs would always be undercut — both by lower prices and higher strengths — by a black market. The only way to eradicate such an illegal trade would be to supply unlimited quantities of all drugs totally free of charge."  She favours the Swedish model: "[Sweden] has criminalised both drug-takers and those who use prostitutes.  The result is that Swedish drug use is a fraction of our own, while in Stockholm street prostitutes have been reduced by two-thirds and the number of men using them has dropped by some 80%."

For Janet Daley, writing in The Telegraph, the Victorians provide a model for us:

"They formed temperance associations to combat the destructive power of drink. They went out into the streets on voluntary missions to rescue young girls, and they formed community self-help organisations and co-operatives to keep families out of desperate hardship so that they might not lose their daughters to vice. The churches ran relief programmes, and wealthy benefactors set up educational schemes whose object was self-improvement. And none of this was inconsistent with that notorious Victorian "moralising". It was all of a piece. The moral strictures that they preached were the principles from which their charity (in every sense of the word) sprang. What they wanted for everyone – including those unfortunate women – was a chance to lead a decent and wholesome life."

Comments

[Serf]

One of the problems of some proposed solutions is that they don't go far enough.

Drugs and Prostitution should be either legal, or illegal, not some grey area in between.

By having "zones of tolerance", or "so called decriminalising", you keep many of the problems, without gaining any of the benefits.

With prostitution, only a proper market, with branded brothels would be able to make inroads into the problems surrounding that business. No chain of whore houses could risk their girls infecting customers, nor afford to employ sex slaves.

Unfortunately if we were ever to go the route of full legalisation, you can bet that squeamishness would mean that we put every conceivable barrier to such branded chains coming into being.

[Tory Loyalist]

The Victorians also attempted to control prostitution in military and naval towns with enforced random health checks.

The result was disastrous. After an innocent woman in Aldershot was subjected to intimate examination the resultant scandal led to the rapid end of the experiment.

Probably the best way of controlling the nuisance is to prosecute and "name and shame"punters as well as punishing the women.

Some countries, Holland in particular, seem happy to act as the red light districts of the world.

We don't want that here.

[TomTom]

Can we legalise ownership of handguns ? We seem to have a surge in criminals owning them but no possibility of any law-abiding citizen owning one

[DavidDPB]

"The idea that legalising drugs would get rid of crime is simply risible. Legal drugs would always be undercut — both by lower prices and higher strengths — by a black market. The only way to eradicate such an illegal trade would be to supply unlimited quantities of all drugs totally free of charge."

I suspect the same argument was put forward by supporters of Prohibition.

[Tory T]

While it's scary to agree with Melanie Philips in this case I do, utterly.

[Ted]

It's not a case of legalising prostitution - it is legal. The illegalities are brothels, controlling prostitution for gain, kerb crawling and loitering/soliciting in the street. The arguments are about legalisation and regulation.

[Richard]

Call me old fashioned but prostitution is illegal and it should remain that way.

If the law had been rigidly enforced over the years then maybe those poor Ipswich women would still be with us.

Prostitutes should be arrested as should the people who use them. It is about time we started enforcing the laws we already have!

[Richard]

Yet again we see another example of Melanie Philips and Janet Daley talking complete sense, why aren't they involved in formulating Tory Party policy?

[Ted]

Richard - it isn't illegal. Soliciting in public is and I agree that the current laws on soliciting in public and kerb crawling should be enforced.
Criminalising prostitutes & their clients is something that English law recognised was impractical - the law is put in disrepute when it fails and commercial sex like alcohol is something that can be managed but not banned.
I would not support legalisation of brothels & toleration zones but neither would I support criminalisation - I'd prefer to see enforcement of current laws to new ones.

[Sean Fear]

I think I could live with the legalisation of brothels. Given that there will always be men who are willing to pay for sex, and women who are willing to sell it, it makes sense for them to do so in an environment that is fairly clean and safe.

I agree that soliciting in public should remain a criminal offence.

