banning prostitution is the best example of this dumb line of thinking. If they could do something better they already would be doing it. Replacing a "bad" option with "no" option does not help them.
"I was so poor I had to sell my body so as to not starve to death but selling my body made me depressed and so I spent all my money on drugs leaving no money for food, throwing me into a life of starvation."
fixed that for you to make the two sentences equal. Making prostitution illegal doesn't prevent the men and women who sell their bodies from starving to death after they lost their source of income. I'm all for social programs preventing people from starving to death though, that seems like a much better solution than banning prostution.