Prostitution and the Pollution of Moral Ecology
Moral Philosophy, Politics — By Joe Carter on March 11, 2008 at 1:11 amThe news of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s dalliances with high-priced prostitutes fills me with sadness, regret, and dread. Sadness over the Governor’s shaming his family in such a public way, regret at having to listen to the smirking schadenfreude of his political enemies, and dread that we’ll have to suffer the tedious and inevitable articles and blog posts asking, “What’s the problem with prostitution?”
Always ahead of the curve. Matthew Yglesias leads the meme with his post, “Thinking About Prostitution”:
Whenever a politician gets caught up in a prostitution scandal, I do need to return to the fact that at the end of the day I don’t really think the exchange of sex for money is serious wrongdoing in the sense that justifies criminal sanctions. Obviously, in most cases such conduct will be a form of private wrongdoing against one’s spouse, etc., but that’s not a matter of public concern. [emphasis in original]
The unstated reason why it is “not a matter of public concern” is because no one is harmed by prostitution, at least not in a way that would necessitate intervention by the state. This is a view commonly held by social liberals and libertarians who believe that the primary (if not sole) purpose of the law is the protection of rights (however narrowly or expansively defined).
In contrast, a traditional conservative view is that law and public policy should be concerned with public health, public safety, and public morality. The first two are shared in common with our left-leaning political cousins; it is the last item that sets us apart. While they have discarded the concept as antiquated, we maintain a view held by thinkers ranging from Aristotle to Thomas Aquinas to Robert George that the promotion of virtue–”making men moral”–is a proper, though subsidiary, role of the government.
As George notes in The Clash of Orthodoxies, “public morals laws, like health and safety regulations, regulate private conduct insofar as it harms or threatens to harm, the public interest.” For instance, using the example of prostitution, George argues:
Assuming, again, that prostitution is indeed immoral, then the availability of prostitutes is going to facilitate immoral acts by individuals–prostitutes and their customers. Of course, the commercial sex acts will likely take place in “private,” that is, behind closed doors and it could be the case that there is no highly visible publicizing of the prostitutes’ availability (though unless there is some way of getting the word out publicly, there won’t be much work for the prostitutes). Still, public interests are damaged. The public has an interest in men not engaging prostitutes: for when they do, they damage their own characters; they render themselves less solid and reliable as husbands and fathers; they weaken their marriages and their ability to enter into good marriages and authentically model for others (including their own children) the virtue of chastity on which the integrity of marriages and of marriage as an institution in any given society depends; they set bad examples for others. In short they damage what I have referred to as the community’s “moral ecology”–an ecology as vital to the community’s well-being, and as such, as integral to the public interest, as the physical ecology which is protected by environmental laws enacted pursuant to the police powers to protect public health.
Although commonsensical, liberal-libertarians will scoff at such talk of “moral ecology.” The concept is simply too foreign, too abstract, too pre-modern (i.e., pre-’60s era sexual mores) for them to grasp. While they could connect the dots between the “private wrongdoing” of littering and the inherent public concern with protecting our environment–they know why Iron Eyes Cody is crying–such talk of legislating sexual activity because of public moral harm seems…bizarre.
Regrettably, the same holds true for many people who consider themselves to be “conservatives.” Because of a misunderstanding of the concept of limited government, many conservatives today have sided against their own tradition and with the liberal-libertarians on this point. They simply can’t comprehend either the concept of moral ecology or the idea that government has any role in making citizens virtuous.
This post is a lament, not an argument so I won’t try to defend virtue jurisprudence here. (Besides, if conservatives ignore the wisdom of Aristotle or Russell Kirk why would they listen to me?) The shame is not just that weak and ineffectual men like Spitzer succumb to temptation. No, the true regret is that we have such strong and capable apologists for sanctioning vice. We can survive the individual moral polluter. It’s the people who deny that we a duty to protect our moral ecology that will be our downfall.
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132 Comments
If you knew that decriminalizing prostitution would NOT enslave millions, would you then support it.
