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Background Information
Since declaration of independence, prostitution has always been illegal in United States just like it has been the case in many other civilizations since time immemorial. The old adage that prostitution is the oldest profession on earth certainly has some elements of truth because since the man invented trade sex has always been one form of payment that was offered in exchange of good or with some other form of service. This is perhaps the ancient origin of prostitution business whose concept has essentially remained the same many thousands years later. Today the annual turnover of prostitution industry worldwide is in excess of 100 billion and a flourishing underground business in America (Pen.).
As early as 1971 Nevada started enacting laws that legalized prostitution within its jurisdictions but only in specific Counties thereby setting the stage for other States to follow suit in a precedent that was never followed since it is still the only State in America that legalizes prostitution. The question then becomes, why have other States not at least decriminalized prostitution? The purpose of this paper is to show why prostitution should be made legal in United States.
Benefits of Legalizing Prostitution
In modern day America, prostitution is currently one of the most common misdemeanors that someone is most likely to be arrested for. Indeed if the current statistics are anything to go by, prostitution is no longer an ancient profession but the largest as well. In a report compiled by the National Task Force on Prostitution (NTFP) in 2003, 1 million is the modest estimates of women previously are currently engaged actively in the vice (Bayswan.org).
This figure represent 1% of women population who are involved in the illegal business of prostitution not to mention 70% of their male counterparts estimated by the same report to have willingly engaged in prostitution at least once in their lifetime (Bayswan.org). Another research study that collected data on the prevalence of STD among prostitutes found that only about 5% cases of the prostitutes could be attributed to the STDs (Pen,com). It would appear from this data that prostitution is deeply integrated in the society as a way of life. The implication of these figures is that illegalizing prostitution serves no purpose in abating it; the only thing that is guaranteed in these efforts is loss of crucial earnings from taxation.
In a previous report published by Prostitute Education Network (PEN) in 1993, the study indicates that as early as 1980s and 90s the effects of failing to legalize prostitution had started taking toll on the judiciary because of the huge case pile up of prostitution related that had congested the judiciary as well as the prison system. 70% of all female arrest that were being made for instance involved a charge of prostitution while male cases accounted for up to 20% (Meir).
This is a huge proportion of persons serving time as well as cases that clogs the judiciary that can greatly ease this strain. Because the law allows the police to use unorthodox methods in arresting suspects of prostitutions, the associated cost involved in arresting, charging, court hearing and incarceration is estimated to cost taxpayers as much as $2,000 per single case (Pen,com).
In many States in United States the cost of persecuting and deterring people from engaging in prostitution is estimated to average 7.5 million per year that has been increasing every year.
By all means this is a very modest figure given that some cities alone, notably Los Angeles and California spend as much as 100 million annually towards controlling prostitution (Pen.com). This is a complete waste of taxpayers’ money that serves no purpose at all since there is no evidence that the vice is reducing; add this to the potential billions that each city could collect in form of tax and you realize that these are not the only amounts that are being wasted.
It is a widely held opinion by many policy makers that legalizing prostitution could be the way out of solving the issue of human trafficking that has more than quadrupled over the recent past from the third world countries to developed countries. Legalization would streamline the process by setting standards that must be met and defining the code of business thereby addressing the three major challenges associated with prostitution; child prostitution, illegal immigration and transmission of STDs and HIV AIDS.
These are the very issues that the critics of the system are often concerned about. This is because legalizing prostitution will enable authorities to vet more closely the persons engaged in the business to ensure minors are not involved. What is more, vetting will allow control of immigrants that are eligible to work in the industry leading to reduced immigrants being granted access which would solve the problem of illegal trafficking. And because legalizing prostitution will require issuance of licenses and healthy certificates it would become extremely difficult for illegal immigrants to work and in the process limit the infection rates transmitted by these prostitutes which are in any case extremely low.
Perhaps one of the most compelling reasons why prostitution should be legalized in America are contained in a recent finding that has found a correlation between legalization of prostitutes and the prevalence of rapes. In a research study done by Cundiff titled “Prostitution and Sex Crimes” that utilized a regressed model of testing theories the study found that if prostitution was made legal in the United States “the rape rate would decrease by roughly 25% which is a decrease of approximately 25,000 per year” (Cundiff).
The findings of this research study are compatible with various other literatures on the subject which have largely attributed the phenomenon of rape to factors of “lust” and “power thesis” (Cundiff). Because men are easily able to access the services of prostitutes at lower rates in jurisdictions that legalize prostitution, there is higher rate of utilization of this purposes that serve to diffuse the elements of lust and power thesis that might compel men to commit rape (Cundiff).
Finally the study also found an association between prostitution rates and status of its legalization; in United States for instance the low-end rates that are charged by the prostitutes are pegged at $200 while $30 is standard rate that is found in Amsterdam where it is legal. This also supports a common view that suggests legalization of prostitution will demystify the trade thereby opening it up to the public.
This would have the advantage of facilitating regulatory oversight by authorities and at the same time reign on other associated vices that are hard to control such as drug trafficking, smuggling and gambling that are known to operate while using prostitution as camouflage. The table below copied from the same study indicates the data on rape, sex and homicide to depict the relationship that exist between availability of sex and prevalence of rape.
Let us consider data from just two countries; Portugal for instance has the lowest rape rates according to the data, but for good reasons, the frequency of sex per month is seen to occur at a rate of 95.2 times almost 8 times more than is the case for United States which incidentally has a rape rate of 32, this is one of the highest on the list as well as the homicide rate that appears to be correlated with rape rate (Cundiff). The rest of the figures speak for themselves.
Table 1.
If these are not strong enough reasons to compel the government to legalize prostitution perhaps then the United States Constitution can provide us with an insight on the matter. The right to liberty and pursuit of happiness are two of the core values that are expressly provided by the United States constitution as captured in the Declaration of Independence (UShistory.com). Liberty is also provided in the Universal Human Rights article, when prostitution is illegalized this rights are greatly curtailed and denied. History has also taught us that it would be futile for any government to intervene in matters of morality among its people because by and large morality is a term that is relative.
Isn’t it amazing that this is one of the only few areas of moral issues that the government is still interested on reigning its citizens. You will remember that late in 17th century the government also sought to control the religious beliefs of the people by establishing government churches but which failed and the church was eventually separated from the government. It is time The United States follow suit by ratifying the United Nations resolution for decriminalizing prostitution worldwide which has been ratified by more than 50 developed countries all over the parts of Europe and America; in fact United States is only a handful of countries that still refuse to relent (Armentano).
Conclusion
There are two things that we can learn from economic concepts as far as prostitution is concerned; that the supply and demand law is very much like the law of gravity which can never be conquered. It is the same for prostitution, as long as the demand exist and sellers are willing to trade it will never end, yet this has always been the case. It is for this reason that prostitution will continue being the bottomless pit that sucks up billions and billions of money with absolutely nothing to show for.
For about the 4,000 years that it has been around and despite the trillions of money that had been spent on abating it, it has never conceded even an inch, in fact it has only become more bold, more sophisticated and a major industry of any world economy that rakes in billions of dollars: I say it is time we tap it.
Works Cited
Armentano, P. The Case for Legalizing Prostitution, 1993. Web.
Bayswan.org. North America Task Force on Prostitution, n.d. Web.
CitedCundiff, Kirby. Prostitution and Sex Crimes, 2004. Web.
Meir, G. Prostitution – Regimes of Prohibition, Criminalization, And Regulation, 2010. Web.
Pen.com. Prostitution in the United States – The Statistics, 2002. Web.
UShistory.com. The Declaration of Independence, 2010. Web.
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