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Essay Topic: Legalizing Prostitution: A Tough Debate

Requirements: Must argue the disagreeing position towards the legalization of prostitution. Identify and describe ethical issues, analyze, support and argue position, referring to relevant articles of Civil Code of Quebec, the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and any other pertinent sources of information.

Essay Body:

LEGALIZING PROSTITUTION: A TOUGH DEBATE

Introduction.

The issue of whether or not to legitimize prostitution is as old-age as it seems complex if somewhat paradoxical. For one, the difficulties to regulation in certain industries or of certain activities can reasonably be ascribed to these areas relatively insufficient history or precedence. That holds, for the most part, for sectors such as high-tech and information technologies in particular. The legal and regulatory developments have been maturing over the past decade that these sectors have taken off. There were hardly many keen observers back in the eighties who could possibly have known the directions in which the sector would expand, or indeed foreseen the time horizon over which the antitrust regulation would apply to the would-be giants like Microsoft. Regulations and laws were evolving gradually and reactively: the sector has been learning-by-doing, and so has the institutional environment. Some of the issues, such as the natural monopoly qualifying prerequisites, may die off over a long haul, while others become more burning.

Background for Discussion.

These inherent difficulties, however, aren't likely the sort that pertains to the 'world's oldest profession.' Indeed, the 'sector' has been around for a very long time now, and has in fact never transformed in major ways. Supposedly, then, the legal and regulatory framework would long have evolved and settled. One observes on the contrary, though. Several explanations can be suggested to bring the issue to terms. On the one hand, it might just be that the subject does not pose much of a real problem, which irrelevance could account for the lack of well-defined conceptualization and politics. That, however, hardly is the case: the issue has always bordered on a number of socially acute pillars, having largely to do with morality, generally accepted standards of conduct, constraints being in fact the cost of a status as a member of society, and the like. The theme has always inspired hot philosophical debates, but they seem never to have been formalized in ways perceived as a satisfactory solution valid at all times. (Strictly speaking, no social solution can, of course, remain valid long enough, as the very standards or frontiers tend to shift or oscillate.) This is not to say that the issue has not been formally resolved and captured in formal institutions of society, such as law. However, unless the problem has been diagnosed adequately and thoroughly, any such solution might well turn out an arbitrary, ad hoc satisfying fix. It would be naive, on the part of the 'social planner,' to expect the citizens to be motivated enough to meet such constraints.

On the other hand, the issue surmised to be associated with a host of related problems may in fact be too controversial and multifaceted to have any clear-cut, all-time valide solution. What do we mean by pointing out such controversy? There certainly is a spectrum of moral and ethical hues attached to the story. But there are also reasons pertaining to the interests of agents, various groups of agents or stakeholders who lose in some respects yet might believe they gain in others. Aren't all issues and activities that constitute the subject of criminal justice just as complex and urgent? Urgent and complex as they certainly are, few really are nearly as controversial. When it comes to addressing the public sentiment on delicate issues such as prostitution, pornography, or child trafficking, the attitude might be far less unequivocal than one would have expected. Let's face it: when answering questions like these, each and every one of us represents several social functions. For one, as the espousers of certain morality (for instance, as Christians), we would speak, and feel, unanimously all against any possibilities of trespassing what we perceive as boundaries defining the society and civilization. However, as human beings we rarely maintain an angelic sorrow only; our sentiment is somewhat mixed, or at any rate tends to shift in time between consciously minding the long-term good and less-than-serious attitude toward the subjects at study. Whereas some would volunteer to participate in Internet porn policing programmes, others might restrict their social involvement to telling jokes on the selfsame topic.