Are you asking if I would support it if only thousands, instead of millions were enslaved or are you asking if I would support it if you can completely eliminate the slavery part. Problem is, I don’t think you can separate the two because of the laws of supply and demand. In this situation, I think data supports my position that the demand will always exceed the people willing to supply the service which will ultimately lead to the slavery part. Being in favor of prostitution without slavery is like being in favor of cars, but not tires.
Now you’re just spinning.
Spinning is trying to explain away data that disagrees with your assumptions. You haven’t provided any data, so what have I to spin away?
I had assumed that you were defending Joe’s point of view that the government should outlaw moral pollutants.
I think that is a mischaracterization of Joe’s position. Not to put words in his mouth, but I would be very surprised if he thought it the government’s job to outlaw every moral pollutant. I’ve never seen Joe call for a return to Prohibition, for example. Take your example of divorce, I don’t think government should ban divorce. There are certainly cases where divorce is appropriate, but I would not have a problem with government taking steps to encourage people to stay married, even to the point of eliminating “no fault divorce”, especially when there are children.
Problem is, I don’t think you can separate the two because of the laws of supply and demand. In this situation, I think data supports my position that the demand will always exceed the people willing to supply the service which will ultimately lead to the slavery part.
Errr you totally botched the supply-demand and you presented no data. You’ve been blown out of the water nearly a half dozen times now.
Errr you totally botched the supply-demand and you presented no data.
Errr, I have, you just don’t accept the data because it doesn’t agree with your assumptions. Here’s some more from a Scottish Parliament Report, A Critical Examination of Responses to Prostitution in Four Countries: Victoria, Australia; Ireland; the Netherlands; and Sweden:
“Legalisation is a `pull factor’ for traffickers. Project Respect estimates, “at least seven licensed brothels in Victoria have used trafficked women in the last year”. An Australian Institute of Criminology study estimated that Australian brothels earned $1 million a week from illegal prostitution. Mary Sullivan and Sheila Jeffreys point out that, “Legalisation was intended to eliminate organised crime from the sex industry. In fact the reverse has happened. Legalisation has brought with it an explosion in the trafficking of women into prostitution by organised crime.”
and
Child prostitution in the Netherlands has significantly increased during the last ten years. The ChildRight organisation in Amsterdam estimates that there are now more than 15,000 children (primarily girls) being prostituted, an increase of eleven thousand since1996. Five thousand of these children are thought to be from other countries, mainly Nigeria (Tiggloven, 2001).
and
At the most basic level an expansion of the sex industry in its current forms will be accompanied by increased incidence of violence. Violence against women in prostitution does not seem to have decreased in the Netherlands or Victoria since legalisation, and there are even suggestions that it has increased. (Jeffreys 1997, Daley 2001). A report by the Australian Institute of Criminology in 1990 found that many prostitutes in legal brothels were at a high risk of violence (TA, 1990, p 4). Research in 1994 by an NGO found that a significant percentage of women felt unsafe with customers most or some of the time (Pyett, Haste & Snow 1994: 13). The Prostitutes Collective of Victoria (PCV) was receiving up to 15 reports of rape and violence against prostitutes weekly. Also, many of these women in illegally run brothels in Victoria did not report to police, either for fear of being charged with a prostitution-related offence, or because they already had outstanding fines and were afraid of being jailed (Australia Country Report).
and
In one Dutch study, 79 per cent of women in prostitution gave an indication that they were in prostitution due to some degree of force (The Dutch Institute of Social Sexological Research, 2000).
I eagerly await your dismissal of this as more Bushian propaganda.
Speaking of data, Megan McArdle asked a good question 4 days ago on her blog:
In this situation, I think data supports my position that the demand will always exceed the people willing to supply the service which will ultimately lead to the slavery part
There is a level of silliness beyond which it becomes pointless to answer anymore. All markets clear. If demand exceeds supply then the price increases until demand and supply equal each other. If supply is limited then all that happens is increases in demand are entirely reflected in price increases rather than a mix of price and quantity.
