God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. – Calixa Lavallée (Robert Weir translation), “O Canada”
Those Americans who wish to understand the difference between decriminalization of prostitution and legalization of it need look no farther than our neighbor to the north. Decriminalization is based on the philosophy that since sex is a normal human behavior which is completely legal between consenting adults as long as the woman is allowed to hide her price or lie about it, it should also be legal when she honestly tells a man her price up front. Legalization, on the other hand, is based on the magical thinking that sex is somehow intrinsically different from all other human activity even when there is no chance of conception and must therefore be regulated in a way no other behavior is. Jurisdictions with legalized prostitution give officials (or in Nevada, rich people with political connections) the power to control women’s bodies and tell whores whom we can see, where we can see them, how we can communicate with them or each other and even how we can spend our money (depending on the jurisdiction). These laws are invariably arbitrary, unfair, punitive and Draconian and at their worst reduce prostitutes to state property under the control of government-sponsored pimps.
In Canada, prostitution has never actually been illegal, but because control freaks can’t simply let women alone a number of repressive laws have been enacted to criminalize virtually everything prostitutes need to do in order to practice our trade, including keeping one place in which to receive clients, “public communication for the purpose of prostitution” and “living off the avails of prostitution” (i.e. receiving a substantial portion of one’s support from a prostitute). These laws prevent hookers from working legally in their homes, advertising, hiring employees such as maids, secretaries or bodyguards, having roommates or supporting dependent adult family members such as university-age kids. Canadian prostitutes’ only legal choices are extremely dangerous ones, so just as most whores in Nevada prefer to work illegally due to the repressive prostitution laws in their state, so too do Canadian prostitutes. But as I reported in my column of September 29th, an Ontario judge recently struck down these laws as the dangerous tyranny they are. In that column I predicted that parliament would win a stay on the ruling so the politicians could think of some more insidious way to harass and persecute hookers, and that indeed occurred last week (as reported on the Paper Chase website of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law):
The Ontario Court of Appeal on Thursday (December 2nd) ruled that several prostitution-related laws struck down by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice would remain in effect until April 29th, pending an appeal. Justice Marc Rosenberg issued an extension of the stay requested by lawyers for the federal and Ontario governments to preserve the provisions that were invalidated by the lower court while the appeal process continues. The OSCJ ruled in September that provisions § 210, § 212 and § 213 of the Canadian Criminal Code, which prohibit the keeping of a “common bawdy house,” engaging in communications for the purpose of soliciting sex and living “on the avails” of the sex trade, were a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The government argued that the judgment should be stayed until the court could conduct a full review of the decision, while the party challenging the laws argued that the stay would “perpetuate the law’s contribution to violence against a vulnerable population.” Rosenberg applied the RJR-MacDonald Inc. v. Canada test for granting a stay pending appeal, which requires the court to balance convenience and public interest considerations of the issue. He concluded that it is in the public interest that the judgment be stayed for a relatively short period to permit appellate review of the decision.
Although prostitution is legal in Canada, virtually all of the acts ancillary to exchanging sex for money are not. In 2007, the Sex Professionals of Canada initiated an application with the OSCJ challenging the three provisions overturned in September’s ruling on the grounds that they are inconsistent with the Charter. The challenge came on the heels of the trial of Robert Pickton, who was accused of murdering 26 women, mostly prostitutes, in the Vancouver area in the 1990s. Pickton was convicted of six counts of murder in late 2007.
Here’s a report on the predictably-disgusting reaction of Canadian politicians to news of the stay, courtesy of Xtra!, a Canadian Gay and Lesbian news site. As one might expect, the politicians claim that laws which endanger sex workers actually protect us from “crime”. But not, of course, crime perpetrated by the police, as discussed in this article on the SWOP Las Vegas website:
A report to be released today by Prostitutes of Ottawa-Gatineau Work, Educate and Resist (POWER) claims that city police officers regularly assault, abuse and harass prostitutes and other sex workers; a few of those interviewed said they’d even been strip-searched by officers in public areas. The findings have prompted POWER to ask the Ontario Human Rights Commission to conduct a public inquiry into the Ottawa police’s “systemic discrimination” against sex workers.
In an 11-page letter to the rights commission, POWER says the Ottawa Police Service discriminates against sex workers on three prohibited grounds — sex, ethnicity and “perceived disability” and thus “creates tremendous physical and emotional harm” to individuals and fosters “prejudicial and harmful stereotypes” within the community at large. The release of the report and the call for a public inquiry comes as city police are facing heavy criticism for the abuse and unlawful strip search of Stacy Bonds as well as other incidents of alleged misconduct. Chris Bruckert, a criminologist at the University of Ottawa who co-authored the report, said Bonds’ experience “sounds a lot like what we’ve been hearing from streetbased sex workers.”