[Andrew]

Completely ignorant Melanie Philips, as usual. Swedish levels of drug use were always lower than Britain's, including before the crackdown of the last two decades, yet somehow she claims the former results from the latter. The only noticeable effect of recent Swedish policy has been the quadrupling of drug deaths in a decade.

Of course, if she wasn't intending to deliberately mislead, the comparison would have been made with Holland and Portugal, where more liberal policies "result" in lower levels of drug use than here. In reality, wider cultural factors dictate a country's drug situation rather than governments waving their legal wand - in particular, look at Sweden's temperance movement, the polar opposite of the British attitude. Sweden has low alcohol use, low tobacco use, low prescription drug use - we're entirely the opposite in all spheres.

Incidentally, the lowest drug use in Europe occurs in Greece, where they spend basically nothing on drug enforcement/education (lowest total in the EU). Similarly, no alcohol problem.

[Larry Green]

"Criminalising prostitutes & their clients is something that English law recognised was impractical"

That's hardly correct. The law bans soliciting and brothels so the moral principle is clear. The fact that it does not apply to one woman charging for sex privately seems to be a curious anomaly although I believe a similar approach applies in other countries.

English law is stricter than the laws in most other European countries, and long may it remain so.

[Richard]

Does anybody want such a zone near them?

I really don't like the idea of this country becoming as seedy as Holland. Prostitution will always be with us but I'd rather it was kept in back alleys and hidden as much as possible.

[Valedictoryan]

Amsterdam has gone too far. It does more than provide a safer, cleaner environment for prostitutes – it’s actually doing their marketing work for them – encouraging men and women into a fundamentally unsafe business.

British law should be about protecting people. It should discourage prostitution, but discourage dangerous prostitution even more. It should get sex trade off the streets and out of sight, but not out of mind.

Drug dealers work on risk / reward and this means that Melanie Phillips’ suggestion that legal drugs would always be undercut by a black market is rubbish. However, legalising drugs wouldn’t work for other reasons…

The hip drug always changes and would always be one step ahead of the legal supply chain. Drug dealers can also go into territory where the legal chain can’t follow: rohies (Rohypnol), bones (crack-cocaine), etc.

Leap back 15 years and you’d have seen the government selling cannabis while the dealers would have moved on to e.

So legalising drugs would increase the amount of drugs consumed, do nothing to reduce criminality, and make illicit drugs even more dangerous (and possibly seductive).

Add cannabis to the same category as tobacco (there’s no reason not to) but increase the risk side of the equation with zero tolerance for everything else.

[Sean Fear]

"Amsterdam has gone too far. It does more than provide a safer, cleaner environment for prostitutes – it’s actually doing their marketing work for them – encouraging men and women into a fundamentally unsafe business.

British law should be about protecting people. It should discourage prostitution, but discourage dangerous prostitution even more. It should get sex trade off the streets and out of sight, but not out of mind."

Yes, I think that's about right. In principle, having a licensed brothel nearby would be less irritating than having a pub nearby. The important thing is to ensure that the users of either don't cause nuisance to residents.

[Londoner]

This has come up now because women operating as street prostitutes were abducted and murdered. It is nothing to do with the inherantly safer varieties (for the women involved) of massage parlours and flats advertised by cards and/or on the internet, which must be by far larger categories. Indeed London is reputed to have large numbers of prostitutes operating but it is very rare ever to see street soliciting. I suspect this is because the Met is pretty strict on street soliciting and does little to try to stamp out the non-street varieties, even when they may be technically illegal (i.e. more than one girl operating from the same premises which also, despite being less legal than a girl operating from a flat on her own, is safer).

The question is therefore what would reduce street prostitution. The Met's policy seems to do this. To make all forms of prostitution illegal, and to rigorously enforce the "brothels" rule would force more prostitution back on the streets. There are women who are short of money and men prepared to pay for sex. This is the reality. It is futile to try to stamp it out but sensible to create conditions where it is conducted in channels of least harm, which are (a) not on the streets because it is dangerous and also thrusts it in front of people who want nothing to do with it and (b) in places where there is more than one prostitute (safety in numbers) but where it is less likely to be controlled by pimps (criminal elements, liklihood of international trafficking etc). De-criminalising places where there is more than one operating together (perhaps with a limit of two or three) would therefore reduce the harm. The main remaining question then is whether in practice the place is a nuisance to the neighbours, which can be dealt with by nuisance laws. Neighbour nuisance also argues against specific zoning as it if is more dispersed it is less likely to be a nuisance.

