A great many laws in a country, like many physicians, is a sign of malady. – usually attributed to Voltaire
Governments are quick to claim that new and ever-more-intrusive laws solve social problems, but in actuality the opposite is true: many more social problems are caused by such laws than solved by them, and social progress generally comes from the repeal of oppressive laws rather than the installation of new ones. How many readers remember the expression “rolling queers”? At one time, obviously-gay men were more often targeted by muggers than other men were, and even some hoodlums who might not dare to mug anyone else might troll gay-bar areas for potential targets. In the early ‘80s gay men of my acquaintance considered it enough of a hazard that they took special precautions against it, yet only 25 years later it has become vastly less common. I’m sure there are some who believe that “hate crime” laws are responsible for this reduction, but this is nonsense; “rolling” had already decreased dramatically long before “hate crime” laws even became popular, much less expanded to include homosexuals. The reason gay men were targeted for “rolling” wasn’t primarily due to hate but rather to opportunity; while homosexuality was still against the law in many states and gay men were commonly persecuted by police, they were far less likely than others to report the crime and so were “safe” targets even for young bullies who were not brave enough to attack anyone else. It was not the installation of laws which decreased “rolling” but rather the removal of laws which criminalized homosexuality.
Similarly, prostitutes are victimized by opportunistic criminals and even rapists and serial killers for the simple reason that they perceive us as “safe targets” who, like gay men in the past, dare not go to the police for fear of worse victimization than that suffered at the hands of the criminals. New “anti-trafficking” laws in many states and countries (many of them with a Swedish flavor) are touted as efforts to “protect” us, but in fact the existing laws are the main source of danger, and more laws will only increase the peril. But declaring “open season” on marginalized groups is not the only way in which oppressive laws create crime; alcohol Prohibition in the United States essentially created the Mafia, and the drug prohibition nearly every country inflicts on its citizens has created the powerful drug cartels from which so much of the violence of the modern world springs. Nor is crime the only social ill which springs from prohibitionism; illegal drugs (like the illegal liquor of the 1920s) are often impure and sometimes even poisonous because drug buyers, like prostitutes, dare not go to the police if they are harmed by a suppressed transaction.
The principle of “harm reduction” is the recognition of the phenomenon we’re discussing here, that laws against consensual behaviors nearly always do more harm than good. Those who advocate harm reduction policies point out that tolerating “vices” not only keeps those who partake in them safer, but also minimizes the damage done to society at large (such as the incalculable damage done to the American economy, justice system and civil liberties by the institutional madness called the “War on Drugs”). But because lawheads believe laws to always be good, most governments are hostile to harm reduction policies and in fact practice a philosophy we might call “harm magnification”, the stubborn support of prohibitionist laws even in cases where they can be proven to harm both individuals and society as a whole. The United States is the most aggressive proponent of “harm magnification” policies, but its neighbor to the north is apparently dead-set on taking the title; the Canadian federal government is involved in a battle to reinstate prohibitionist laws which have been clearly demonstrated to endanger prostitutes, and last Thursday (May 12th) the government opened the latest chapter in its repeated efforts to close down a harm-reduction project for heroin addicts:
…Defenders of [North America’s first and only legal injection site]…say it [provides] a form of health care, and that health care is a provincial matter under Canada’s constitution. The federal government counters that its writ trumps provincial rights because heroin is a federally banned substance. The case opens before the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa on Thursday, and has drawn international attention…As of 2009, there were 65 injection facilities in 27 cities in Canada, Australia, and western Europe, according to the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The World Health Organization has called them a “priority intervention” in slowing the spread of AIDS via infected needles. Insite [the Vancouver facility] receives more than 800 visitors a day on average and has supervised more than a million injections since it opened in 2003, and none has caused a death, according to Insite supervisor Russ Maynard. Addicts are given clean needles and sterilized water in which to mix their drug. They bring their own drugs and inject at 12 stainless steel alcoves with mirrors on the walls so nurses on a raised platform can see them…When Insite opened, the Bush administration’s drug czar, John Walters, called it “state-sponsored suicide,” and after a Conservative government was elected in Canada in 2006, it moved to close the site. Arguing for the government before the British Columbia Court of Appeal in 2009, Robert Frater rejected the notion that Insite was a form of health care, because it was not the ban on drugs that harms addicts…Supporters of Insite point to studies showing sharp drops in deaths from drug overdoses in the district since the drug-injection program was launched…Julio Montaner, president of the International AIDS Society, an association of professionals in the AIDS field, has said the area’s AIDS rate is the worst in the developed world, and can be designated an epidemic. Montaner, a Canadian, accuses his government of ignoring scientific research and sabotaging a health initiative for society’s weakest citizens…
The Canadian government’s argument in this case, as in its support for anti-whore laws, is a blatant lie. The ban on drugs indisputably harms addicts for the same reason prostitution bans harm whores: it pushes them into the shadows and cuts them off from the legal protections everyone else takes for granted. And that’s not even counting the economic costs to the taxpayers, nor the social cost which results from empowering government thugs to pry into citizens’ private lives and violate their civil rights in order to accuse them of “crimes” which have no victims.
