This actually makes me feel physically sick. The DC Madam has killed herself.
Pardon me while I rant a bit.
First, I will just outsource the invidious comparisons to Ezra Klein:
DC Madam who ran a prostitution ring? Shamed, sentence to decades in prison, and now dead by apparent suicide.David Vitter, Republican Senator who used said prostitution ring? Still a US Senator.
Now onto the fact that this woman was hounded into prison, broken, and driven to take her own life by a state intent upon ruining this woman for . . . arranging a sexual transaction between two consenting adults.
For this, we have law enforcement? Are there no more rapists roaming our streets? Have murders ceased to be a problem in this fair land, this shining city on a hill? Did all the burglars join Criminals Anonymous? Have the drunk drivers decided to binge only in the comfort of their own living room? Has embezzling stopped? Are the human filth who mug old ladies all safely behind bars? Do no boiler room scams still lurk in the nation's seedier industrial parks? Because, you know, even if I thought prostitution should be illegal . . . well, chaps, I'd put it on the goddamn back burner until all the crimes involving thugs attacking, defrauding, or stealing from innocent, non-consenting citizens had been solved.
To be fair, no one's tried to mug me for several months. But I hear that there are still a few small matters right here in our nation's capital that should be cleared up before we can, in good conscience, turn to the important task of preventing women from demanding cash for something other women only do for fun. Love the Madonna, hate the Whore?
Was "saving" women from prostitution so important that we needed to make a woman's life no longer worth living? Do we really need to kill the women in order to save them? Because last time I heard, we thought it was kind of awful when the Taliban did those things.
You'll probably feel different about this when you get married and start having children.
It's those children that we're doing this for, you know.
Jaybird,
I actually laughed very hard before catching myself and realizing how tragic the whole thing really is.
Thanks, really. You've reminded me of the sentiment in the poem, 'They came for the communists, but I wasn't a communist; they came for the .. but I wasn't.' In the situation originally referenced in fact it could be suicidal to protest which, relieving the guilt of others, the White Rose society demonstrated by being killed. But here we do have freeodm of expression; so you have correctly forwarded that plea for, shall it be called, justice or pity.
Pounding table in support of Megan.
Behind this drive to stamp out prostitution is an implicit belief in male supremacy and the need to "protect" women.
Want a even worst example --- look at the enormous effort spent on finding "sex slaves" in the US, including getting them a special "quota" of immigrant visas.
At the end of the day, hardly any were found.
I am as much in favor of prostitution as the next guy, but I have to say this post is a little over the top.
The state did not drop everything and commit all assets to this case.
There should be no back burner when a law is broken. If the law makes no sense it should be repealed not ignored.
I wish I had something on the suicide but, I have never been able to get a hold on the subject of suicide, probably I have no heart.
@Blaine
The reality is the state prioritizes cases, some get top priority, others none.
For example, alleged voter fraud was a big priority for the GW Administration, despite very few cases being found worthwhile to prosecute.
At the same time, driving 5 mph over the limit is a non-priority.
Sure, it is against the law.... but you got to really have a bad day to get a ticket for that.
The state did not drop everything to prosecute this DC Madam case, but it did go out of its way to do a lot of collateral damage to the "service providers" in addition to the madam, basically destroying the career of at least one Naval officer.
Is it worth it?
I don't want any brothels in my neighborhood. That's why my neighbors and I have passed laws against them. I wouldn't much mind if they existed in other, poorer neighborhoods, but, funnily, the people there don't want them either. Maybe we can put one in Ms. McArdle's building, although I'll bet her neighbors won't be too enthusiastic.
In fairness, we have law enforcement to enforce the law. While some discretion is permitted peace officers as to when and how they may arrest and charge suspected or alleged lawbreakers, they don't make the laws and they are, by and large, not given the freedom to choose which laws they will uphold and which they will not. And a good thing, too.
Sadly, the whole "Why are you arresting [person x], why don't you go and arrest a drug dealer/bank robber/paedophile," line is one of the most common expressions of discontent heard by police officers. Just about everyone ever arrested thinks that they aren't a *real* criminal and that the cops should be busy somewhere else.
What happened to this woman is tragic and unfair, as life often is. But right now prostitution and managing prostitutes in D.C. is illegal. That's the law. She made the choice to break the law, and every day to keep on breaking it. She could have made other choices. And now she is dead. That was her choice, too, apparently.
Hiraethin, yes, rule of law and all that jazz.
But do you think that we should perhaps have less laws, so that instead of preventing consensual sex, cops could be preventing, I don't know, maybe murders?