This will not satisfy those who are driven by moral outrage at the existence of prostitution but has much more to do with current events. It is somewhat distastful to me to hear people like Harriet Harman using the pretext of these dreadful murders to attack totally different forms of the activity that have nothing to do with the streets or with the danger these girls were in.

[Jonathan Powell]

"The idea that legalising drugs would get rid of crime is simply risible. Legal drugs would always be undercut — both by lower prices and higher strengths — by a black market. The only way to eradicate such an illegal trade would be to supply unlimited quantities of all drugs totally free of charge."

This argument is totally asinine. It is well known that the black market price for drugs is way above the free market price, because of the costs associated with illegality and the monopoly power granted to drug cartels granted by the government by outlawing drug use. For example see

http://www.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html

http://www.druglibrary.org/special/friedman/socialist.htm

The fact is that there is a huge black market for illegal drugs, whereas the number of speakeasy's in Britain today selling illegal alcohol at lower prices and higher strengths than that sold in Off Licenses is rather small, to say the least, even with the high taxes on alcohol. Similarly, few people are burgled to feed someone's tobacco addiction.

[William Norton]

Prostitution per se is not illegal, it's taxable as a self-employed business (cue some rather off-colour puns about "back taxes") although if I recall correctly like gambling and for much the same reasons it's an unenforceable contract - you can't be sued if you forget to pay.

What is illegal is living off immoral earnings - hence two working out of the same premises constitutes a brothel and the element of cost sharing means that each works to assist the other. Soliciting is illegal as a form of public nuisance.

Bertrand Russell for one of his party tricks used to argue that prostitution could not possibly be the oldest profession since payment presupposed the existence of an earlier profession which generated profits to pay for the services of the prostitute. I'm not certain, in the UK at any rate, that prostitution is a profession any way. Probably a trade. I don't think we'd like to regard it as a vocation.

[Jonathan Powell]

"The hip drug always changes and would always be one step ahead of the legal supply chain. Drug dealers can also go into territory where the legal chain can’t follow: rohies (Rohypnol), bones (crack-cocaine), etc."

The flaw with this argument is that you assume there is some territory into which the legal chain can't follow. Thus you are using a kind of circular logic: the free market won't work because of restrictions placed on the free market. As long as all drugs are legal, there's no problem.

[Annabel Herriott]

It seems the police have arrested one Tom Stevens for the murder of all five women. Its on BBC 24.

[Valedictoryan]

Jonathan, it was actually two arguments, but I was up to my paragraph limit.

Unless you are talking about a complete free-for-all (which *would* be risible), the legal supply chain would have to be regulated. That regulation provides all the space a black-market needs to flourish.

The nation could possibly reconcile itself with legalising substances that only cause self-harm. It couldn't possibly legalise substances where a significant part of their usage is to harm others or where usage is a tantamount to a death sentence.

Drugs dealers operate without rules or ethics and are therefore able to keep ahead of any legal alternative.

[aristeides]

Legalised brothels are a complete distraction from the case in hand. The fact is that the murdered prostitutes who were drug addicts would have been very unlikely to be allowed to work in a legal brothel. They would have been forced out onto the streets and, market economics being what they are, forced to cut their rates against the competition.

[Richard]

I am getting sick and tired of the idea that just because X number of people smoke weed or X number of people work as prostitutes that there is nothing we can do about it and that we may as well just accept it and legalise it.

If something is wrong and I believe prostitution and drug use is wrong then we should do something about it. That means tough laws and tough punishmenst for those who break the laws.