I have a question (that I will research if you do not have an answer already). In areas such as New Zealand, Germany, and other countries where prostitution has been either decriminalized or legalized – since prostitution has no longer been illegal in those areas, have their been cases or serial killers or rapists targeting prostitutes?
I don’t have a ready answer; I don’t think serial killers are as numerous in either of those countries as in the U.S., so it might be difficult to detect a decrease so soon. But you might try your Google-fu powers on finding a comparison of crime rates against sex workers in general rather than serial killers specifically. 🙂
I don’t reckon decriminalisation or legalisation would make much different. The homicidal activities are not predicated on the legal status of whores.
I found an internet site that lists serial killers by country (by God the internet has everything!) and your right, no one is safe. Many target prostitutes because they see them as easy pickings, but if there where no whores they would find the next easiest pickings. But that is my point. If prostitutes lived in a society in which they are not marginalized and were able to work together and with security and more openly, they would not be such an easy target for these psycho’s. That’s where my question was coming from.
Perhaps subconsciously, society would prefer to keep us in the margins so that they feel safer?
The US has the greatest number by far, followed closely by the UK from what I have skimmed over so far. Good grief, I either want to move to a commune under the radar or become an ex-pat somewhere!
That’s a chilling thought, Brandy, that some people want us as sacrificial lambs.
The US and Britain have the highest number of serial killers because we’re the most sexually repressed cultures and serial killing generally results from a combination of extreme sexual perversion with sociopathy. 🙁
In one of the earliest news stories in regards to the LI murders, it was stated by some dipshit in the comments section something along the lines of “More power to him for getting those filthy scum sucking whores off the street and as long as he is out there killing prostitutes he won’t bother our women or children”. Total paraphrasing here as now I can’t find which news story or comment thread I saw it on. If the site didn’t require a dam three page questionnaire just to be able to post a comment, I would have gone on there and called his ass on it. A few commenters did say something to him though. Scares me that if one person says it out loud, usually others are thinking it.
There are always scum in the world; as Rush told us, “we need someone to talk to and someone to sweep the floors.” The danger is when people in positions of power mouth such statements, or politicians cater to those who do.
“we’re the most sexually repressed cultures”
I don’t really think it’s that simple. From what I’ve observed, I feel that every culture has more or less the same amount of hang-ups about sex, it’s just what those are and the way they’re expressed that changes.
The problem, I think, is that the culture in the US and UK presents itself as much more open towards sex & sexuality (and I actually thought it was until I started reading your blog) when it actually isn’t any different than, say, India or China. Over there people believe they are very “progressive” when in actuality a large portion of the population is just as conservative, if not more maybe, than cultures that are traditionally considered as such. And this belief that they’re already very open prevents them from actually opening up more if need be, while traditional cultures are constantly told, by both insiders and outsiders, that they should open up more and so put an effort into it.
Someone who feels they deviate from the norm, in a harmless way ofc, will not be public about their deviant behaviour. “Nobody will accept me, that’s just the way our society is,” they’ll say and keep quiet about it. They’ll only talk to people who they feel may understand and who need to know. But someone who feels that society will accept them will go public and might find out that people don’t like it and they can be pretty mean as well.
I think that it’s this presumption of acceptance that disheartens many people and might even drive them over the edge. It’s not so bad if you didn’t expect people to be on your side in the first place, but if you feel that people are very accepting for some reason but they lash out, it’s a lot worse. The fall hurts a lot more if you were sitting comfortably in a soft bubble. Combine that with naturally high sociopathy due to the lifestyles of well-developed cultures and you get the serial killers.
Eastern cultures just don’t talk about sexual things outside of certain contexts in the first place. So there’s no way for someone to presume a high baseline based on their own observations; we just think those things should be kept to ourselves. You mind your own business and I’ll mind mine. It’s when things get public that people start talking, and even then only those who are directly concerned. And we’re much more used to getting intrusive advice/comments (Indians at least) so we’re also much better at ignoring them so it doesn’t really matter who talks.
