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Archive for March 18th, 2023

The Nordic model has a stronger effect on increasing rape than criminalization does.  –  Huasheng Gao and Vanya Petrova

Full of Themselves (#755)

How pompously puritanical need one be to believe that consensual sex constitutes “a dangerous criminal record”?

…in Illinois, a dangerous criminal record may not stop people from becoming licensed massage therapists…A conviction of sexual misconduct, prostitution, rape, or any other offense requiring registration as a sex offender automatically bars an applicant from obtaining a massage therapist license.  But this is not the case for first-degree murder, armed robbery, aggravated battery…assault, stalking…and kidnapping…so [politicians want even more]…regulations for massage therapy license applicants…

Capricious Lusts (#788)

Another study shows what’s already been shown over & over again:

Liberalizing prostitution laws “leads to a significant decrease in rape rates,” according to a study published in The Journal of Law and Economics, “while prohibiting it leads to a significant increase”…researchers Huasheng Gao and Vanya Petrova of China’s Fudan University looked at data from 31 European countries, spanning a period between 1990 and 2017.  During this time period, eight countries (Spain, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia, Latvia, and Romania) liberalized their prostitution laws while six countries (Sweden, Croatia, Norway, Iceland, France, and Ireland) cracked down on prostitution…liberalizing…was linked to a significant decrease in rape rates, while prohibition was linked to a significant increase—but…”the magnitude of prohibiting commercial sex is about four times as large as that of liberalizing it”…The average rape rate in the sample countries was nine rapes per 100,000 people.  Countries that liberalized prostitution laws saw a decrease of approximately three rapes per 100,000…[while] countries that…further criminalized…saw an increase of around 11 rapes per 100,000…

A Moral Cancer (#991)

Prohibitionists always claim surprise when the predicted effects of one of their bans appear:

[Since] Massachusetts became the first state…to ban the sale of all flavored tobacco and nicotine products…four additional states have…imposed…similar policies…but the latest data from Massachusetts highlight the ban’s [predict]ed consequences [coming to pass]…As opponents of the flavor ban predicted, the law has incentivized black market sales of menthol cigarettes and flavored e-cigarettes…Revenue officials are s[teal]ing so many [smuggled] products, in fact, that they are running out of room to store them…tobacco tax revenue has fallen by approximately 22.6 percent over three years…[and] the decline in cigarette sales in Massachusetts coincided with substantial increases in sales in counties bordering the state…

To Molest and Rape (#1225)

This is a cop’s idea of “friendship”:

New Mexico [cop] Kevin Keiner [was rewarded with a paid vacation for]…raping a…woman [who foolishly believed he was her friend]…the woman…called…Keiner…to pick her up…after she’d gotten into a…[drunken] argument with her brother and another woman…Keiner [was wearing his magical clown costume when]…he picked the woman up [in his pigmobile] and took her to his home…The woman…blacked out….[and] the next thing she remembers is that Keiner was on top of her….Keiner [is of course claiming she wanted it and came onto him]…

Torture Chamber (#1287)

The government needs to be buried in lawsuits before this will stop:

[Young people] detained [without having been convicted of any crime] at the Baltimore County Detention Center are locked up for 23 hours a day in rat-infested cells that sometimes flood with sewage water…The jail is [refusing to] comply…with federal laws governing juvenile detention, said Deborah St. Jean, director of the public defender’s Juvenile Protection Division.  She asked for the “immediate transfer” of detained youth to the Department of Juvenile Services…

The Mob Rules (#1311)

The primary principle governing politicians’ behavior is “monkey see, monkey do”:

a bill that would require Arkansans to provide identification to use social media sites…is [being] sponsored by [a politician named] Tyler Dees…who [also] has another bill that…would require pornography websites to provide age verification…Th[e first] bill, seemingly modeled on one that recently passed in Utah, would open up the social media companies to civil and criminal penalties…

The Last Shall Be First (#1317) 

“Bathroom bills” are back after blessedly vanishing for over three years:

A bill that would criminalize transgender people using restrooms that match their gender identity won initial approval in the Arkansas Legislature…The bill…would allow someone to be charged with misdemeanor sexual indecency with a child if they use a public restroom or changing room “of the opposite sex while knowing a minor of the opposite sex is present”…The legislation goes even further than a North Carolina bathroom law that was enacted in 2016 and later repealed following widespread boycotts and protests.  That law did not include any criminal penalties…

 

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