[michael]

as a cllr with a red light district in it i know the problems - i wanted to bring this motion to council, but did not in the end. comments on it pls

This council recognises the distress and inconvenience that street prostitution causes to the residents who live and work in the areas in xxxx affected,

(ii)This council recognises the wasted lives that are caused by sex workers involved in the sex industry and will do all within its powers to help those within xxxx who wish to leave the industry,

(iii) This council recognises the link between drugs and street prostitution within xxxx,

(iv) This council notes and welcomes the Home Office consultation "Paying the Price: a consultation paper on prostitution" as a positive step forward in opening up discussion on prostitution.

(v) This council instructs the Chief Executive of xxxx Council to write to the Home Secretary and our MPs to request the following in relation to prostitution:

a. An introduction of non residential areas where prostitutes over the age of 18 may trade,

b. Within these areas the introduction of health and drug workers which prostitutes will be required to see on a regular basis,

c. Increased use all applicable laws, on any prostitute working outside of these areas,

d. Increased protection and help for those under 18 years old involved in the sex industry,

e. Increased work within schools on drugs, safe sex, truancy and careers to dissuade people from entering into the sex industry.

[Mark Wadsworth]

Shouldn't policies be based on "what works"? It is quite clear that current policies re the welfare system, drugs and prostitution don't work, never have worked and never will work.

Just calling for more of the same, more crackdowns on prostitution and drugs is a bit daft. It's like suggesting doubling aid paid to Africa, that has not worked so far and will never work either.

Ergo, a welfare system that doesn't encourage family breakdown and single motherhood, cutting burden on UK businesses to create more jobs and paying benefits to young people who take on low-paid apprenticeships is a good start. Further, making addictive drugs legally available on NHS and legalising small brothels are the obvious next steps.

The real cost of drugs crime is all the mugging, shoplifting and burglary. Prostituion is seen as morally wrong, but I fail to see how it harms anybody else.

[Valedictoryan]

"If something is wrong and I believe prostitution and drug use is wrong then we should do something about it. That means tough laws and tough punishmenst for those who break the laws."

WRT prostitution, (leaving health and under-age issues aside) whether it is right or wrong is subjective.

WRT tough laws against paying or charging for sex, they are unenforceable but drive people further away from help.

[TomTom]

Perhaps if prostitutes weren't addled drug-addicts they would be more conscious of what they are doing.

Maybe if drug-dealers did not provide free-samples to get girls hooked then set them out to earn there would be fewer problems.

Maybe drugs are addictive.

Maybe addicts make bad 'choices'

Maybe people should not become addicts since it is impossible to cure the addicted of harmful behavioural traits

Maybe we should simply execute drug-dealers as part of a new policy......lethal injection perhaps of their favourite toxin ?

[Sally Roberts]

Much as it pains me to do so, I agree with Harriet Harman on this issue! The men who use and exploit these vulnerable women should have the book thrown at them! The myth of "the Happy Hooker" is just that - a total myth!

[Cardinal Pirelli]

Mark Wadsworth - I would definitely agree with that.

As a side issue, we know that theft and such crime often exists to feed drug habits, prostitution does the same. No doubt these women would turn to other areas of crime to feed their habit if prostitution was clamped down on. Why shift the problem around?

[Cardinal Pirelli]

I agree that drug dealers are the root of much of our social problems and, as Mark said, we should take away their role and (although it pains me to say it) put the state in their place.

Addicts don't want to put themselves in danger and, by knowing who they are and what they are taking, you break much of this cycle of crime; they have no need to steal to feed their habit and, in any case, we would know who and where they wee if they did.

[Cardinal Pirelli]

Oh dear, a rather unfortunate typo there.

The line "we would know who and where they wee if they did" should read "we would know who and where they were if they did".

[Valedictoryan]

Sally, while I agree that the buyer has the upper-hand in the relationship, it's victim mentality to say that the women are absolved of all responsibility and guilt for their part in the arrangement. I could make an argument that any man who goes to a hooker (and risks all manner of bad endings) has a deep seated problem and is also “vulnerable”. For example, the various pop-stars, MPs and actors that make mysterious midnight trips across Clapham Common are, without doubt, screwed up and vulnerable.

