The San Francisco Department of Elections announced that the measure prohibiting city officials from spending money arresting and prosecuting people for prostitution, and mandating equal legal protection for sex workers, has qualified for the November ballot. Of 500 signatures randomly sampled and checked by department personnel, 80 percent were found to be valid. “This is a happy day for San Franciscans who want government to focus on fighting real crimes like homicides and robberies, and are tired of seeing resources wasted in a futile effort to police consensual sex between adults,” said Starchild, a sex worker activist and spokesperson for the campaign. “We’ve cleared the first hurdle."
Via $pread Blog
I am personally quite happy about this. While there are certainly important crimes to be addressed in and around prostitution, the cops simply going around arresting prostitutes always seemed a colossal waste of valuable time to me.
Living in a country where prostitution is legal, where there is a brothel just a few blocks away from my apartment, and having come from a country where prostitution was illegal in all but one state, I tend to agree with the legalization of prostitution. I think you're right, the police should not be focusing their energy on patrolling for prostitutes (I think they should double their efforts on pimps, though - and at least in this country, crack down hard on forced prostitution).
ReplyDeleteI agree totally, Stormgazer. Focusing on those areas would do far more to work against the evils that seem to follow prostitution around.
ReplyDelete