Back to Kansas...
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:40 PM

...and to prostitution. Wichita has its shaming (shameful?) website, and Topeka recently dusted off another tried-and-true method of prostitution control, bringing the local media along on raids to serve as enthusiastic cheerleaders. Here's the end of the linked story:

Women convicted of soliciting prostitution in Topeka receive a mandatory 30-day jail sentence, according to city code. They get 90 days in jail and are required to attend a 30-day treatment program for a second offense. After three or more offenses, they receive a 150-day jail sentence and the 30-day treatment program. The prostitutes are also banned from a four-block radius from where they were arrested.

A 30-day "treatment" program for a prostitution offense? Let's hope that it is an "offer" of treatment for an alcohol or drug addiction.

The news channel couldn't help but to present a follow-up story on prostitution in Topeka. Mostly it concerns the fact that many prostitution arrestees are repeat offenders. But it also throws down the gauntlet at Wichita for primacy in the regulation-by-humiliation game:

The city [Topeka] is also considering the use of public humiliation to curb the problem. The police chief wants to put pictures of prostitutes and the men who hire them on the city's government access cable channel.

Labels: Kansas, prostitution, shaming

 
Wichita Prostitution Policing
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:18 AM

Wichita, Kansas seems very pleased that its police department's anti-prostitution page, launched in early March, is the most popular of its police webpages, and sixth most popular of the city's entire (500 pages plus) web presence. Naturally, the page posts photos of those arrested, though not yet convicted, of prostitution-related offenses, re-posting an arrestee's photo if there is a later conviction. And the police webpage lets us know just why their anti-prostitution work is so important:

Prostitution stings represent one aspect of the department’s comprehensive effort to rid Wichita of crimes that detract from our quality of life. A number of other criminal offenses coincide with prostitution, including assault, robbery and theft. Because many prostitutes and other persons associated with prostitution are drug users, illegal drug sales and usage are also linked with and perpetuated by prostitution. Therefore prostitution increases public health concerns, specifically the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV, and other blood disorders.

Prostitution also exists, because those who solicit it, also known as “johns,” are willing to risk arrest. These “johns” are equally responsible for related criminal public safety and public health issues. They make it increasingly difficult for prostitutes to break the cycle of crime, violence and drug use.

Hmmm, they go to a lot of effort to try to link prostitution to other activities that they know their readers won't like, such as theft and illegal drug sales. Sort of sounds like they don't really see much wrong with prostitution per se, no? Perhaps they should think about legalizing prostitution, to break that link with assault, robbery, and theft.

Speaking of theft, are there photos available on the Wichita police website of people arrested for theft? In terms of protecting the good people of Wichita, doesn't it make more sense to alert them to the identity of accused thieves than of accused solicitors? But somehow I could not find photos of accused thieves. Could this be because the real purpose of the website is not to protect the public but rather to shame those who are arrested for prostitution-related offenses? Surely not, because that would be punitive, and people in the US cannot be punished until after a conviction, following due process of law.

These extraordinary acts of publicity for 'crimes' such as prostitution are employed precisely because of the lack of a link between participation in these vice activities and generalized criminality. The people caught up in anti-prostitution stings often really are regular folks, generally law-abiding people, whose prostitution-related behavior would not be a crime nor a matter of public concern in much of the world. Unlike inveterate thieves, these people have a stake in legitimate society, and therefore really will be shamed by having their photos posted on the web. Robbers tend to be less in thrall to the norms of mainstream culture, so there is little deterrence value in a publicity threat to them.

By the way, Wichita also has created "anti-prostitution emphasis areas," which are similar to drug-free zones: penalties for prostitution-related offenses are raised if the offense takes place in an emphasis area.

Labels: Kansas, prostitution, shaming

 
Testing Accused Prostitutes for STDs
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:52 PM

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution today links to a
2000 story out of Singapore, concerning deporting
foreign women with HIV. There is a long history
of essentially scapegoating women, particularly
foreigners and prostitutes, for the spread of
sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). As the
Marginal Revolution post concerns foreigners with
HIV, Vice Squad will focus on prostitutes.

The notion that sellers should face stricter regulations
than buyers in vice transactions isn't per se nutty, by any
means, in that the typical seller is involved in a
much higher volume of trades than the typical buyer.
And in vices from gambling to drugs to prostitution,
enforcement efforts are regularly focused on sellers.
(Here's an earlier Vice Squad post on this issue.)

But scapegoating is another matter entirely, and
many of the mandatory testing regulations seem
aimed more at humiliation than at public health.
Recently, a Ukrainian woman accused of prostitution
in Turkey tested positive for HIV. She was then
marched, weeping, in front of television cameras, while
the police encouraged her former customers to get
tested. Then she was deported. The police were
relying on a ruling -- it had been rescinded, but they
didn't know that -- that required public exposure for
HIV-positive foreigners arrested for prostitution.
(Apparently you can't contract HIV from a fellow
countryperson). Here's a Chicago Tribune article
(registration required) about the incident. The article
quotes one local as saying that the town is
conservative and that prostitute women are not
welcome there. Perhaps he should have checked
with the men involved in the more than 1300 sexual
encounters in which the woman was alleged to
have engaged during the previous three months.

Surely such treatment would never happen in America,
no? Well, maybe not, but an article concerning that
over-the-top prostitution sting in Maricopa County,
Arizona, in November claimed that Arizona state law
requires STD testing of those who are accused (not
convicted!) of being prostitutes. Here's the original
Vice Squad post on the Maricopa County incident,
with the article link and a quotation concerning the
presumed state law.

In the late 1860s, Britain was finding that some of
its naval ships were unfit for service because so
many of the crew were disabled by STDs. How did they
respond? They passed the Contagious Diseases Acts that
made it possible for the police to arrest and test
women who happened to be in the wrong neighborhood
or were otherwise believed to be prostitutes. Funny,
isn't it, how punishments for vice crimes have a way
of avoiding that messy due-process-of-law tradition
that requires conviction for a crime before punishment
is meted out?

Vice Squad hero John Stuart Mill, author of (among
other things) The Subjection of Women and On
Liberty, asked to testify before a Royal Commission
formed to look into the Acts. Mill was magnificent,
if years before his time. He basically took an
economic approach. He suggested that men who
frequented prostitutes understood the risks, as
did the prostitutes themselves. Like other
contracts among adults, these exchanges did not
require government intervention. The public interest
was twofold. First, some of the customers might
pass along their diseases to their unsuspecting
wives -- an externality, if you will. So rather than
scapegoat the prostitutes, Mill suggested that those
who passed on the diseases to innocent victims
should be punished. The second public issue was
the fitness of Her Majesty's seamen. Here, Mill
testified in favor of the direct approach, testing the
seamen themselves and punishing those who allowed
themselves to become unfit for duty in this manner.

For the story on Mill and the Contagious Diseases
Acts, see The Life of John Stuart Mill, by
Michael St. John Packe, New York: Macmillan, 1954.

Labels: Arizona, Asia, Mill, prostitution, shaming, Singapore