I was thinking about last night. I see logic in it. (1) Target the people who you have best hope of affecting the behaviour of. (2) Avoiding compounding damage to people who are already messed up.
Prostitution attracts girls who are already degraded. It's common for the girls to have been sexually abused as a child, physically abused as a young wife, or to have drug issues. Participation in the trade suggests that the person is not a full-functioning citizen.
A motivation for outlawing prostitution is paternalistic: it's a dynamic that causes this a concentrated group of people with existing problems to spiral further.
Using the legal system to target people in that situation for their own good is counterproductive. They have low faith in government and institutions already, and jailing them probably isn't going to help that. You just end up pushing them into and out of new institutions, but they keep practicing because the business is there and they don't take control of their lives to rise out of it.
Whereas the business that fuels prostitution is vulnerable to the dynamic of the police and legal system. Users are usually people who are full participants in society and are vulnerable to shame and the threat of jail time. They generally have a good understanding of rights/responsibility even if they have periods where they hold themselves to be above it.
I sometimes read that prostitution is "misogynistic". It's not. For the most part the users don't think about the circumstances of the girls at all. Some people don't naturally behave with concern for other people's circumstance, and the stick attempts to compensate for that.
Regarding 1), why do you believe it is easier to change the behavior of drug dealers than drug users? Drug addicts may not change behavior, but casual users behavior should be easier to change than someone who's livelihood depends on drugs.
Regarding 2), why do you believe prostitutes are more messed up than their clients? While prostitutes at the lower end tend to have sordid histories and drug habits, their clients tend to be socially isolated men desperate for human contact.
To get an idea of how messed up the clients of prostitutes are, it's estimated that 40% or so of men who pay for a prostitute don't sleep with her (they just talk and maybe kiss).
I'm not confident that the laws around drugs are sensible, but I was more focussed on thinking about the laws around prostitution.
> their clients tend to be socially isolated men
> desperate for human contact.
I hadn't considered this case.
Thanks for link. This development towards 'escorts' is intriguing, and changes the dynamic somewhat. I can imagine that growing, a flow-on from a decline in tightly-knit families and neighbourhoods and more mobile labour.
Prostitution attracts girls who are already degraded. It's common for the girls to have been sexually abused as a child, physically abused as a young wife, or to have drug issues. Participation in the trade suggests that the person is not a full-functioning citizen.
A motivation for outlawing prostitution is paternalistic: it's a dynamic that causes this a concentrated group of people with existing problems to spiral further.
Using the legal system to target people in that situation for their own good is counterproductive. They have low faith in government and institutions already, and jailing them probably isn't going to help that. You just end up pushing them into and out of new institutions, but they keep practicing because the business is there and they don't take control of their lives to rise out of it.
Whereas the business that fuels prostitution is vulnerable to the dynamic of the police and legal system. Users are usually people who are full participants in society and are vulnerable to shame and the threat of jail time. They generally have a good understanding of rights/responsibility even if they have periods where they hold themselves to be above it.
I sometimes read that prostitution is "misogynistic". It's not. For the most part the users don't think about the circumstances of the girls at all. Some people don't naturally behave with concern for other people's circumstance, and the stick attempts to compensate for that.