Prostitution should be legalized and destigmatized in the U.S.
Out of almost 15 million arrests in 2005, an estimated 84,891 were for prostitution or commercialized vice, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program. This was more than the amount of arrests for murder, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, arson and embezzlement combined.
Prison populations have been rising at an uncontrollable and unaffordable rate for decades, and arresting people for prostitution adds to the problem and hurts those people who need help the most.
Nevada already allows prostitution, and counties with a population of fewer than 400,000 can legally license brothels. The prostitutes work as independent contractors within the brothel and pay taxes.
By law, the prostitutes must test for sexually transmitted infections once a week and HIV once a month, and the brothel houses have to post up-to-date health notices. Customers must use condoms, and not one prostitute in a Nevada brothel has tested positive for HIV since 1986, the year mandatory testing began.
Every other state criminalizes any activity related to prostitution. In Michigan, prostitutes and their customers arrested for first or second offenses receive misdemeanors. Third offenses result in felony charges. Anyone charged with pimping or owning a brothel can receive a felony.
Women and men don't normally turn to prostitution because they enjoy the job, and the federal government has no right to penalize a person more for choosing to use his or her body in a profitable manner when necessary.
In a November 2004 report defending the U.S.'s strong anti-prostitution stance, the State Department wrote "State attempts to regulate prostitution by introducing medical checkups or licenses don't address the core problem: The routine abuse and violence that form the prostitution experience and brutally victimize those caught in its netherworld."
But by leaving prostitutes to fend for themselves on the streets instead of legalizing safe places to practice the profession, the government holds prostitutes in the very "netherworld" it claims it's protecting against.
Prostitutes are forced into the black market, alongside criminals and drug dealers.
The criminal nature of the activity only perpetuates the same routine abuse and violence the State Department so adamantly speaks out against. Prostitutes in the streets are regularly subject to harassment, rape and abuse, but still face punishment from fines and jail time if caught and social extradition if discovered.
The Netherlands is famous for legalized prostitution and designated red light districts, where prostitutes work within the safety and protection of the law.
Like Nevada, sex workers in the Netherlands undergo regular health checkups and testing, and customers must use condoms. The women also have emergency call buttons, the rooms are monitored by closed-circuit security cameras and Dutch police regularly patrol the districts.
Around Western Europe, it's not uncommon to have police stations in the middle of red light districts - Antwerp, Belgium and Hamburg, Germany, are two such examples. Most Western European countries allow legal prostitution, and legal brothels provide a place to practice supervised, regulated, nonviolent sex acts.
Prostitution will always exist, and the U.S. government falsely believes making prostitution illegal will make it disappear.
Legalizing prostitution wouldn't condone the activity, it would simply mean accepting prostitution as an unavoidable reality and admitting women in these jobs deserve basic human rights.
If a man or woman chooses to sell his or her body, it doesn't, and shouldn't, abrogate his or her access to a safe, protected, abuse-free life.
Government officials must stop imposing their own particular ideas of morality and propriety on the American people. Instead, the government needs to step up and start protecting every U.S. citizen properly, regardless of personal beliefs or personal activities.
Liz Kersjes is The State News opinion writer. Reach her at kersjese@msu.edu.
