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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

#41

Post by chrisseaton »

googlryas wrote: post #29
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.

Not only are right turns safe, but they are safer than left turns, because the A column can more easily block pedestrians crossing a street parallel to the cars motion before the turn. And so a single right turn is safer than a single left turn, and this proposed law is going to make people perhaps do 3x as many left turns as they would have right turns.

What's an 'A column' on a traffic junction?

And why would pedestrians be crossing if the traffic is moving?

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

#42

Post by abcanthur »

chrisseaton wrote: post #41
googlryas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only are right turns safe, but they are safer than left turns, because the A column can more easily block pedestrians crossing a street parallel to the cars motion before the turn. And so a single right turn is safer than a single left turn, and this proposed law is going to make people perhaps do 3x as many left turns as they would have right turns.

What's an 'A column' on a traffic junction? And why would pedestrians be crossing if the traffic is moving?

The A column is the structure of the car between the windshield and the driver and passenger windows. The B Columns are subsequently the structure between the first and second row of seats (I think).

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

#43

Post by JohnTClark »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #18
djrobstep wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not clear to me how having more women CEOs will help solve the horrors of prostutution, perhaps you could explain further.

Women frequently turn to prostitution, stripping et al because it's the only well paid work they can readily get. If career success in other fields were easier to access for women, it would be easier to make other choices.

Streetwalkers do this because they are poor and lack the skill to do something else. Some people simply don't have the skill to do things.

I don't know how to say this and not come as a jerk, but regarding the glass ceiling. By the time a women hit the glass ceiling sex work is not an option because they are old and the only sex work available would be streetwalking or low level escorting which dose not pay as much as under C-level manager or where the glass ceiling is.

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

#44

Post by DoreenMichele »

JohnTClark wrote: post #43
DoreenMichele wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women frequently turn to prostitution, stripping et al because it's the only well paid work they can readily get. If career success in other fields were easier to access for women, it would be easier to make other choices.

Streetwalkers do this because they are poor and lack the skill to do something else. Some people simply don't have the skill to do things. I don't know how to say this and not come as a jerk, but regarding the glass ceiling. By the time a women hit the glass ceiling sex work is not an option because they are old and the only sex work available would be streetwalking or low level escorting which dose not pay as much a…

I'm currently poor. I don't lack the skill to do something else. I've been offered money for sex. I've always turned it down.

Homeless men with no skills sometimes find day labor jobs. They are much less often offered money or a place to stay in exchange for sex.

I used Glass Ceiling as shorthand for removing barriers generally. Given the response here, I don't think it's worth the time and effort to try to "clarify." I don't think most people here actually want to understand the point. They are too busy shooting the idea down to wonder if there's any merit to the idea.

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

#45

Post by factsaresacred »

cespul wrote: post #35
tomc1985 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Not sure if much higher. I do photography and spent time snapping (street photos!) some girls in the sex industry in Asia. For them it's mainly about money. They could get an office job but they - and I quote - "tried...don't like".

These are countries with low unemployment, but also low pay, so sex work appeals as a lucrative (and less boring) alternative.

Many of this women were single mothers and the money was sent home. Few, from what I could tell, used drugs. And all were very strong people - I think that line of work requires it.

So in some parts of the world prostitution is just another job.

Is this the same everywhere? Unfortunately not. And I'm sure the industry as a whole is filled with tales of sorrow.

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

#46

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> "Countries with legalized prostitution are associated with higher human trafficking inflows than countries where prostitution is prohibited."

But:

(1) Can inflows really be measured comparably between legalized and non-legalized regimes? and

(2) Are inflows actually the figure of merit or a proxy?

(3) If inflows are a proxy for the figure of merit, is the relationship between that proxy and the actual figure of merit consistent between legalized and non-legalized regimes?

Its worth noting that key utilitarian arguments made for legalization (there are also more direct deontological arguments) include that legalization makes it easier for people subjected to abuses within sex work (including, but not limited to, trafficking) to identify themselves and/or be identified, and for them to escape from those abusive situations. If that is true, one would expect:

(1) Any mechanism for detecting trafficking levels (including inflows) to return a result higher relative to the actual level, ceteris paribus, in a legalized regime than a criminalized one, and

(2) Actual inflow levels in a legalized regime to be higher in proportion to impact levels (number of people subjected to trafficking at any point in time, number of person/years per year spent subjected to trafficking, lifetime average number of days spent subjected to trafficking, etc.) because shorter time to escape would require higher inflow levels [0] for any given impact level (or, equivalent, produce lower impact levels for any given inflow level.)

And this doesn't even address that the research uses a source that relies on local reports of human trafficking rather than consistent collection on common standards, and that legalizing regimes (and particular democratic legalizing regimes, which saw the greatest likelihood of increases) might simply tend also to use broader definitions of human trafficking in the first place, or expend more effort to either detect it or to distinguish it from non-trafficking prostitution.

[0] Well, where "inflow" is imports + people newly subjected to trafficking locally; the paper seems to consider only imports, which would ceteris paribus have the same relation, but there could be compounding effects from differences in local trafficking (OTOH, if legalization made it harder to traffic locals--because those who would be at risk would be more able to turn to legal sex work themselves--then that would further increase the ratio between import inflows and domestic impact levels.

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

#47

Post by thomasz »

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…

> I find this interesting.. I wonder why people would still go to an illegal worker over a legal one. Is it that the consumers don't know they're illegal or they have some other advantage like cheaper price or a different experience?

Slaves are cheaper and less likely to refuse to perform certain services.

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

#48

Post by DoreenMichele »

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…

I wonder why people would still go to an illegal worker over a legal one.

There is no reason to assume the client knows who is legal and who isn't. I can well imagine that it's less dangerous to traffic someone where prostitution is legal because the activity per se isn't going to get you arrested.

I saw some article about stolen high value tech being booming business because, unlike illegal drugs, simply possessing the tech per se was not illegal. They would have to prove it was obtained illegally to charge you with anything.

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

#49

Post by dragonwriter »

JohnTClark wrote: post #43
DoreenMichele wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women frequently turn to prostitution, stripping et al because it's the only well paid work they can readily get. If career success in other fields were easier to access for women, it would be easier to make other choices.

Streetwalkers do this because they are poor and lack the skill to do something else. Some people simply don't have the skill to do things. I don't know how to say this and not come as a jerk, but regarding the glass ceiling. By the time a women hit the glass ceiling sex work is not an option because they are old and the only sex work available would be streetwalking or low level escorting which dose not pay as much a…

> I don't know how to say this and not come as a jerk, but regarding the glass ceiling. By the time a women hit the glass ceiling sex work is not an option because they are old and the only sex work available would be streetwalking or low level escorting

The glass ceiling is something of a poor metaphor, because what it really refers to is a series of progressively more burdensome barriers to advancement, not a single level beyond which no women progress and below which advancement is egalitarian.

And it becomes very palpable at very low levels in many industries.

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

#50

Post by watwut »

closeparen wrote: post #16
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.

The government is required to respect privacy, not to be stupid. An area's status as a crime hotspot can reasonably cast suspicion on those visiting it late at night.

This proposed law does sound stupid to me and not just for reasons parent said. I also strongly disagree with "area is considered crimey, therefore we effectively void protections for citizens entering it".

I also think that laws designed to be broken so that you can throw false "should have follow law" excuses once cops selectively enforce it are lowering respect to law enforcement.

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