I'm not going to pretend it's all clean - certainly there's underage, trafficked and exploited people. However that's still the case when it's illegal, the difference is how we can find and protect those who have been exploited by others.

When prostitution is legal a prostitute can go to the police without fear of prosecution (but not persecution unfortunately - less of an issue here because the laws were loosely enforced). Additionally a legitimate business is more attractive to most customers, so a legal businesses subject to inspection and record keeping requirements are more likely to take business from the less legitimate ones.

My personal opinion is that prostitution is here to stay. We should focus on the safety of those involved. Giving them a criminal record is certainly not going to get them away from prostitution.

In theory, Sweden's approach of only criminalizing the clients (and pimps, I assume) should provide that too; a bit like the decriminalization of drug consumption. On the other hand, since every "john" is at risk if the prostitute does go to the police, it's much more likely that they'll avoid doing so. Even where drug use is decriminalized, users don't tend to go to the police if their dealer rips them off or physically assaults them.

Also I think that provides a side effect too: if a john is already committing a crime when going to a prostitute, he may be more likely to do so anonymously and with less trace, making it easier for them to add robbery or assault to their acts.

I think that hypocrisy never helps. If it is illegal to go to a prostitute, it should be illegal to be one, their existence would have no legal justification.

I disagree.

Few are forced to visit and hire a prostitute. But we know people are forced to be a prostitute (trafficking), some do it for drugs, and some feel they have no other way to survive. While society understands not every prostitute is in one of these categories, it seems a cruel punishment to charge them with a crime. MOstly because it would be charging a rape victim with the crime of being raped.

Some people are forced into working in sweatshops to sew t-shirts. That does not make a good reason to criminalize t-shirts.

Forcing someone into doing something is already illegal. The forced person is a victim, most laws are clear about it. If the issue we are talking about is fighting against human-trafficking, the only question should be to know if legalizing prostitution would help the police find human traffickers.

And this should be the top question of the debate IMHO. I don't care much to live in a society that answers differently than me to the question "Should prostitution be legal?" but I would love to be in a society where human-trafficking does not exist.

I do have the feeling that pimps do enjoy the hypocrisy and moral ambiguity of the laws: it makes their services invaluable and their activities under the radar. But this opinion mostly comes from anecdotes and common sense. I am inclined to change opinions based on facts.

But you know how rumors are - all it takes is one person to decide that "It's obvious, innit?" and they start repeating it as fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Germany

http://www.dw.com/en/germany-introduces-unpopular-prostituti...

When they haven't committed a crime they should be able to get aid from the authorities and their pimps and traffickers arrested.

Unfortunately this isn't a perfect world and resources aren't always available for whatever reason. I don't like it, but I also don't like creating criminals out of victims.

There are legal brothels in Australia found with links to international human traffickers. If Australia has this problem with far more police powers than American police have, who is to say that the problem won't be rampant in the US?

I am all for legal prostitution if it reduces human trafficking. My argument is just that you can't assume that what works in Australia will necessarily work in the US.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/national/legal-brothels-linked-to-inte...

Its one less step if you can more easily monitor and the sex workers can speak freely to police.

In fact I'm more about how they treated sex work in several historical governments in the past and that is only government-operated brothels are allowed.

Please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicious_Lawless_Association_Di...

This law would not be possible in the US due to the US constitution's protection of freedom of association, while it has been strictly enforced at times in the state of Queensland. These sorts of powers substantially weaken organized crime but at major cost to civil rights.

They do not need probable cause, they need "reasonable suspicion"[1].

The same standard Aus had until around a decade ago (now reduced). There were nearly 700K stop and searches in NYC in 2011 alone[2] (vastly reduced now) which undermines your suggestion that the BoR provides solid protection in this particular respect. Although I agree there are some protections offered by codified rights.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_stop

2. http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data

However I think germany's decriminalisation was a good testcase. The netherlands don't seem to have problems either.

Legalising brothels removes the social stigma from prostitute clients increasing demand for prostitution by the order of magnitude. Which gives human traffickers additional incentive.

I think that the good solution is what we have in Poland: prostitution is legal for the clients and individual prostitutes but it is illegal for any third party (e.g. pimp) to interfere and make profit from prostitution. This gives a prostitute possibility to just go to the police and denounce her pimp, making it much harder to force her to sex work.

> Literally dozens of thousands of them. Citation needed.

> increasing demand for prostitution by the order of magnitude A whole magnitude? Citation really needed.

In Germany a john has to report to the police if he suspects the prostitute is being coerced, if there are legal women, why would he seek an illegal one and risk jail time?

but what would incentivize said john to report it? I don't think the john is going to make a difference in this case.

The numbers in the Wikipedia link is a couple of magnitudes lower.

If prostitution is illegal then it will be run by people who do not obey the law and will happily traffic people and have people people working illegally or forcibly.

http://humantraffickingsgp.weebly.com/amsterdams-red-light-d...