The ’slave market’ is a different market with its own supply and demand curve. The quantity of slavery in that market is set by the supply of slave labor and the demand for it. If prostitution was legal some (not all but a good portion) of demand for prostitution would be from non-slave labor. The supply of slave labor would likewise go down as law enforcement could concentrate on slave labor and non-slave labor woudl have an incentive to rat them out. Decreased demand and supply means lower quantity of slave labor.
You’ve been blown out of the water nearly a half dozen times now.
I’m reminded of the old engineering joke “How does an engineer get out of a 50 ft. deep hole”? First he assumes a 50 ft. ladder. Boonton, you can’t blow anyone out of the water with an “assumed gun”, which is all you have.
Name one industry that has been characterized by more violence and mayhem when it was legal than when it was illegal.
I’ve read the post. Hung up in the spam filter I have a rather long post that links to a Scottish Parliament on prostitution. One quote I cited,
At the most basic level an expansion of the sex industry in its current forms will be accompanied by increased incidence of violence. Violence against women in prostitution does not seem to have decreased in the Netherlands or Victoria since legalisation, and there are even suggestions that it has increased. (Jeffreys 1997, Daley 2001).
seems to demonstrate that violence may have increased with the legalization of prostitution, but it didn’t decrease.
This coming from the man who begins with the assumption that the entire population of women must be 99% pure and 1% sluts.
Even then, after inventing a bunch of totally bizaar economic assumptions to get his model to work he still screws it up. His fall back, Nevada has a higher divorce rate!
Ahh, if only we could be more like the enlightened Dutch. First they legalize prostitution and then this.
I skimmed the Scottish report but I’d like to spend more time reading it in detail. Some of the item that jump out reinforce my argument.
First, the slavery argument seems to hold less water. Many of the regimes are like Nevada. There’s a legal prostitution and an illegal prostitution sector. Many of the complaints about the legal sector are that women would rather work in the illegal one. They don’t want to be officially registered as prostitutes with the gov’t, don’t want the regulation, find that society shuns them when they are ‘official prostitutes’…on the other hand the illegal sector does allow one to live something of a double life that can be kept somewhat secret. For example, “”Prostitutes who are trying to set themselves up as self-employed businesswomen are finding that accountants, banks and health insurance companies want nothing to do with them”…how many slaves are trying to see accountants, banks and health insurance companies? (Out of curiousity, why would people in a country with nationalized healthcare be shopping for health insurance?)
Second, the bulk of the violence risk appears to be coming not from pimps or ‘enslavers’ but from customers in the form of assault, rape and robbery. It may sound harsh but this is an ‘on the job risk’ of the profession. Unless you do have someplace like Wal-Mart running brothels you’re going to have these things. But ucfengr’s violence argument stems not from the ‘on the job’ risks but from traffickers & slavers trying to meet a huge demand.
Here ucfengr’s argument collapses in the raw numbers. The site has a neat little chart estimating how many members are in the sex industry compared to the total population. Victoria/Australia has 4.5millin people but 10,000 women working in the industry. Even if only 1% of women would ever entertain the notion of being a prostitute that is still 45,000 willing prostitutes. The Netherlands has 25,000 compared to a population of 16 million.
Another problem is that ucfengr confuses and distorts the difference between organized crime, traffickers and actual slavery. It’s pretty clear from the report that a lot of organized crimes involvement revolves around facilitating willing prostitutes. For example, to dodge immigration laws, to work under the table, etc. What seems to happen is that many women are making choices and balancing the pros and cons of both legal prostitution and illegal and deciding which to go with.
There are a few areas of concern here. One is choices that result in someone being trapped. For example, a woman from the Ukraine goes to London to be a prostitute. Rational, there’s more money to be made there. But if she’s there illegally she now has few choices if she wants to stop. Live in utter poverty. Go back home. Try to legalize herself in London.
The other is the huge amount of drug addiction. If gov’t did legalize prostitution but required prostitutes to be drug free I suspect we’d still have large illegal sector. Many women use prostitution for quick cash and few people need quick cash like addicts.
Prostitution does seem intractable and I doubt any of the ideas thrown at it would solve it. Even legalization, IMO, would marginally improve the situation a bit but the key word there is marginal. What I haven’t seen, though, is real evidence that legalization would increase violence against women or increase the slavery assertion.