The report is based on interviews with 43 sex workers — 34 women, seven men and two transgender females — done between April 2009 and February 2010. Twenty-seven were streetbased workers, and the rest mostly worked as escorts in massage parlours. The report conceals their identities, making their accounts of police mistreatment impossible to verify, but Bruckert said she was “absolutely confident” their stories were reliable. 15 workers identified the police as their main challenge, an assessment based on their abuse of power, the report says. 16 of the street-based workers said they’d experienced police violence; one was allegedly beaten so badly by four officers that she lost sight in one eye, and another said police broke her arm. Others accused the police of sexual misconduct; one said an undercover officer grabbed her hand and “forcefully put it on his crotch,” and another spoke of an officer who had sex with a number of prostitutes. Three said they’d been strip-searched on public streets by male officers, and a number said they’d been sexually assaulted while under arrest. One said she was left to sit, naked, in a cell for 24 hours. Other incidences include illegal confinement, confiscation of property such as sleeping bags and condoms, and “starlight tours” — where police detain people, drive them to the country or suburbs and leave them there.
Inspector Tyrus Cameron, who oversees prostitution enforcement downtown, said that violence against sex workers is unacceptable, and he encouraged those who believe they’ve been abused to file complaints. But most workers don’t see that as a viable option; their most common complaint is harassment by police when they are clearly not soliciting clients. All the street-based workers spoke of police disrespect, and more than two-thirds recounted “public shaming rituals.” Cameron said the force doesn’t condone rude behavior, but claims that most street prostitutes are addicts who “don’t always behave rationally.” He agreed that officers routinely approach known prostitutes on the street to ask what they are doing. “Are we trying to dissuade people from going to them? Absolutely. We make no apologies for that.”
The report says discrimination against sex workers by the police and public is a product of “whore-phobia,” which casts them as dirty, immoral and hyper-sexualized people forced into sex work by addictions or mental illness. The police, the report notes, are in a position of power. “When they abuse that power and operate in relation to their own or societal biases and prejudices, the consequences for sex workers can be severe.”
This should all sound pretty familiar to my regular readers; I’ve written about it several times, most recently on November 16th. But it bears repeating as often as possible to combat those who claim that all police brutality toward hookers consists of “isolated incidents”, and to illustrate why legalization (as practiced in Canada, the UK and many other countries) is no better than criminalization. Only when our trade is decriminalized – that is, removed from police oversight to the same degree as other common professions – will these sorts of abuses stop.
Thanks for differentiating between legalization and decriminalization. I’ve been meaning to ask you about that ever since I read a post where you referred to both of them. I also hear the two words used with regard to drugs and I get confused about it then, too. I personally don’t think the government has any business controlling what we put into our bodies whether it be a chemical or a body part attached to someone else.
I have long since discarded the theory that police abuses are the result of “a few bad apples”. Applying the same standard legal principles they apply to us, any cop who knows about abuse and tolerates it, is an accessory to the act. For anyone who knows cops, that pretty much covers all of them.
I disagree completely, and what’s bothersome is that they are being generalized the same way that sex workers are often generalized by others. In neither case is it fair or completely accurate.
But i do agree that the government is way too far into wveryones business. As long as what people do doesnt “reasonably” have the potential to hurt others, then the government shouldn’t be mucking about with it.
When I start seeing cops turn in abusive cops instead of lying to protect them, I’ll reconsider. As it stands, when cops abuse citizens, they are routinely cleared (after an internal investigation, of course) unless there is video which usually only gets them a slap on the hand (and people are now being routinely arrested for recording cops in public). I also see cops as the institutionalization of the crusade against consensual “crime” of which prostitution is only one type.
What we need is more good old fashioned finking. Good cops, if they are, must turn in bad cops, and the bad cops must, at the very least, lose their jobs.
Until that happens, law enforcement is something of a “necessary evil” instead of a positive part of a nation founded on the conflicting principles of democracy and liberty.
It does happen, and i have read a lot of press releases and articles that show it does happen. Maybe not as often as it should, but also probably more often than you are aware of.
The biggest problem is that cops are held to a lower standard than others rather than a higher one. In the military, people who are caught in infractions are dealt with harshly; those who commit actual crimes are tried by a military court and face penalties far more severe than civilians would for the same crime. The police need to be run the same way; large fines for minor infractions, being fired for major infractions and penalties at least three times that a non-cop would face for the same crime, with serious crimes (like rape or murder) receiving an automatic death penalty or life in prison. Maybe then they’d think twice about throwing their weight around so damned much. 🙁
I see where you are coming from, but we as a society already over punish people for minor stuff, that in reality doesnt matter, while not properly punishing murderers and violent individuals.
We need to punish people for things that harm others, not minor crap or consensual activities.