This was her second conviction for prostitution. And according to an article in the Washington Post today it suggested she would end up doing only about 5 years:
The U.S. attorney's office had said that under sentencing guidelines, Palfrey probably faced a prison term of four to six years
Apparently she really hated her past prison time, doing 18 months or so. If such is the case that you would rather be dead than do time, and voiced such, it is not entirely a tragedy when you choose to step back into the profession that caused you such misery the first time around.
This is independent of whether the laws need to be changed. However, one should expect the organizer of prostitution (in charge of hundreds) to get more time than a john.
I support the effort to reduce laws. But since that rarely happens, I also support not enforcing bad laws. How does one judge a law to be "bad"? Common sense.
If the law involves one party acting, or preparing to act, against a non-consenting party, enforce it.
If it involves preventing a person from hurting themselves, stop them and give a warning. And if that's not enough, arrest them and let them "sober up" in jail and let the judge decide what to do with them: Forced rehab or counseling for instance, but not traditional prison.
If it's neither of the two cases above and the primary purpose is to enforce the will of the majority over the minority, don't enforce it.
The authorities go after this kind of thing because:
1. It's a sure-fire way to get on TV.
2. It's safer, easier, and way more fun than catching actual criminals who may be dangerous, dirty, and unattractive.
3. People are self-righteous idiots, especially, it seems, in groups of 12 in a jury room.
y81: nobody wants a brothel next door, but I'm pretty sure I once saw a call girl in my apartment complex discreetly visiting a client. Similarly, I wouldn't want the people in the apartment next to me running a pizzeria, but having the occasional Domino's guy show up is no bother.
Sorry, Megan, I realize you're venting in frustration here; but since you chose to do it publicly, this --
"Was "saving" women from prostitution so important that we needed to make a woman's life no longer worth living? Do we really need to kill the women in order to save them? Because last time I heard, we thought it was kind of awful when the Taliban did those things."
-- is absurd and can be roundly attacked from either of two ways:
1. The Taliban likely would have strict penalties for rapists and murderers. Do we relax our penalties for rapists and murderes to avoid being "Talibanesque"? Or is there some other more objective criteria on which we should be judging crimes and the harm, or lack thereof, to society?
2. The Taliban would punish prostitution with actual execution. A woman taking her own life -- keeping in mind that so far as we know, she wasn't handed the saber and given a "suggestion" -- after voluntarily engaging in a known-illegal activity twice, with the expectation of going to jail for five or six years, is a far cry from Taliban tactics.
I also seem to recall that the last time you chose to raise a discussion of prostitution on this website, a good many of us here in the peanut gallery raised a substantial number of objections premised around the essentially forced exploitation of women, reduced overall social respect for women, spread of disease, and a several other salient objections. You chose not to address any of those, which is your right, but you sure ain't convincing anyone outside of the choir now.
If you are advocating stronger penalties for senators convicted of johning, I have no objections. If a particular activity is a crime, it is fallacious and unjust that one of two parties in a necessarily two-party crime should walk away from the scene so easily.
Megan asks...
"For this, we have law enforcement?"
It sees that every time you write about a perceived miscarriage of justice, you start off by complaining about the police enforcing the law.
Fellow commenters Blaine, y8l, and hiraethin have already voiced my own position, but I'm going to say it once more anyway. Blaming the police for doing their jobs is unfair, short sighted, and stupid.
If you disagree with the law, then either run for office or elect someone who promises to rescind that particular piece of legislation. I really doubt that anyone who runs on a "Make Prostitution Legal" platform has a prayer, but that is your only reasonable option.
James
essentially forced exploitation of women
I'd say it's mutual exploitation, myself.
One take on prostitution is nasty men taking advantage of poor, helpless women.
Another is avaricious work-shy women taking advantage of the natural urges of poor, helpless men.
Each perspective has varying degrees of validity that depend on the specifics of the case. But neither party is all good or all bad all the time.
Bravo, Megan.
Prostitution should absolutely be legalized and regulated, thereby giving women greater power and protection in the transaction and, thereby, reducing the effects of "the essentially forced exploitation of women, reduced overall social respect for women, spread of disease, and a several other salient objections ..."
Men and women of a certain age should absolutely be able to buy and sell sex if that's the only service they wish to offer or buy. We do it all the time already. It's just a matter of degree, and honesty.
"Blaming the police for doing their jobs is unfair, short sighted, and stupid."
It is none of these things. Our founding fathers set up THREE branches of government and a system of checks and balances. One of the checks against the legislative branch is the executive branch's ability to prioritize law enforcement resources, or to not enforce the law at all if it is unconstitutional.
The government has a legitimate interest in regulating businesses. Hooking should be considered a business as it is in certain counties in Nevada.
Making it illegal is silly. Regulate it, have mandatory health screenings, zone it into non residential neighborhoods, and make sure that the "providers" are legally of age and there of their own free will.