This coming from the man who begins with the assumption that the entire population of women must be 99% pure and 1% sluts.
You better slow down your rate of fire there, Boonton. You are going to burn out the barrel of your “assumed gun” with all these unsupported assumptions.
Even if only 1% of women would ever entertain the notion of being a prostitute that is still 45,000 willing prostitutes
Based on what, do you assume that 1% of people would “entertain the notion of being a prostitute”? See this is why you haven’t “blown me out of the water” or anything of the sort. All your arguments are built on a foundation of unsupported assumptions. You can’t “blow something out of the water” with nothing and nothing is all that you’ve offered.
Your argument is esssentially that being a prostitute is pretty horrible therefore the number of women willing to do it must be next to zero….maybe slightly more than the number of suicides. Therefore the population of prostitutes must be women forced into it.
Here’s a problem, you’ve cited nothing to back this up. I don’t have to figure out how many women are willing to be prostitutes. I only have to show how implausible your argument is. How appealing is hard drug addiction? Yet we have many more than 10,000 hard addicts. Is that because there’s some gang of drug pushers who are holding people down shooting them full of dope against their wills? What evidence do you have that Spitzer’s favorite prostitute was living in a ‘fur lined cage’?
Have you noticed that your arguments are entirely devoid of truth? Your approach to any issue can be summed up with this:
1. You figure out what you want to be your position.
2. You come up with a theory whose assumptions will lead to that position.
3. You spin and distort the facts like crazy to pull that off.
Have you noticed that your arguments are entirely devoid of truth?
No, I really hadn’t notice that. Though I can see how relying on data from those lying, egg-sucking dogs in the Scottish Parliament, at the US State Department, and at the UK Guardian would be problematic. I must remember to use reliable ones, like the ones you use. Oh, wait you don’t use any sources. So, have you noticed that your arguments are all built on a foundation of unsupported assumptions?
Therefore the population of prostitutes must be women forced into it.
And children. Remember from the Scottish Report:
Child prostitution in the Netherlands has significantly increased during the last ten years. The ChildRight organisation in Amsterdam estimates that there are now more than 15,000 children (primarily girls) being prostituted, an increase of eleven thousand since 1996 (note : a nearly 400% increase–ucf). Five thousand of these children are thought to be from other countries, mainly Nigeria (Tiggloven, 2001).
Surely you don’t want to make the argument that children can consent to participating in prostitution, do you?
ucfengr,
I was stationed in Korea about ten years ago. The amount of prostitution that went on there was amazing. In many Asain countries it is a perfectly mainstream activity for men to engage with without stigma. There was a report that cam out a few years back that estimated 1/4 of Korean women had been involved in the prostitution industry at one time in their lives. even if that was an exaggeration, there was a significant percentage of women who were in the industry and and there was no coercion associated with any of it.
I am loathe to agree with Boonton, but he makes the stranger case.
ucfengr,
I was stationed in Korea about ten years ago. The amount of prostitution that went on there was amazing. In many Asain countries it is a perfectly mainstream activity for men to engage with without stigma. There was a report that cam out a few years back that estimated 1/4 of Korean women had been involved in the prostitution industry at one time in their lives. even if that was an exaggeration, there was a significant percentage of women who were in the industry and and there was no coercion associated with any of it.
I am loathe to agree with Boonton, but he makes the stronger case.
Surely you don’t want to make the argument that children can consent to participating in prostitution, do you?
Errr no. I’m not sure why you would ask given the fact that I’ve said nothing to imply I would nor have I ever heard a serious argument that child prostitution should be legalized.
As we keep going you get stranger and stranger. Take the Spitzer case again. The woman he was sleeping with was 22 years old. The ‘madam’ was 23 years old. While both have had some tough breaks nothing I’ve seen so far indicates anything to indicate either of them were enslaved or abused. To be frank, they had lives that many people around the world and even in the US would have envied (I’m not talking about their work as prostitutes but before that). There’s no indication that they were slaves in any real sense of the word but responsible actors AND I’m not seeing how if what they were doing was legal they would respond to too many client calls by calling in Nigerian child slave runners.