[Ted]

Struck me that when considering drink, gambling and prostitution - the three big vices that societies have tried to control probably since homo sapiens first got organised - New Labour have already liberalised drinking, seem to be pushing organised gambling so we only now await Tessa Jowell putting the Bill through for 10 Big Brothels & numerous regional Houses of Disrepute.

Perhaps we are lucky that there aren't large publicly quoted companies to lobby Prescott for where the Megabrothel is situated.

[Richard]

Here are a couple of solutions to the problem:

1. Go to all known Red Light areas and arrest all the prostitutes. Charge them and put them in jail.

2. Each time someone is found in possession of drugs they should be punished with more than just a telling off. This of course depends on the amount they are caught in possession of. The larger the amount the harsher the punishment. After being caught three times they should be jailed.

3. Drug dealers should be automatically jailed for a very long time.

4. People caught using prostitutes should be fined heavily and named and shamed publicly.

It isn't rocket science

[Sean Fear]

Such a society would probably be a rather unpleasant one to live in, Richard.

A bit like Sweden, in fact.

[Mark Wadsworth]

Richard, they have measures like this in Islamic countries and I believe Thailand.

And it doesn't work.

[Sally Roberts]

Valedictoryan you make a valid point - but the fact is that it is the "buyer", i.e. the men involved who have the upper hand and probably have a great deal more to lose, e.g. their marriage, their reputation by being exposed and punished. Sadly of course prostitution will never be stopped. There will always be men who wish or feel they have to pay for sex for all sorts of reasons - not least that well known psychological condition "the Madonna-Whore Complex" which is that a great many men "divide" women mentally into those they will have loving relationships with (or marry) and those they will simply use.

[TomTom]

which is that a great many men "divide" women mentally into those they will have loving relationships with (or marry) and those they will simply use.

Sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience Sally.

You might equally speak of Jezebel, but in fact many of these women are using men and do so in very manipulative ways. It is you who have the schizophrenia regarding one set of women as "pure and undefiled" and another as sullied by contact with the base nature of men.

Just how much do you really know about prostitutes and how many have you met ?

[Sally Roberts]

Thank you for your sympathy Tom Tom but I am not aware that I have had an "unfortunate experience" as you describe it! If my comments touched a nerve I can only apologise.

[Mark Wadsworth]

TomTom, what really fascinates me is the numbers. I read that there are 80,000 prostitutes in the UK, assuming they do twenty punters a week and a punter makes one visit a fortnight, this means about three million men in the UK who visit prostitutes regularly, i.e. over ten percent of adult males. Does anybody have anything more specific on this?

[Sean Fear]

10% doesn't sound implausible Mark.

Some men will seek out prostitutes far more regularly than once a fortnight though.

[Londoner]

TomTom

I think your post "Sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience Sally" etc, was offensive to her and that her response was remarkably mild. I do not agree with Sally's original post on this, being a liberal on these matters, but anyone should be allowed to contribute to a discussion such as this without it being personalised.

TomTom, you fell below your usual gentlemanly standards at 14.46, including by asking Sally how many prostitutes she has met. Just as it would have been unseemly if she had asked all the men on here how many they had met.

[Valedictoryan]

Mark, I've read that the spending on prostitution is about £750 million a year, and that the average spend is £50. That is 15 million "transactions" which, taking your fortnightly frequency, would work out at 600,000 customers. Still a large number, but not quite so damning of men.

Having said that, I'm worried though that the numbers are terribly unreliable and massaged downwards. The Home Office found that Manchster prostitutes spend an average of £500 a week on drugs. If there are 80,000 spending £500 a week, that means that spending on drugs alone is £2 billion - so we can triple the £750 million figure.