Our County Sheriff here in Chicago(Cook County) wastes far too many resources and airtime on TV explaining how he is fighting the hooker menance.
Regulate it and use draconian punishments on anyone who "enslaves" women into doing it.
I actually would think more badly of someone who was a serial drunk driver than a "customer" at a legitimate prostitution business.
It's not like Megan is insisting that the police should be fired for enforcing the law. It seems quite legitimate to be upset that real criminals walk the streets while people engaged in what should be legitimate business are made public examples of.
And the "Well, she was breaking the law" response is basically absurd. If you are of the position that the law is just, then it's entirely reasonable, but then the objection is that she did something she should not be allowed to do, not that she broke the rules.
If you admit that the law is unjust or improper, then the fact that she broke it says little ill about her (especially since no one was harmed and there is no evidence of exploitation). If it were against the law to speak out against the government, would you say someone deserves to go to jail for doing so? This is dangerously reflexive.
Granted, this is not so serious as punishing people for voicing grievances, but that's an issue of magnitude, not propriety.
Also, dragging the women into court is simply despicable, particularly if they are not being tried.
I agree with Megan's position that acts of prostitution between consenting adults should be legal, but her post is very poorly argued.
First off, Vitter and the other exposed clients have been "shamed" just as much as Palfrey -- she just chose to respond to that shame differently. Several of her prominent exposed clients have in fact regigned, and Vitter is likely to loose his seat in the next election.
Shame aside, one could reasonably call out the asymmetry in sentencing between Palfrey and her clients. That's a fairly convincing line of argument, but it too has problems. Prosecutors could point out that, given that some fraction of clients do in fact use escort services for "companionship" without sex, it is difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a given client engaged in sex simply from the record of a business transaction. On the other hand, someone who arranges a large number of such transations has certainly arranged sex for money beyond a reasonable doubt. So even with symmetric thresholds for prosecution between johns and madams, madams will be prosecuted more.
Finally, given an unjust law, the proper response is civil disobedience: very publically break the law and then very publically stand up and accept the unjust consequences. Palfrey did just the opposite: she profited enormously from the inflated prices that the ban on her business brought, then refused to stand up and fight for its legitimacy when she was discovered. Her suicide may be relevant to our judment of her own character, but is completely irrelevent to our judgement of the justness of the ban.
The constitutionality of laws is determined by the courts; and, ultimately, by the Supremes. So far, laws against prostitution have not been judged to be unconstitutional. That could change, or not.
In the meantime, selling sex is constitutionally illegal. Deal with it.
The DC Madam made a series of decisions, ultimately deciding to end her life. Decisions have consequences, especially her final decision. However, that decision was hers and hers alone.
Why don't we just lobby for the establishment of government owned and operated brothels, so that the revenues from prostitution go to the government and can be used "for the children". Maybe government-run prostitution revenues could be used to fund sex education in the schools; or, to fund research on STDs. (One wonders what
GS number would be assigned to the high priced hookers used by Elliott Spitzer.)
y81, your argument for a ban from property value considerations is completely ridiculous.
You're right, I don't want a brothel in my neighborhood. I also don't want an oil refinery, but that's not a reason to ban oil refining.
We have zoning laws to deal with these problems. The rich pay higher prices to live in areas where zoning laws ensure that undesirable businesses will be kept out. The poor have the opportunity to decrease their housing costs by living in an area where zoning laws allow undesirable businesses.
"In the meantime, selling sex is constitutionally illegal. Deal with it."
This is false. The constitution says nothing of the kind. See Nevada for a counter example.
Why don't we just lobby for the establishment of government owned and operated brothels
Can you imagine what unionized civil-service clockwatching government hookers would look like?
Right, well, that thought just took care of my sex drive for the next week.
On a related topic, I have often wondered why, when James Carville opined about what one found when trolling through a trailer park with a $100 bill, nobody ever asked what the Governor of Arkansas, or the President of the United States, was doing trolling through trailer parks with $100 bills. It was fine to make fun of Paula Jones, but off-limits to make fun of the Governor of the great state of Arkansas, or "POTUS Predatorus". It was OK to question Kathleen Willey or Juanita Broaderick, but not the individual who took advantage of them.
Our society, or at least its left branch, has some interesting approaches to issues. At least, Eliott Spitzer didn't "bottom fish".
Nelson,
Prostitution is illegal in most states. Those laws have not been found to be unconsitutional. Therefore, where it is illegal, prostitution is "constitutionally" illegal.
Rob,
My apologies to your sex drive. At least you can imagine that the transaction whould not be "slam, bam, thank you ma'am", even after you had waited in line for a while, whether you wanted it to be or not.
obody ever asked what the Governor of Arkansas, or the President of the United States, was doing trolling through trailer parks with $100 bills.