I’m starting to wonder about the numbers you’re tossing out. On the one hand there’s 25K prostitutes in the Netherlands now there’s 15k children? 1/3 of all prostitution then is between adults and children? Either the studies are using very different statistical methods or there’s a huge amount of child prostitution that is kept underground to an almost amazing degree.
In doing a bit of research on the numbers that ucfengr has been throwing out, I find that there is a huge amount of controversy over such statistics. The “15,000 child prostitutes in the Netherlands” estimate comes from an advocacy group in 2001 that essentially made up the number based on interviews with some other agencies. The Dutch police say the numbers are “much lower.” http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/netherlands/netherlands011218.html
Another study done about the same time concluded that there were between one and two thousand minor prostitutes in the Netherlands. Most of these were 16-18 and a significant number were in the business voluntarily.
http://www.ecpat.nl/ariadne/loader.php/nl/ecpat/Rapporten/trafficking1/NETHERLANDS.pdf/
The truth is that nobody knows the exact numbers. By the very nature of the crime of sex trafficking in minors, there are simply no accurate statistics.
That the original number is essentially made up isn’t surprising. Not too long ago there was hysteria here about ‘missing children’ and a similiar well intentioned group essentially made up a crazy number that did more to confuse the issue than enlighten it.
The number of 1-2,000 makes more sense in light of the more reasonable sounding 25,000 total. This is still a bit of a bind for ucfengr who has hitched his argument to this wacky limited supply/huge demand theory that:
1. Makes no sense.
2. Doesn’t line up with any in depth reports about prostitution, even the UK one he has been citing…go ahead and read the actual thing!
and
3. Now doesn’t even add up. If 25,000 prostitutes are needed to meet demand in the Netherlands market, that is a trivial portion of their population. Not only that, there’s absolutely no reason why willing prostitutes from other parts of Europe or the rest of the world couldn’t willingly go there for. For his idea to be viable the absolute number of women willing to work as a prostitute for any price has to be amazingly tiny…not even 1/10th of a percent!
Let’s go back to the real world:
The worst part of prostitution is not the 22 year old upper class girls who fall into the business for a quick buck or because it looks exciting but are nevertheless acting of their own will.
And while slavery is wrong that doesn’t seem to be a significant portion of prostitution in developed countries. Ucfengr hasn’t addressed the point that trafficking is not the same as slavery. Many traffickers are working for the prostitutes as much as for the pimps.
The worst part would appear to be women who are suffering from some type of mental problem. The two big ones appear to be drug addiction and a legacy of physical abuse. The UK report makes for very interesting reading in this area. These two huge problems, unfortunately, do not seem addressable either by legalization or criminalization. It seems that prostitution being criminal might make these issues worse since it makes it harder to help the women since they are in a sense on the run from the law as much as their problems.
In many Asain countries it is a perfectly mainstream activity for men to engage with without stigma.
That’s great Oclarki, so to follow that do you think we in the West should adopt Asian attitudes towards women or should we just adopt European attitudes towards family? Do you really think the US should be more like the Netherlands?
The “15,000 child prostitutes in the Netherlands” estimate comes from an advocacy group in 2001 that essentially made up the number based on interviews with some other agencies.
I’ve been accused of being dishonest here, but this really is a misrepresentation of what the article said, ex. I guess for an ex-preacher, truth isn’t really all that important. The article didn’t say that ChildRight “essentially made up the number”, it said:
ChildRight has based its findings on interviews with local relief workers, advice centres and police detectives from youth and vice squads. Police sources question the estimation of 15,000 and say it doesn’t fit with their figures, which suggest that predominantly girls from migrant communities are still most at risk. The UN Children’s Organisation UNICEF says it’s unable to corroborate the figures, but its spokesperson Maud Drooghlever Fortuyn says that in her view, the estimates point to a serious problem, that appears to get bigger.”
The article went on to say:
ChildRight says official police figures are based on the number of cases that are reported. But, says Theo Knippenberg (of ChildRight), “not many girls actually go to the police, which means that the true scale of the problem remains unknown.” He believes that many detectives working for youth and vice squads are aware of the problem, but can do little about it as long as girls don’t report.