[Matt Davis]

The war against prostitution was lost centuries ago and it isn't suddenly going to be won now because of some retreat to "old fashioned values". It is also extremely likely that legalisation would not cause prostitution to rocket (shades of the hysterical panic some tried to induce over the liberalisation of licensing hours in this claim) what it would do is make it more visible and so perhaps give the appearance of it rocketing. Ultimately the German model of legalised, licensed and controlled and taxed prostitution is the only route for a socially liberal, civilised and pragmatic society to take.The authoritarian and bigoted approach to prostitution does not work, has never ever worked, and is never going to so the only alternative is to make it safer for all concerned and halt the current gross moral hypocrisy surrounding it in Britain.

[Chris]

"Legal drugs would always be undercut — both by lower prices and higher strengths — by a black market."

Is that true of alcohol? Where is all the moonshine.

Phillips is talking nonsense.

[Observer]

I think that people who argue against prostitution on the grounds that it's immoral often have a hard time providing intellectual substance to their views. In contrast, those with a more libertarian perspective find it easier to rationalize their position - i.e. prostitution isn't immoral because it is a contract freely entered into by consenting adults. Provided there is no element of compulsion forcing the prostitute to sell her body (e.g. drug addiction), the state has no place intervening.

I disagree with this assumption - the state does have a role in supporting public morals, to some extent. But on what grounds is prostitution actually immoral?

After thinking about how to rationalize my own opposition to prostitution, the best argument I can think of is that the trade is immoral because there is usually a third party involved - the man's wife or partner, who does not offer her consent.

Prostitution is therefore wrong because it enables and depends upon infidelity. Legalisation is wrong because by legalising prostitution the state is enabling - and effectively legitimising - countless acts of clandestine betrayal.

As a final thought, I bet that among those people who support legalised prostitution, most wouldn't dream of being the other man or woman in an affair for moral reasons. Yet they are still happy to be advocates for a trade that depends upon infidelity. Why?

[ToMTom]

Londoner, you may be right, I am not going to dwell on the point which was that Sally made a generalisation I think unfortunate in deciding how men think as if it was uniform.

I do not know if 80.000 'prostitutes' exist - certainly the term can cover anything from the street-level to the penthouse to the clubs and massage parlours in between; and it is the latter than concern me when I read how many thousand women have been imported into London from Eastern Europe and that the Met had something like 14 Vice officers to deal with it............which seemed a trifle inadequate.

More than drug addicts plying their trade on the street, I am concerned about the lax immigration controls here which see women and children sluiced into brothels in England to provide the Albanians Blair imported from Kosovo with a large revenue stream.

As for drugs, they simply create the bars on the cage for women enticed from Eastern Europe and rendered drug-dependent in a foreign country where little is done to protect them from exploitation by Albanians and other gangsters.

I have seen little TV coverage about this and in another 3 weeks we shall hear nothing further about prostitution or drugs in our media

[TomTom]

"Legal drugs would always be undercut — both by lower prices and higher strengths — by a black market."

Do you think your daughter is in more danger from a man buying her a drink; or a man who gives her a cannabis cigarette laced with crack cocaine ?

[aristeides]

Observer

In terms of morality, there is something more to it than just fidelity. Think of the reasons you might not want your daughter to do it, for example.

[Londoner]

Valedictoryan

On your figures - and other assumptions on here - it is counterintuitive to me that every prostitute is a drug addict. It's a bit like people in other contexts saying they are all forcibly trafficked here from abroad (probably two contradictory assertions). They'll be lots of circumstances in which people sell their bodies for money to a greater or lesser extent (including by marrying unattractive rich old men!). I have been told that many are students - so maybe the abolition of tuition fees would reduce supply if that is what people want.

Whatever the figures, there is quite a lot of it about, which must imply that a significant proportion of people (who are mostly fairly quiet about it) don't find it as morally repulsive as they are supposed to. For instance, there may be many married women who think, if their man is to stray, that it might be better for him to have the possibility of paying for sex without risking an ongoing involvement than to have an affair. The "other woman" is also clear about what her side of the bargain is. I agree with Matt Davis's post. Any attempt to "clamp down" will be a cure worse than the disease.

[TomTom]

and other assumptions on here - it is counterintuitive to me that every prostitute is a drug addict

That may be so but it is claimed that most if not all streetwalkers are.......and that I could well believe.