You misunderstood Carville's remark. He was implying that Jones (and the rest of Clinton's ex-paramours) were white trash looking to make a quick buck by peddling lies about Bill Clinton -- not that Clinton himself had used money to attract those women.
Dan,
What lies?
Nelson, I believe you misunderstand Ed's sentence, which is admitedly a bit unclear. By "selling sex is constitutionally illegal" he did not mean "selling sex is unconstitutional", i.e. that the constitution demands a ban, he meant "the illegality of selling sex is constitutional", i.e. that the constitution allows a ban.
That said, Ed's argument is still rather weak. Yes, we should recognize that the court's decisions define constitutionality for practical purposes. But that shouldn't mean that we can't argue that the court has decided wrongly. In making such arguments, though it does behove us to: (1) not misrepresent the reality that the court's intrepretation does not agree with ours, and (2) answer the court's arguments for its intrepretation when we make our own.
For my own part, I think the constitution as written does allow a ban. But that's in part because I think that Lawrence vs. Texas was decided wrongly, i.e. I think that the constitution does allow laws that regulate private sexual behavior between informed, consenting adults. That said, I would prefer to have a constitution that did prohibit any laws regulating private behavior between informed, consenting adults. That would not only make laws against prostitution and gay sex unconstitutional, it would also make minimum wage, overtime, and worker safety laws unconstitutional.
Feel for the prostitute if you wish, but I have a hard time mustering sympathy for the pimp.
The fact that prostitution is illegal does matter. It means that the women engaging in it are freely subject to exploitation by pimps like Palfrey, without recourse to any legal protection. I suspect that if we looked closely at the day-to-day running of Palfrey's business, her treatment of the women who were enriching her would seem quite ugly.
"We" did not take her life.
This rant is phony righteous indignation for the sake of someone you didn't even know of or about until this case came up.
I certainly think prostitution should be a heavily regulated but legal business, but I'd caution against anyone drawing too close a connection between a suicide and an external event "causing" it. Clinical depression is a nasty and poorly understood disease, and the poor folks afflicted with it will tend to find something to "cause" them to end their own lives.
It's a question of priorities, I believe. Yes, breaking the law is breaking the law. But jaywalking is illegal, and I see people doing it all the time in front of the police.
How come they don't get arrested?
Should the officers who have been proven neglectful in the due execution of their duties enforcing the law be suspended, reprimanded, fired?
Another point: a long time ago, when I was still doing the club thing, it almost invariably happened that the police would roll by at closing. Nobody called them, there was nothing particularly illegal going on, nor was there any particular cause for the police to stop. Yet, there they were. And it happened quite frequently that while these worthies were harrassing us, ogling the drunken, half-dressed girls(sometimes laying hands on them), there would be accounts in the paper the next day of trouble in another part of town nearby. Real trouble.
Don't tell me that the police were appropriately 'prioritizing'.
Will,
FDA-approved "rabbit boards" (old joke) would be simpler and cheaper; and, arguably, just as effective.
Megan,
I think this is the first libertarian comment I've heard you make. I'm all for legalizing it. To all the commenters who said "Think of the children"... uhm.. people are going to cheat, whether it's legal or not. We have better things our police could be doing.
SOV,
Shall we extend your point to the issue of "sanctuary cities", in which the police are not allowed by city government to enforce the law against the "undocumented", the "forged documented" and the "multiple forged documented"?
Kinda' makes "J-walking" pale into insignificance.
How about the whole issue of "no-go" zones in cities, where the police will not go regardless of what is "goin' down"? Any law enforcement officer who tolerates a "no-go" zone should be summarily fired.
I'm not sure what you're arguing here. I'm merely pointing out that those who pooh-pooh prioritization , that in the land of Point, the Law is the Law should then be screaming for any officer's head who does not prosecute jaywalking, even when it's occurring right under their nose.
I happen to think that if they're going after prostitution of the sort practiced by the late D.C. Madam, then they better have made a hefty dent in violent street crime first.
It seems quite legitimate to be upset that real criminals walk the streets while people engaged in what should be legitimate business are made public examples of.
While this may or may not occur -- if police are known to be otherwise occupied in a certain place at a certain time, someone else may definitely take advantage of it, as in SoV's anecdote -- this doesn't mean that the police are letting "real criminals walk the streets". Barring clear evidence that a situation like SoV's is actually occurring, it is usually a deductive fallacy to claim that the police are not doing their job. The primary purpose of a patrolling cop, i.e. when not responding to an emergency, is to observe what is going on around him and address any problems he sees.