That’s quite a bit different from “making up the number” isn’t it?
I’m not sure why you would ask given the fact that I’ve said nothing to imply I would nor have I ever heard a serious argument that child prostitution should be legalized.
When I read your responses, I wonder if you even bother to read my posts or if you just assume it says something and respond to that. I asked if you thought children could consent to prostitution based on your implication that most prostitutes aren’t forced into the “profession”. What I was really trying to highlight is your attempt to separate the legal and illegal aspects of prostitution. You can’t separate them. Even where prostitution is legal, there is a significant illegal component because nobody is going to legalize everything. There will always be some component that nobody will accept (i.e. child prostitution) and the demand for people willing to sell their body’s for sex is always going to exceed the supply. Supply/demand curves aren’t really all that useful in this situation. It is easy to make more TVs or dish soap if demand goes up; you just add another shift or build another factory. Prostitution doesn’t work that way; there is a limited number of people who are willing to sell their bodies for sex at any price. When that number is reached, you can’t just build another factory. The way to increase the number is to bring in unwilling people and the evidence is that is what is happening. Anyway, I’m done. If someone wants to takeover, feel free.
So how do you account for another study, which appears to me to be more comprehensive and less biased, that concluded that there were only 1-2,000 minors in the sex trade in the Netherlands and that many of those were 16-18 and not being held against their wills?
Follow up question: How many minors in the sex trade are there in the U.S.?
ucfengr
That’s great Oclarki, so to follow that do you think we in the West should adopt Asian attitudes towards women or should we just adopt European attitudes towards family? Do you really think the US should be more like the Netherlands?
Yawn, the guy was just pointing out the absurdity of your claim that no women (except for a tiny microscoptic minority) would willingly be prostitutes. Nice rhetorical move though, when your claims fail smear everyone within arms reach.
That’s quite a bit different from “making up the number” isn’t it?
ex wasn’t attacking the groups intentions but the validity of the number. I think it’s pretty clear at this point the numbers do not add up.
I asked if you thought children could consent to prostitution based on your implication that most prostitutes aren’t forced into the “profession”.
Errr, even if we use your numbers (25,000 Neth. prostitutes and 15,000 minors) most prostitutes aren’t children. But since you’re given to distorting people I’ll do the CYA and tell you officially no I do not think a child can consent to either sex or to be a prostitute. I would, however, note that a distinction should be made between true child prostitution and minors who are prostitutes. There is a world of difference between a 17 year old and a 7 year old…but no I don’t think either should be legal.
Supply/demand curves aren’t really all that useful in this situation. It is easy to make more TVs or dish soap if demand goes up; you just add another shift or build another factory.
Actually no it’s not that easy to just make more TV’s or dish soap. And no supply demand curves don’t disappear just because you don’t understand what they are and won’t bother to try to learn.
how do you account for another study, which appears to me to be more comprehensive and less biased
Do you have any objective reason for saying it is more comprehensive and less biased, or do you just like it better because it tends to support your position?
How many minors in the sex trade are there in the U.S.?
I found one study that estimates from 100k to 300k (Link).
Yawn, the guy was just pointing out the absurdity of your claim that no women (except for a tiny microscoptic minority) would willingly be prostitutes.
Really, that was what he was trying to do? Well there are ways to do that and one way would be to provide, oh you know, actual data, instead of relying on vague memories of prostitution around military bases 10 years ago and recollections of an unlinked “study” that shows 25%(!) of women in S. Korea have been prostitutes. Considering that all the data I’ve seen indicates that the number of prostitutes worldwide is something less than 1% of the population, a study that claims 25% would raise eyebrows, to say the least.
And no supply demand curves don’t disappear just because you don’t understand what they are and won’t bother to try to learn.
What are your generic supply/demand curves supposed to show? That you know what a generic supply/demand curve looks like? Bravo, I will concede that you know what one looks like, but what you haven’t been able to do is give any reason why I should accept your curve as relevant to the specific topic. I understand that you don’t want to write a Ph.D. thesis, but a data curve without data points is meaningless.