The point of spotting these patterns would be to speculate that, these might in fact mirror the largely indeterminate tendencies marking the legislative and regulatory process. These mixed or unstable attitudes might trace through the inherent controversy of the subject, which would suggest anything but a quick and costless solution. When referring to means and goals, we may in fact model these as the respective costs and benefits. Then, end-justifying-the-means approach might or might not work (be politically and socially acceptable), but it will certainly fail when the ends are vague, more so if the costs aren't perceived as such. Instances like these would question the expediency of any such solutions in the first place: indeed, if the subject is not perceived as a problem, or that perception is mixed and unstable, no solution will likely be viewed as relevant. We have argued that this situation is a rarity in its own right: far from all problems subject to criminal law are as ambivalent. For instance, when it comes to discussing agendas covering murder, drugs, and child trafficking, unanimity is almost assured: the public perceives the costs as evidently and unequivocally evil, threatening the utmost values such as life, security, and privacy. War, famine, genocide, terrorism are among similarly burning issues that, even if not perfectly uncontroversial, are reasonably votable against. The clue to explaining such a gap in judgment could, in my opinion, pertain to the fact that private agents (individual members of the society) will be in a position to perceive as apparent issues whose effects can readily be anticipated or felt. In other words, if it hurts, I will abstain from it, vote against and even pay out of my pocket to help prevent. However, if the issue is controversial and its effect is mixed and/or is only tangible at some distant horizons or higher levels (like affecting groups of people rather than specific individuals, and the next generations or effective in the long run), most will likely tend to free-ride on such choices. The latter, even if benefiting, might be costly to enforce. That discussion is inherently broader than the scope intended, and pertains to the domain of what's commonly referred in the literature as 'public goods.' These refer to things like fresh air, police, healthcare and elementary education, basic research and the military, that are clearly of much benefit yet which cannot be provided by free market as driven by private incentives alone. Though rational, such choices cannot easily be enforced: some of the participants may at times have incentive enough to defect. Why paying when I cannot be excluded from enjoying the good's best properties? In such cases, the unintended yet inexcusable effects are referred to as externalities (which may be positive like the clean air, or negative like air pollution or second-hand smoke).

How is that relevant to our discussion? Well, the evils of prostitution can be somewhat subtle, while its 'benefits' more apparent (even at the cost of moral health). The issue then cannot be reduced to: anything I can't feel as hurting me or someone else is good. Unrestricted prostitution or pornographization of society may not reveal the readily apparent effects that could be voted by a simple criterion, "You don't like it, you don't do it." The effects, as I pointed out before, may involve costs that show over longer horizons rather than immediately. Failure to internalize such externalities might result in some kinds of degradation that can also only be sensed in hindsight. Now, what exactly is the negative externality whose internalization may be viewed as a long-term public good worthy of maintaining? The unscrupulous businesses do realize that ''sex sells," which drive underlying their advertising strategies also constitutes an important element of their competitive edge. They find it difficult to resist using the edge when the rest clearly won't fail to; and they don't care they affect the public's standards, undermine the moral and psychic health of the youth, subtle if questionable as these effects may feel in the short run. They have to be forced to pay, or better yet to be stopped--perhaps by applying consistent and binding constraints on their practices.

After all, we the stakeholders don't have to pay for someone else's greed with our own assets, never mind that we may not see these assets deteriorate as a result. Their insisting otherwise is, not merely immoral from the standpoint of some arbitrary dogmas, but is utterly unethical as far as the affected parties' minimum interests are concerned. Children might themselves not know how they are being affected, and not perceive the adverse influence of the porn-laden Internet and media environment; but that certainly is not a criterion. On the other hand, if the environment can be regulated so as to segment the stakeholders from the externality (i.e. by making porn and prostitution accessible to those 'qualified' only), why worry about legalizing both dubious sectors? Well, there is no guarantee that the externality reduces to one dimension only. Among others, for instance, adopting the 'relaxed standards' on the part of the advanced Western societies might undermine the discipline of effectively imposing more strenuous urge on markets like Thailand. That being but one instance of a single exception precedence, the latter may generally act to undermine the binding status of law or regulations in the first place, or what the literature refers to as the "credibility of threat," on the part of the social planner. Same applies to going softy on prostitution, porn, or any other burning issues.

More so if these issues are in fact so closely intertwined, they represent a whole body to be solved (a) synchronously and (b) consistently. One caveat is thus as follows: Related problems, unless resolved simultaneously, might likely be solved inconsistently and hence ineffectively. Indeed, addressing the issue of prostitution as a partial problem within the more general body (involving porn, unemployment, social programs, and education) could result in a short-lived ad hoc remedy. Such partial remedies adopted at different times might in the aftermath turn out to be totally incompatible or go against the incentives. In that event, no law or regulation can be binding effectively as well as formally.

Prostitution: Issues & Costs Involved.

