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LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

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Re: LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

#31

Post by godzillabrennus »

sathackr wrote: post #7

So the signs are there so that the police have probable cause to stop someone that they otherwise wouldn't have probable cause to stop. Does anyone else see a problem with making otherwise perfectly legal and safe behavior(turning on to a side street) illegal just to legalize an otherwise unconstitutional traffic stop? Seems like another slippery slope we ought not to be sliding down.

This is the people’s republic of California. If they can find a way to use government to create a fine for people who have money they will do it.

If you are a homeless drug addict they want to pretend you don’t exist even if you commit a crime.

Re: LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

#32

Post by googlryas »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #13
zunzun wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the addiction relief program "Intervention" they showed a woman who said that she had to inject heroin immediately before this type of work to make it tolerable, and she also said that she found most disgusting to her was that she had to pretend to enjoy what the clients did to her.

If you are really concerned about the horrors of prostitution, I recommend you work on the Glass Ceiling issue in non sex worker industries so women have more real options for well paid work.

At what rate do you think women are driven into prostitution because they hit a glass ceiling in their previous line of work?

Versus, you know, never getting off the ground floor?

Re: LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

#33

Post by googlryas »

byoung2 wrote: post #5
mindcrime wrote: post #2

There is no "prostitution problem", other than meddling moralizers who want to tell people what they can do with their own bodies. Legalize prostitution, get the government out of the business of trying to control people's bodies, and the "problem" goes away.

Exactly...if it's legal, you won't see dark alley trolling or illegal turns. You would see professional websites, apps, and clean, regulated places of business.

Sure you will. Maybe not as much, but it will still be there. There are still illegal marijuana dealers in legalized states.

Women will continue to be 'streetwalkers', because they can't access the regulated place of business - maybe because of previous bad behavior such as stealing or assaulting clients - maybe because they have a STD and the regulated place won't let them work for health reasons - maybe because they are being forced to do 'overtime' after their regulated job by a pimp.

Men will likewise continue to use streetwalkers - maybe because they just like them better, maybe because they think their partners have less of a chance of finding out if they pick someone up in the street vs paying with a credit card on an app - maybe because they have been abusive in the past with regulated prostitutes and have been banned - maybe because they want to save 10% on the price.

Re: LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

#34

Post by anotheryou »

tardo99 wrote: post #19
gav wrote: post #11

I live about three miles west of Western between Hollywood and Sunset, a couple of blocks from where Hugh Grant was arrested in 1995. We still have these signs up here, I can’t turn onto my street after 11pm. What I find interesting is that these signs are still up even though the problem they were trying to solve went away many years ago. It seems that there’s nobody that looks to undo changes like this—government r…

So ... what do you do if you get home after 11pm?

that's probably nothing to discuss in public...

Re: LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

#35

Post by cespul »

tomc1985 wrote: post #25
zunzun wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the addiction relief program "Intervention" they showed a woman who said that she had to inject heroin immediately before this type of work to make it tolerable, and she also said that she found most disgusting to her was that she had to pretend to enjoy what the clients did to her.

And for every one of those reports there is another of sex workers who find it empowering, profitable, and maybe even fun

Surely that ratio is much higher than 1:1. The amount of camgirls having "fun" and independently successful escorts has to be relatively small compared to the amount of average sex workers, many of whom didn't exactly choose that life and don't find it to be very "empowering".

Re: LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

#36

Post by roenxi »

rifung wrote: post #15
swampthinker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On mobile so I'll having trouble finding a source, but studies have unfortunately found that countries with legalized prostitution generally have higher trafficking rates.

Here you go: https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-... "Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited. The scale effect of legalizing prostitution, i.e. expansion of the market, outweighs the substitution effect, where legal sex workers are favored over illegal workers. On average, countries with legaliz…

That study might be the best available, but it isn't very convincing - they are analysing a large number of countries and it doesn't look like they gathered the data first hand.

Are all the statistics using a consistent definition of human trafficking? I have no faith that data between different countries is comparable on this issue, especially when it was apparently gathered from other sources. That is the sort of approach that gets Sweden called a 'rape capital' [0].

It is an extreme claim that legalising something causes crime rates to increase. They advance a plausible idea for the mechanism, but it seems reasonable that they are picking up ghosts in the data rather than a real effect. Correlation and causation issues might also be at play somewhere, and the scope of the study is just too big to pick it up. If there is a secondary source on one country that talks about a before-and-after observed change that might be interesting.