So, if the city has statutes about crossing a street against the light, and the cop witnesses someone jaywalking, then he is operating perfectly within his job description to stop the jaywalker and cite him under the relevant statute. If the people have a problem with this -- because of some philosophical idea that jaywalking is not a "real" crime, for exmaple -- let them change the law. The fact that they don't is not prima fascia evidence that it is not a "real" law, just because a handful of persons who don't like the idea on principle; and the fact that a woman gets mugged three blocks away while the cop is citing the jaywalker is not evidence of misplace policing priorities. It merely illustrates that the only way to have the police always present at the time of need is to live in a police state.
Generally, people balk at that idea, especially if they identify themselves as libertarians.
A related topic is...
Prostitution is one of the few businesses where young women can enter a business, make a bundle of money, and if she played her cards right (i.e. work in a legal place like Nevada brothels) exit with a good amount of cash, move to a place where she is not known, and go from there.
There are very few male prostitutes that can be as successful as female ones.
Is that the real reason for men (and legal systems are dominated by men) to take such a dim view of prostitution and then selectively punish the women and not the men?
The reality is, in the age when good management can virtually eliminate most risks to women in the "trade" with good regulations and orderly markets, the business should be encouraged, not discouraged.
Conversely, is the reason the business is opposed by women a function of maintaining a sexual monopoly by forcing "relationships" to happen and sex bundled in instead of just sex as a purely marketable good?
Lets discuss?
I'm not complaining about the police; I'm complaining about the elected officials who sent the police in to harass this woman. Law enforcement resources are finite; this is not a good use of them.
Clinical depression is complicated, to be sure, but suicide often has an external, catastrophic, trigger event, without which it would not have happened. It is pretty clear what triggered this.
No, I didn't know her. Nor did I care about her until she was arrested for prostitution, and no, I was not really enraged until she killed herself. But I think I'm entitled to be enraged when my government does something I regard as fundamentally wrong, when that something results in the death of a woman I don't think should ever have been arrested.
Clinical depression is complicated, to be sure, but suicide often has an external, catastrophic, trigger event, without which it would not have happened. It is pretty clear what triggered this.
She had said she would not go back to prison. She also had been there once, and should have had a very vivid impression of what kind of changes she might need to make in her conduct to avoid going there again. You can complain all you want about the law, but when someone chooses to violate it, the fact that the consequences interacted with a case of clinical depression does not, of itself, negate the law or its enforcement.
But I think I'm entitled to be enraged when my government does something I regard as fundamentally wrong, when that something results in the death of a woman I don't think should ever have been arrested.
Well and good, but as markets go, this one is commoditized and has low barriers to entry. A more profitable question to explorte might be, is your opinion on the legal and social merits of prostitution widely shared, and if so, why is your preferred change in the winds not occurring? Alternately, if it is not widely shared, why not?
I don't think rage is an appropriate reaction when the majority of your fellow citizens disagree with you and implement their decision by democratic procedures. I don't like, say, smoking bans, but I don't go around in a rage on that account.
Lets also realize outcall prostiuttion like she was providing is legal in almost all the world with no significant negative affects, in my view having safe sexual options is a benefit to a culture.
One of Palfery's escort service employees was former University of Maryland, Baltimore County, professor Brandy Britton, who was arrested on prostitution charges in 2006. She also committed suicide in January before she was scheduled to go to trial.
The defense at trial did a terrible job vs better legal arguments rather than just "I didn't know sex was happending."
I had some great e-mail exchanges with her former civil attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley.I read some of his motions which were excellent including using Lawrence vs Texas (see my articles at http://www.sexwork.com/legal/Lawrence_Index.html ) But her criminal attorney, Preston Burton at trial had in my view, a terribly lacking defense.
I had discussed with prior lawyer what resulted in my article:
Is Paying for Time legal as long as not for sex?
Is it similar to how Restaurants avoid Liquor License laws?
At http://www.sexwork.com/legal/TimeNotSex.html
But the trial was a total disaster with her criminal attorney it was a fast slam dunk guilty verdict by the jury.
I have extensive coverage of defense ideas and the trial at http://www.sexwork.com/escorts/dcmadam.html
Sigh. I don't see how anyone could misread what I wrote:
But apparently that's what happened. If one wishes to reference the above examples, I'm saying that the police _don't_ cite jaywalkers, even when it happens right in front of them. That being the case, the police then can't say that 'the law is the law' when questioning their priorities. Quite obviously, it isn't.
This is not a hard concept to grasp. Really.