I think the report putting the number at 1-2,000 child prostitutes in the Netherlands is more accurate based on reading the report that explains how they arrived at that number. If you can find a link to a thorough description of how the advocacy group arrived at the 15,000 estimate, I will be glad to read that report and compare the methods.
I went to the link you gave on the number of child prostitutes in the US being 100,000 to 300,000, but couldn’t find that quote. We also need to clarify what we mean by “child prostitute.” The 1-2,000 number was counting 16 and 17 year olds (who accounted for most of the total number), whereas the US study you linked to appeared to only count those under 16. I’m looking for this number myself and appeal to you or others for a better estimate. What is the estimated number of under 18 prostitutes in the United States and how was the estimate arrived at?
FWIW, I found a report that repeats numbers that others have claimed.
http://www.ecpatusa.org/pdfs/AlternativeReportUSAFinal2007.pdf
The numbers don’t appear to have much hard research behind them, but here they are.
On page 6, the report states that a researcher at the Univ. of Pennsylvania estimated in 2001 that “293,000 American youth are currently at risk for becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation.” As you can see, this doesn’t claim there are that many child prostitutes, just that many “at risk.”
On page 7, we read that, “Sources, including non-profit groups that work with sexually exploited people, suggest there may be between 500,000 to 600,000 prostituted children in the United States.” No mention of methodology on how the number was reached. Anyone else have anything?
I guess that more or less brings it to a close. Nice of ucfengr to provide the final nail in his coffin:
I understand that you don’t want to write a Ph.D. thesis, but a data curve without data points is meaningless.
The world waits for ucfengr to provide any data points.
Since no one has stepped forward to offer any better numbers, let me suggest some comparisons between the US and the Netherlands with regards to child prostitution.
First, though, I must state the obvious: the numbers on child prostitution are so elusive that no one seems to have a good grasp on any of them.
So, here goes:
Netherlands population: 16.4 million
US population: 303.6 million
The US is therefore 18.5 times larger.
Using the high numbers . . .
Netherlands has 15,000 child prostitutes (CPs)
US has 600,000 CPs, or 40 times as many.
Netherlands = 1 CP per 1093 people
US = 1 CP per 506 people, or twice as many per capita
Using the low numbers . . .
Netherlands has 1,000 CPs
US has 100,000 CPs, or 100 times as many
Netherlands = 1 CP per 16,400 people,
US = 1 CP per 3,000 people, or five times as many per capita
Using average (median) numbers . . .
Netherlands has 8,000 CPs
US has 350,000 CPs, or almost 44 times as many
Netherlands = 1 CP per 2050 people
US = 1 CP per 867 people, or about 2.5 times as many per capita
Conclusion - legalized prostitution results in fewer child prostitutes than illegal prostitution
Using your own reasoning, ucfengr, I suppose you are in favor of hundreds of thousands of child prostitutes, just so we can keep the present laws.
Using your own reasoning, ucfengr, I suppose you are in favor of hundreds of thousands of child prostitutes, just so we can keep the present laws.
ucfengr strikes me as the type that deep down would be happier if the number of child prostitutes in the Netherlands was really 25,000 instead of much less simply because the higher number does more to fit his ideological needs.
ucfengr,
I think it is typical the number of people who believe that legitimizing evil is a decent way to combat another evil. The decriminalization of prostitution would lead to under-reporting of child prostitution because the message is loud and clear to the children (or any women even) being victimized - we don’t think what is happening to you is evil, so just shut up and live with it.
Interesting, if keep prostitution illegal made people more concerned about reporting child prostitution then why are there such wildly divergent estimates of the number of child prostitutes?
Perhaps another way to approach the question is to ask how many convicted pedophiles had victims that were children they paid to abuse? Seems to me most convictions I hear about are from molestors who target family members, neighborhood kids or kids they have access to through some type of community (scouts, sports coach, school, church etc.). If there’s such a large market of child prostitutes then why so few convictions & why would so many pedophiles target ‘free’ children that put them at much higher risk of discovery?
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