Basically, I'm not dismissing it out of hand, but it seems pretty reasonable that legalising drugs/prostitution/whatever automatically reduces crime and this study doesn't meet a reasonable bar of evidence. Maybe if it were combined with a good single-country study that highlighted the mechanism a bit more - but the uncertainties in the case study are enormous. The numbers cited in the report for Germany, for example, could be optimistically (optimistic to the point I feel disingenuous, but I don't think I'm saying anything statistically outrageous) spun to say that it is human trafficking may have declined from 19,740 (1996) to 12,350 (2003) with the legalising of prostitution +.

[0] https://www.thelocal.se/20170221/why-sweden-is-not-the-rape-...

+ Footnote 38 notes that Germany changed their definition of human trafficking victims between 1996 an 2003 to include more people, although they don't think this accounted for the majority of the increase.

Re: LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

#37

Post by DoreenMichele »

googlryas wrote: post #32
DoreenMichele wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are really concerned about the horrors of prostitution, I recommend you work on the Glass Ceiling issue in non sex worker industries so women have more real options for well paid work.

At what rate do you think women are driven into prostitution because they hit a glass ceiling in their previous line of work? Versus, you know, never getting off the ground floor?

I have six years of college, including a Certificate in GIS. I worked at a Fortune 500 company for over 5 years. The only person at the company who knew what GIS was without me having to explain it was a senior programmer who asked me for a date, thereby making it vastly less likely that I could ever successfully get a job in his department.

I've been a member of HN for over 9 years. I spent nearly 6 of it homeless. I have been quite open about hoping to make professional connections here and thereby improve my finances. I've made damn little progress on that goal. HN has not proven to be a good means for me to network.

While homeless, there were a number of men who offered me money to sleep with them or asked if I needed a place to stay (the implication being I could stay with them in exchange for sex).

I've talked about this many times on HN. If I didn't have a serious medical condition making sex work a non starter for me, I likely would have long ago given up on finding another solution because I'm still dirt poor.

I was one of the top three students of my graduating class in high school and I won a National Merit Scholarship. I don't lack talent. But most men don't really want to talk to me in earnest unless they are looking for a sexual relationship. It has proven to be a tremendous barrier to resolving my financial problems and rejoining the middle class.

Re: LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

#38

Post by tomcam »

ars wrote: post #22
gav wrote: post #11

I live about three miles west of Western between Hollywood and Sunset, a couple of blocks from where Hugh Grant was arrested in 1995. We still have these signs up here, I can’t turn onto my street after 11pm. What I find interesting is that these signs are still up even though the problem they were trying to solve went away many years ago. It seems that there’s nobody that looks to undo changes like this—government r…

What would happen if you just took the sign down?

Hugh Grant might return and the whole neighborhood would just go straight to hell again.

Re: LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

#39

Post by AYBABTME »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #8
byoung2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Change "heroin" to "cocaine" and you could tell the same story about many stockbrokers, so what's the point?

Brokers typically have social mobility, and a choice in their type of work. Their sacrifice to make ends meet is incomparable to that of someone selling their body. I'm confused how you can draw a likeness between the two. Perhaps there are moral threads to pull, but I don't think they end up going to the same place.

The way you imply that "selling their body" is worse than selling whatever part of themselves a stockbroker sells while doing drugs in order to work, really is kind of part of the problem. You put a moral judgement over which activity is more degrading than another. Consider this: what if people we're entitled to do whatever they want with their body, without having to abide to your standards and morals? How much of other peoples' morality do you want to be subjected to? Beware that others may have wildly different visions on what is degrading and what is not.

Re: LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night

#40

Post by nraynaud »

tardo99 wrote: post #19
gav wrote: post #11

I live about three miles west of Western between Hollywood and Sunset, a couple of blocks from where Hugh Grant was arrested in 1995. We still have these signs up here, I can’t turn onto my street after 11pm. What I find interesting is that these signs are still up even though the problem they were trying to solve went away many years ago. It seems that there’s nobody that looks to undo changes like this—government r…

So ... what do you do if you get home after 11pm?

I suspect you can use the grid to enter the street straight or by a left turn. I know in Argentina I have seen weird interdictions like that where we had to loop around the block.
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