Oh, and the point of my story was that the police _weren't_ doing their jobs patrolling the streets; they were loitering for a half-hour and more in an area where no crime was occurring, no signs that any crime had occurred, no signs that any crime was going to happen. They were ogling the college chicks, is what they were doing (small-town cops.) They also were not patrolling around the harder-edged watering holes at closing time, even though crimes were far more likely to occur there, like Lou's Place, or Skip's Place, or the Pow-wow Lounge, located next to Club Vogue (at the time, the only strip club within city limits) for easy access to liquor.
The issue is, as it so often seems to be, one of consistency.
Re: The comment about her treating women badly
Why do you assume this? She wasn't a street pimp.
Many of the escorts have said that she was wonderful to them, just like many professional agencies owners are.
In Canada for example there are zillions of agencies and of course outcall always have been legal. Many of the most successful ones, are run by former escorts who are wonderful to the women.
Don't confuse this with sex slaves, which when they set out to actually find some it seems very few coerced trafficked women exist other than in the sick minds of those that think all sexwork is abuse of women.
aMouseForAllSeasons has it exactly right. The law against prostitution may be wrong (I believe it is) and Palfrey's prosecution under that law may have driven her to suicide, but that her prosecution under this law drove her to suicide has absolutely nothing to do with why the law is wrong. Citing Palfrey's suicide in an argument against prostitution bans is (1) bad logic, because it's irrelevant and (2) bad politics, because Palfrey makes a terrible poster child.
Isn't it ironic how it's illegal to simply pay for sex, but it's perfectly legal to lie your ass off to someone in order to get them to sleep with you, or wait till they're drunk and then persuade them to sleep with you when their judgment is impaired?
It's so backwards -- when it comes to sex, fraud and undue influence are perfectly legal, but a simple sale isn't.
Rage is always a perfectly acceptable reaction when a majority of your "fellow citizens" decide that you shouldn't be allowed to do something that has exactly zero effect on them whatsoever.
Y81- I wonder if you would say the same thing if instead of prostitution, the law the majority sought to impose was shari'a law. Tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.
Also - In addition to everything that's been said about the abjectly twisted priorities of making enforcement of prostitution laws a legal priority, there is another group whose priorities are at least equally disturbed on this issue. To be sure, police ought to be given better things to do than go after prostitution; but it's tough to blame them for arresting someone for prostitution if it happens right in front of their nose, allowing for an easy, nonviolent arrest. In that case, the cop legitimately is just doing his job without having much of an effect on his ability to go after serious crimes.
But what makes the prostitution issue - especially in this case - such a disgusting example of social priorities is the way cases like this are treated in the media or by law enforcement officials (this is also true for the War on Drugs, btw). The cop/detective who makes an arrest is literally just doing his job, and is treating the prostitution crime no more harshly than any other arrest (and in most cases probably less harshly). But the hack journalists, elected politicians, and grandstanding police officials are a much different ballgame. It is they who get to decide what to cover and out of what to make a big deal.
At the risk of going into Glenn Greenwald territory here (even though I still agree with Megan), I wonder how many massive press conferences are held to announce the arrest/conviction/sentencing in the average murder case in Anacostia. I wonder under what rationale it is more appropriate to dedicate wall to wall coverage of a prostitution ring (where at worst, the only "victims" are just a couple of very offended wives) than it is to dedicate any coverage whatsoever to a drive-by shooting that leaves someone dead.
The fact is this: even if the DC Madam had still gotten arrested and convicted, she would still be alive today were it not for the massive, wall-to-wall humiliation she was forced to endure by some officials who wanted to get their name in the paper. In choosing to make this into a high profile case, any opportunity for the prosecutor to use his discretion to offer a light slap on the wrist disappeared.
Of course, there's a reason why prostitution rings get such disproportionate coverage as compared to your average violent crime: an overwhelmingly large number of Americans actually do care more about the prostitution ring than they do about whether Some Black Guy gets gunned down on Capitol Street.
....And then you wonder why libertarians refuse to acknowledge a right of the majority to tell people what to do with their own lives.
Just to make that last sentence more clear:
I will consider the possibility that the majority has a right to tell me what to do with my personal life when the majority decides that it cares more about murder than it cares about an act between two consenting adults.
Consenting adults? Did the wives of the men who used this brothel consent? How did this kind of transaction affect the children of these men?
There are venereal diseases aginst which prophylactics offer protection and there are diseases against which they don't. Did the wives of these men consent to put themselves at risk for HPV and HSV-2?
People seem to forget that we have laws against prostitution to protect wives and children. (The only rationale usually given is that we have to save the prostitutes).
Yes, it's terrible that David Vitter is in power still. But why not agitate for his resignation instead?
AS, that is about the most ridiculous argument for a prostitution ban I have seen yet -- it's much worse than y81's argument on the basis of property values.