Then again if you are running a prostitution business can you think of a better way to keep control than to make them drug-addicted ?

[Annabel Herriott]

I agree with Sally. It is a sad fact that a certain type of man DOES divide women into those he goes to bed with, and those he may marry. Twas ever thus. Has anyone read an interesting book by Ronald Pearsall. "The Worm in The Bud" - The world of Victorian Sexuality. Part of my sociology studies, it cost 63 shillings. That will tell you how long ago. Basically, it describes the double standard. And right now, What goes around is rapidly coming around again. The, the wages of "sin" were syphilis. Today it is HIV.
The Victorians were also curiously callous towards those infected. A limerick of the period goes:-

There was a young lady of Hadley,
Who would with an omnibus Cad lie.
He gave her the crabs,
And besides minor scabs,
The pox too she got very badly.

Pearsall suggests this was "whistling in the dark, or ignorance of the consequences.
One thing is for sure. Its the oldest job in the world, and it sure isnt going to go away. It has to be managed in a safe way.

[Valedictoryan]

"and other assumptions on here - it is counterintuitive to me that every prostitute is a drug addict"

The £500 a week drug-spending was an average, so would have included the fact that not avery prostitute buys drugs. Possibly Manchester has a higher addiction ratio than elsewhere - but that's just conjecture. I really don't know the facts.

[Londoner]

I agree that it may be so for streetwalkers. If the traffickers confiscate their passports, keep them under strict supervision and do not allow them to keep any of the money they are paid by the clients, that would probably be enough, and rather cheaper and lower risk than making them addicts I would think.

But I think TomTom and I are agreed that it is drugs and people trafficking which are the evils to be tackled, not prostitution per se. Ironically the fact that the whole "trade" is underground probably makes any police surveillance of their drug suppliers and the people traffickers/enslavers more difficult. Prostitutes in neither of these categories must regard them as very bad for their image, as well as undercutting their prices. If they (and clients who stumble across them) didn't have to steer clear of police notice themselves, the police might get much better intelligence leading them to the "Mr Big" gangsters whom I agree are the worst evil here.

So, once again, the policy prescriptions suggested by imposing moral standards on others are not likely to lead to the best results.

[John Moss]

I think it is important to differentiate between "street" prostitutes, who are almost always drug addicts and out there because it is the only way they can earn sufficient to feed their habits, and those who work from home.

I don't like the government's proposed three-in-a-house proposal. How would you like it if two ladies set up next door to you and the flow of customers followed?

However, to be practical, we should go back to GP prescibing for drug addicts. The drugs are then free, administered in a safe and controlled environment and the users are able to be targetted for rehabilitation. Whilst this may not help with crack-cocaine addiction as I doubt anybody would countenance "prescribing" crack, offering free heroin as a way of weaning addicts away from this is surely a better option.

I do NOT support legalisation as this simply allows children to be sucked into addiction as dealers offer cheap drugs to lure them. Making such people legit is simply wrong.

I would support de-criminalisation for prostitutes who work alone from home or offer visiting services, with a ban on all advertising other than in over 18 magazines and on-line. I for one am fed up of having to remove the classifieds from the local paper before my children look at it.

[ToMTom]

The, the wages of "sin" were syphilis. Today it is HIV.

Annabel, HIV is a fairly rare disease and difficult to catch as a heterosexual unless you are a) Haitian b) African c) an intravenous drug-user or d) sleep with high-risk groups

More likely is Chlamydia which is very widespread, and Syphilis, and HPV, plus other charming afflictions.........but you don't need to pay for Chlamydia, it comes free with a high proportion of schoolgirls nowadays which is why i tend to see buses advertising its prevalence to the nation's youth

[Tory Loyalist]

The Victorians were also curiously callous towards those infected. A limerick of the period goes:-
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Nothing much changes. My PC and mobile are currently jammed with tasteless jokes about the Ipswich murders which I couldn't possibly repeat here.

Recalling the recent "racist email" furore I have no doubt that Mr Cameron would be interested to know the identity of at least one of the senders.