I suspect that there is a class difference in crimes against prostitutes. I think the murdered prostitutes we hear about are nearly always streetwalkers.
Yes, they are; they don’t use screening procedures and their exposure on the street makes them even more vulnerable.
In the state of New South Wales, Australia we have injecting rooms, brothels are legal (my mum wanted to buy one when they sold the motel, but step-dad is a bit old fashioned – only criminals run brothels, in his mind – and hit the panic button when mum mentioned this) and in two of the other states growing and smoking dope is OK. The world didn’t end when these things came to pass. The problem, I think, is that if you get rid of old, useless laws then the politicians have less control over the peons and more control is what they yearn for.
Yes, exactly. The fewer the laws, the more control individuals have over their own lives…and neither the politicians nor the collectivists who worship them can stand that!
Remind ourselves that the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was because of increasing plethora of laws and lawyers, long before the Goths and Vandals poured into the Western Empire.
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.” – Tacitus (56-117)
And we could take Tacitus’ words as a confirmation, he having had plenty of dealings in what we lawyers call ‘extra legal functions.’
What are “extra legal functions”?
Extra legal functions (that’s extra as in ‘beyond’ or ‘out of,’ not ‘additional’) is the legal euphemism dodgy activities like corruption, bribery, moonlighting in a second job, seeing one’s ex while married, bribing your kids to do homework, and so on.
Having a second job is a dodgy activity?
Second job could be dodgy, or not. A lot depends on the circumstances and, importantly, if there’s been ‘disclosure’ or even ‘constructive disclosure’ to either or both employing parties. Be warned, though, a person could end up being classified as an ‘independent contractor’ while doing two jobs. Consult your favourite lawyer if in doubt.
“… laws against consensual behaviors nearly always do more harm than good.”
If there is any exception whatever to this statement, I’d like to hear of it. From what I’ve seen, “nearly” could correctly be changed to “always”.
Practically speaking you’re probably right, JdL, but I always like to leave room for the guy who survives a fall out of an airplane without a parachute.
Have you noticed, as I have, that the internet appears to be infested with people who seem to honestly believe that one exception invalidates a rule even if one uses qualifiers like “usually” or “mostly”? I honestly can’t figure those folks out. My answer to them is usually something like “some people survive shooting themselves in the head, but I don’t care to try.”
Yes, a lot of this is about control. However, a secondary motivation is money. There is LOTS of money to be made in laws, and not just by lawyers. Look at how many people would be out of work, and how much tax revenue would be lost, if people were not paying extortionate fines and taxes that are a result of the enforcement of these laws.
To illustrate from a more mundane situation, look at the legal mandate for automobile insurance. The fine in most states is up to $350, more than half of what most people would pay for 6 months of insurance. Now, the sensible thing, if the law was designed to ensure motorist had insurance, would be to make the person show up to the courthouse with the money and purchase insurance for 3 months. Instead, the money goes to the court system, which has done nothing to earn it, and the person must come up with another $350 to cover insurance premiums for the next three months.
Exactly, Tony. In Portugal drugs are decriminalized but still illegal; if the police catch someone with illegal drugs they are confiscated and destroyed, but NOTHING happens to the person (not even arrest or a ticket). The police therefore have no incentive to pursue anyone since there’s no money to be made or glory for “scoring a bust” either. I would support true decriminalization of all drugs (i.e. the police can’t seize them, either) but the Portuguese model would work great for “child porn”; even if the police got hysterical and stole someone’s kids’ bathtime pictures it wouldn’t result in those people being bankrupted and their lives destroyed.
In the Cato Podcast on Portugal’s decriminalization, they talked about users being taken to civil hearings and being put into rehab.
I recall reading somewhere else that with legalization, higher quality drugs came on the market and many people were able to kick the habit more easily.
I thought that was only for people they keep catching repeatedly?
Not being Portuguese, I don’t know exactly how it works. 🙂
From what I understand, if you are caught with drugs, you don’t just get your drugs taken away but you also get a ticket. Possession of drugs is a civil infraction (like jaywalking or minor traffic violations) and you have to go to an administrative hearing.
The podcast kind of explained it.
You have to remember that from the point of view of many, harm reduction is an innately bad thing. People who do bad things are supposed to suffer harm. Reducing that harm is “condoning” the bad thing, or “sending the wrong message.”
Nope, we need to magnify the harm so that everybody will be too scared to do the bad thing. Because, you know, that’s worked so well to date.