A law that attempted to protect women and children from the side-effects of poor decisions by husbands and fathers would look very, very different than a prostitution ban. On the one hand, it wouldn't cover childless, unmarried people. On the other hand, it would ban many more behaviors by married people and parents -- not only sexual behaviors, like affairs, but also non-sexual behaviors, like unhealthy eating and drinking or dangerous extreme sports (a sick or dead father or husband is a poor breadwinner).
The fact is our society just doesn't regulate relationships that way. You either accept the negative effects that his self-destructive behaviors have on you, or you dump him. The "think of the women and children" argument went out with the temperance movement about 80 years ago.
AS wrote:
"People seem to forget that we have laws against prostitution to protect wives and children. (The only rationale usually given is that we have to save the prostitutes)."
That's a load of BS. If that were really the rationale for anti-prostitution laws, then the laws would only prohibit married people from soliciting prostitutes or engaging in prostitution; your rationale does not allow for a prohibition on prostitution where the accused is unmarried. Indeed, by your rationale, punishment for a "john" should be far worse than punishment for a prostitute or, in this case, a "madam." But it isn't: madams will wind up in prison for years, whereas johns at most get a couple days in the county lockup.
A few other glaring flaws in your simplistic argument:
1. Last I checked, anti-adultery laws have typically been found unconstitutional; even where constitutional, they are virtually never enforced (this being the reason that they are still constitutional- so few people ever get convicted under them that there is almost never a basis for appealing the prosecution to the higher courts, so the courts don't get the opportunity to rule them unconstitutional). Yet there is no basis in your logic for a distinction between adultery laws and prostitution laws.
2. Please explain your rationale for considering wives a party to a transaction in which they are utterly uninvolved.
3. As for the tired STD argument, there is again no difference between prostitution and adultery more generally - but we don't send people to prison for adultery. Moreover, there is the fact that legalized prostitution results in less, not more, spread of STDs:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/416325/why_prostitution_should_be_legalized.html (note that the AIDS rate amongst prostitutes in the Netherlands is 1/3 the AIDS rate of the entire US general population)
Why? Because when prostitution is legal, prostitutes have more access to regular testing and/or treatment, can be more selective about the clients they take, and have more leverage to use against johns to force them to use contraception. The reality is that some married people cheat - always have, always will. But by banning prostitution, we significantly increase the likelihood that the spouses of the cheaters will suffer physical harm in addition to emotional distress from the cheaters' actions.
I think that the various commenters (myself included) and Megan are using police to refer to law enforcement resources generally, not just officers on the street. The attorneys, legal staff, and other employees spending time on prosecuting prostitution could be much better employed.
As far as the suicide being an argument against the illegality of prostitution, it is admittedly not an overwhelming one, as it's not like she was executed (probably). Still, her suicide was quite directly the result of an unjust law, and thus the injustice bears some responsibility (though admittedly not all) for her death.
Personally, I think that prostitution should be as legal as any other sexual activities consenting people of legal age engage in. And yes, I would love to have a brothel next door instead of what I'm stuck with...I have a "jock-and-party" junior college as my next-door neighbor, and a quiet, well-run brothel would be a wonderful relief from having drunks puking and fighting on my front lawn at 2 AM. In any case, I am under no illusions about my personal ownership of "my neighborhood," unlike _certain_ other people here.
As for it being "exploitative," sometimes it may well be---but the same could be said about any other situation involving employment. So what? As long as the employees can walk without being forced back to work, I don't see a problem. In any case, a call-girl or brothel operation =/= streetwalking; streetwalking, I will agree, _is_ a nuisance, if only because it annoys people who don't want to participate.
The DC Madam made a series of decisions, ultimately deciding to end her life. Decisions have consequences, especially her final decision. However, that decision was hers and hers alone.
Bingo. The flipside to the libertarian love of personal freedom is (or should be) acceptance of personal responsibility for the consequences of using that freedom foolishly. Palfrey went to jail for running a business she knew to be illegal, and apparently killed herself because she didn't want to go jail again after she was caught running the exact same business. Her choice.
Regardless of one's feelings about prostitution bans, the fact that this woman chose to off herself is not remotely a good argument against them.
uhm.. people are going to cheat, whether it's legal or not. We have better things our police could be doing.
And if you make it easier and less risky, more of them will do it. If you think that marital infidelity has negative consequences for society (and I think there is a good case to be made that that is so), then it is not in the state's interest to establish laws that encourage it.
Of course, there's a reason why prostitution rings get such disproportionate coverage as compared to your average violent crime: an overwhelmingly large number of Americans actually do care more about the prostitution ring than they do about whether Some Black Guy gets gunned down on Capitol Street.