We have agreed that proper diagnosing must precede effective decision making. What is the rationale for outlawing prostitution, what is its current legal status, and what changes if any should be brought about to secure societal best interests most optimally? It appears that the law, in particular in the US, is not so naive as to define this social phenomenon as any sort of one-way, or lose-win crime whereby one party benefits by compromising the other party's rights. It is instead maintained to be a consensual offense -- an illegal act in which both participants willingly participate [3]. That definition itself implies some kind of underlying externality--which pertains to social costs (i.e. that which is over and above the intended private costs). What are the private costs, though? Statistics suggests some horrifying patterns [3]:

(1) 78% of adult prostitutes began prostitution as juveniles: 60% were 16 years of age and under, and some were as young as 10

(2) Most children enter prostitution at the age of 14

(3) 96% of prostitutes who began committing prostitution as juveniles were runaways. Most stated they had no other option for making money.

(4) Adults working in prostitution reported the following:
o 82% had been physically assaulted;
o 83% had been threatened with a weapon;
o 68% had been raped while working as a prostitute;
o 84% experienced current or past homelessness.

Prostitutes constitute a group especially prone to incidents of violence. Moreover, evidently prostitution is attached with a cascade of urgent social problems, which negative complementarity calls for a package of solutions to be adopted. Furthermore, the social status defining the profession is perceived to be such that, they probably have continued to make this choice (once entered have stayed at it), because for one reason or another they have been segmented from the more socially acceptable labor markets. If there is an instance of market failure of the kind, then the government should definitely step in with its active labor market policies. However, that solution must precede criminalizing prostitution; otherwise, law is trapped within its own controversy of acknowledging the prior absence of alternatives for a posterior choice qualified as felony.

These data, on the other hand, might be called into question by the testimony of some of the more thriving representatives of the "sex sector" arguing that the story has been distorted [8]. For one, many of them do not consider themselves shut off from the superior alternatives: their choice of occupation was fully conscious, and they hardly ever regretted it. Moreover, many of them have a second job in the 'traditional' sector and are happy with their families. The incidents of abuse and assault, they argue, relate to the streetwalking segment that has nothing to do with a regulated and orderly system of service houses ("baudy houses " or brothels) that could come to dominate should prostitution become decriminalized. Particularly perplexing and clashing with the childhood abuse hypothesis appear studies reporting some 76 percent of prostitutes coming from families that regularly attended church [3].

Where is the truth? The latter evidence may not be disregarded, even though it might not be representative of the current state of things at large. But maybe it is this current state that could be turned around in a legalized sector? All of these aspects of labor market and social safety nets put together, I would rationalize the issue as follows. Indeed, some of the 'successful' outcomes do occur; but these rather define the short-term success. The young, intelligent, and socially fit woman that declares her happiness with this solution in fact subscribes to the fact she's been trapped inside the golden cell, or what I would refer to as micro-level "Dutch Disease. " The latter term is used in the economics literature to refer to countries rich in natural endowments. The economy has been developing a full-fledged portfolio of advanced sectors, until its resources become so cheap to extract that it switches entirely onto this most obvious, least-resistance path. By and by, its economy (starting with its exports) degenerates, as resources have been withdrawn from advanced sectors and allocated to these primitive uses. Same, in my opinion, happens with these "successful" women: instead of seeking the most ambitious application for their assets, they degenerate their human capital by under employing it. That is a long-run loss, yet could be difficult to realize in the short run (along the lines of our earlier discussion).

Prostitution: Legalizing and Regulating vs. Binding Criminally.

Some would argue that whatever is legalized is easier to control [7]. Indeed, there seems to be a tradeoff: the government may replace criminalization with regulation. That would automatically imply capturing part of the shadow sector, and making it more transparent both economically (taxes) and socially (criminal activity might diminish due to the streetwalking-brothering organizational swap). One key principle of the economic theory is that taxes can and should be higher on markets characterized by less elastic demand (highly liquid products like tobacco, alcohol, etc.) The "sex sector" exhibits an unusually inelastic pattern of aggregate demand that's so stable, it should not oscillate with business cycles very much. Ironically, though, it is thus far taxed the least (or not at all). Other costs or constraints are applied presently: penalties, likelihood of jail sentencing, social stigma, and low self-esteem--but those primarily are administrative costs, having nothing to do with the fiscal benefits ...

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