Artifacts 1 and 2

Edwards, Chris. "Q&A: Chris Edwards discusses where is prostitution legal, the Galileo global positioning system, the most commonly spoken language, the origins of Timor's Ocussi enclave and British troops overseas." Geographical 78.4 (April 2006): 12(2). Student Resource Center - Gold. Thomson Gale. Centennial High School (MD). 6 Dec. 2006

Since researching the topic on which this blog was made, I have learned much about prostitution. The very first article I read on it had only a small amount of information, but the information it contained surprised me very much. It said two things; first, I was correct in stating that prostitution was legal in Nevada, but I learned it isn't legal everywhere there. In Nevada, it's only legal in an official brothel, and brothels aren't legal in all counties in Nevada. Second, I learned in this article, that in 2001, a loop-hole in the legislation that outlaws prostitution made it legalized in Alabama as long as it is done on a rural highway, and not an urban street.

Freedom Daily. James Bovard. September 1998. The Future Of Freedom Organization, Dec. 3 2006 <http://www.fff.org/freedom/0998d.asp>

After reading another source posted by a best selling libertarian author, who has also had articles published in the Wall Street Journal; I am more in favor of prostitution then ever. The source goes into great detail as to the methods with which illegal prostitutes are busted. It describes cases of police over reaction, and ridiculously over the top and unnecessary procedures, which are used to uncover prostitution. For example, the article states "Since neither prostitutes nor their customers routinely run to the police to complain about the other's conduct, police rely on trickery and deceit in order to bust people. In San Francisco, the police wired rooms in the city's leading hotels to make videotapes of prostitutes satisfying their customers. But given the minimal control over the videotaping operation, there was little to stop local police from also watching and videotaping ordinary married couples engaging in coitus solely for the purpose of procreation."

To me this is ridiculous and uncalled for. What’s worse is how the article states how much time and money is wasted on busting prostitutes. It states that there are as many arrests made for prostitution in this country as there are for all violent crimes. On top of that, only 28% of reported violent crimes end in arrests. When I see that number, all I can think of is how many murderers and rapists got away clean while police were trying to end prostitution, a victimless crime. "Last year, police in Boston, Cleveland, and Houston arrested twice as many people for prostitution as they did for all homicides, rapes, robberies, and assaults combined, while perpetrators evaded arrest for 90% of these violent crimes." Many key figures in law enforcement aren't even in favor of arresting or prosecuting prostitutes. Gerald Arenberg and Dennis Martin, executive director and president, respectively, of the National Association of the Chiefs of Police, along with one of Maryland's own Judges, Darryl Russell all find prostitution to be a waste of time, a waste of police manpower, and simply not a big issue. When a study was done on Nevada brothels, results showed none of the brothel workers to have HIV, all of the workers to be perfectly healthy, and the owners to be upstanding citizens with strong initiative. In my opinion, prostitution's illegality is what casts it in such a negative light; in another survey taken on street walkers, illegal prostitutes who don’t work in brothels, over-all about 45% of them had HIV. This study was taken in cities where prostitutes were illegal, so they were not given the option of working in legal brothels where prostitutes were healthy rather then diseased. Thus, it's not prostitutes that are hurting society; it's the laws banning prostitution that's doing it. (http://www.fff.org/freedom/0998d.asp)