Evidence-free conjecture. Personally I think the fact that Palfrey's clients included high-profile people like Vitter had a lot more to do with the coverage the case received than the fact the crime involved was prostitution and not murder (high profile murder cases like O.J., Phil Spector, and Charles Manson get plenty of sensationalistic, exploitative press, your typical street-corner prostitution bust, not so much).
Cleopatra-like she seems to have chosen death over imprisonment. This is sad, maybe, but it's sickening because????
Oh yeah the evil government was harrassing this "poor woman." Umm she was willing to do whatever it took, including exposing or extorting former clients, to get out of it. Her gambit failed and so she chose death before capture.
I'm just not seeing the outrage here. Well I felt a little outrage that she's never going to get imprisoned, but I can respect her desire to choose something else instead.
Now onto the fact that this woman was hounded into prison, broken, and driven to take her own life by a state intent upon ruining this woman for . . . arranging a sexual transaction between two consenting adults.
This seems a bit "overwrought" to me. I was jailed for over 4 years for simply providing "consenting adults" their "smokable vegetation".
Of course, the only reason I was able to make (lots of) money doing this was entirely due to the "law", as most other people weren't willing to risk the known penalties.
I think I first heard "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." in 1979, when I was a 14 yr old in 'Juvie jail'.
(note that the AIDS rate amongst prostitutes in the Netherlands is 1/3 the AIDS rate of the entire US general population)
Wow. Cool stat.
Every year, the Bush administration spends a few billion dollars trying to teach people not to stigmatize those who are HIV+, and another few billion dollars teaching kids that sex outside of marriage is wrong and dirty. These efforts neatly cancel each other out, and since much of the money for both efforts goes to Christian faith-based organizations, it's a big revenue winner for the base. Neat trick.
Given the poor-to-nonexistent evidence that either abstince-based or ordinary sex education have any impact on the behavior of their target audience, I think the scheme, if it is one, probably isn't working very well.
I don't really have a lot of sympathy for the DC Madam, who knew what the risks were. That said, prostitution should be legal. She should not have been prosecuted and hounded to death for carrying on a trade that should have been as legitimate as operating a brewery and manufacturing cigarettes- trades that have directly led to thousands of alcohol and smoking related deaths each year.
People who claim that prostitution will lead to the moral collapse of society should understand that prostitution is legal in many modern, western countries- not only filthy, secularist regimes like Germany, Holland, and Belgium but good Anglo-Saxon Protestant type countries like England , Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. These all seem like good, functioning democracies still.
Generally, the only folk who want prostitution banned appear to be those who think that someone, somewhere is having fun in a way that they don't like.
I don't venture into Conservative blog territory often but Megan's post has given me some solace. You guys have feelings. I was expecting a flood of rants against sex, persecution of Vitter and just the whole fake morality thing. But justice? Good job, Megan.
Anon, I think it's safe to say most here are opposed to your incarceration too. Marijuana and prostitution are the two stupidest things we ban in society today, as far as I'm concerned.
Jymn, Megan isn't really a "Conservative" in the sense you mean. She's more of a soft libertarian than anything. Her social policies are ones many lefties largely agree with.
Hear hear, Megan! I agree with everything you've said...if only this would be said more often and with your eloquence.
What on earth is government doing regulating a sexual relationship between consenting adults? I've never had a transaction with a prostitute, but I'm also under no allusions that if I blow $200 at a bar on booze and then take home a gal I've met there for a mutually agreed upon and legal one-night stand that this makes some paragon of manly virtue. I choose to not be so crass as to shove a fistful of money at a paid professional to come home with me, yet one-night stands created after shoving a fistful of drinks at someone are a youthful right of passage for nearly every person I know, female and male.
Some folks would rather just pay a professional. Kind of gross, but nevertheless - do we really need the Values Police to run roughshod over the choices of adults? These authoritarian (and usually Republican) social restrictions have got to stop. Authoritarians: Make your own decisions in life - I don't need you to make mine for me.
One could argue, I think very persuasivly, that a republic ought to be able to ban prostitution. All this is really irrelevant in this case.
If prostitution was legal The DC Madam wouldn't have been a madam. If it was legal, there wouldn't be much profit in it and she would be doing something else that is profitable and illegal.
Wow, you guys really think this was suicide?
Programming is powerful.
Such is life in a culture sick with secular Calvinism. I believe the motto is; Everything Is Permitted. Nothing is Forgiven.
Zappa:
That was my first thought upon hearing the story... Suicide? Yeah right.
Welcome to conservatism. It's not about achieving results so much as feeling smug and righteous. So yes. Shaming the slut was vastly more important that solving any other kind of crime.
Werd Megan....werd.
Congress seems to be preoccupied by selling illegal favors to wealthy men. I wonder where they got the idea?
wGraves, are you suggesting that Congress can't stand the competition? Why that's
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brilliant!
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