I totally agree, but that doesn’t stop police from abusing their power. When I was raped by cops I was neither under arrest, nor accused of any crime; I was in my own home reading. The only thing I did “wrong” was to be stupid enough to answer the door at night to cops. 🙁
I’m sincerely sorry to hear that this happened, Maggie. I’ve never had problems with the police myself, but I have several friends who had (and in my country, as far as I can tell, the police is worse than in the US).
I think one problem with the legalization-criminalization debate is the lack of information about the actual situation of whores. I’ve heard the claim that prostitution would need to have regulations, like all other businesses (to prevent exploitation, etc.). But because of the ignorance about the actual situation of prostitution, this claim (in principle right) is often made together with a number of suggestions that assume whores are already being constanty exploited, trafficked, etc., so that the regulations should be really strong, the police check-ups really frequent, the punishments really harsh, etc., because “everybody knows” what a terrible world it is for a whore and how much help they need to be able to do their job without too many risks.
Thank you, Asehpe; I first told the story in my column of November 16th.
Maggie makes the point that the issue here, ant (assuming you’re still reading comments at this late date), isn’t so much the exact nature of the act as it is the abuse of power. Power comes, or should come, with responsibility; that’s what serves as a check to abuse. When you hold cops to a lesser standard of accountability than others, you send the message that their power can be wielded (and abused) with impunity. That’s dangerous, and has become more and more common in modern American society.
There’s a great scene in the 1989 film Glory in which Col. Robert Gould Shaw of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry braces the QM who has been withholding shoes from his (black) troops out of sheer bloody-mindedness. You can read the dialogue here (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097441/quotes?qt=qt0333331), but the money quote is Shaw’s: “You think you can keep 700 Union soldiers without proper shoes because you think it’s *funny*? Now, where would that power come from?”
Translate that attitude to public shaming of hookers, drunks, the homeless; assaults, rapes; the killing of family pets at no or slight provocation, SWAT raids on citizens with no violent records; and you have modern American policing in a nutshell. Now where would that power come from?
And those mutants should be punished severly for it!
Yes they should, but that would require A) that a fair investigation be conducted, which it won’t be; and B) that judges and don’t view cop testimony as automatically more truthful than everyone else’s, which ain’t gonna happen either. As a rule, cops are ONLY convicted of wrongdoing when there’s video, and not always then, and the punishments are usually lighter than if, say, a plumber had committed the same crime. 🙁
In most places, the government will seek the maximum amount of power it can accrue to itself so long as the populace allows it. Sex for money is considered taboo despite the fact that the people involved in the sex industry can make a good living that causes them not to be a burden on society. This leads to harassment of legitimate businessmen and -women who are doing nothing but making a comfortable lifestyle for themselves and others while catering to an everpresent need in the community. Drivers pulled over by cops are stripped of 5th Amendment rights if suspected of having alcohol in their systems. Money can be seized from a person’s bank account without a trial if the government believes taxes have not been sufficiently paid. Property rights are nonexistent since the government wants to take more than half of people’s estates upon their deaths. Withdrawing anything above a certain amount of money from one’s bank account somehow leads to automatic suspicions of money laundering and requires notification to the auhorities. More and more in the name of safety, the government strips away liberties from the populace. At some point, the people have to stand up and say enough is enough. It may be too late when they finally do though.
I’m afraid it’s already far too late in most Western countries (especially the US) to say “enough is enough” within the system. 🙁
Thanks for writing this Maggie. Although sex work is legal here in Canada, it absolutely IS criminalized. We are fighting for the decriminalization of sex work here too. Yes, even though it’s not ‘criminal’. Our argument is that if it is impossible to work without breaking the law, then the technicality that it isn’t illegal means SFA.
In Ontario the striking of the laws have been put on hold while the Harper gov’t works on getting its appeal together. They really don’t want to see these laws banished! The hysterical outpouring from the sensible move that Justice Himmel did is incredible. It surprises me that people who seem capable of rational thought – ie; they manage to pay their mortgage & phone bills and finished high school – are incapable of connecting the dots on this one.
If anyone wants to help with the continued work, PIVOT (http://www.pivotlegal.org/) is trying to get the same thing laws struck down in BC. If one province is successful, it will be short order to change the rest. …then who knows? Maybe we’ll be able to start change with our neighbours to the south?
You’re welcome, Megan. I have never understood the compelling need most people have to tell everyone else what to do in their private lives, nor their inability to recognize injustice when it’s in plain sight. 🙁
I have often wondered about that myself, in many contexts, not only prostitution. My simple one-sentence answer is: because people usually don’t live in reality, but in a mixed world, half reality and half imagination, where unicorns and streetwalkers go hand in hand. Because the world they see has many non-real features (and lacks many features of reality), even their honest attempts at thinking rationally about it fail (garbage in, garbage out). In this case, if the world they see has prostitution as a horrible thing where prostitutes are poor victimized women, if they take this as an assumption, of course the results — e.g. laws — will not work and will only increase unhappiness.
One of the most difficult things in the world is to take off one’s colored glasses.