Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money. – Thomas Hobbes
Yesterday I mentioned the rash of prostitution prosecutions in Surrey, England, which appear to be motivated by a desire to rob the victims of those prosecutions. Kelly Michaels and I discussed this sort of strategy on her Nymphtalk Live show last week (among many other things) and I mentioned that it’s also the strategy apparently favored by Las Vegas: Arrest, fine, release, repeat. Q: What do you call a useless man who extorts money from prostitutes? A: A cop. But as we discussed, other jurisdictions do things in exactly the opposite way; I shudder to think how much the NOPD’s little escapade the night I was arrested, or the typical shenanigans of cops in Pennsylvania, or the vast operations organized by the FBI to pop streetwalkers, cost the taxpayers in their jurisdictions (which in the case of the FBI means the whole USA). But those can’t compare to the massive waste perpetrated by the State of Texas, as detailed in this paraphrase of a January 27th news article recently commented on by Brandy Devereaux on January 29th and Laura Agustín on February 1st:
Every year, millions of tax dollars in Texas are spent on prostitutes. The money goes for housing hundreds of them in Texas prisons and Harris County jails. Texas has tougher laws for prostitution than most states, which can mean prostitutes who are arrested more than twice can be charged as felons; that qualifies them for prison, where it costs about $50 a day each to care for them. In Harris County (where Houston lies) there are about 130 prostitutes at any given time, costing the taxpayers about $2.3 million a year, and the state prison system currently confines over 300 female prostitutes at a total estimated cost of nearly $8 million a year.
This vastly understates the problem by only mentioning Texas’ most populous county; the state has 253 counties other than Harris, and if each jails whores at a similar per capita rate there are 673 women locked up in other Texas county jails at any given time for a staggering grand total of $22.6 million per year ($2.3 million for Harris + $12.3 million for other counties + $8 million for state prisons).
“Three or more prostitution convictions, we’ll send you to prison five or 10 years. No other state even thinks about that,” said State Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. Texas is one of only seven states [this is incorrect – it’s actually ten – Maggie] where prostitutes can even be sentenced to prison at all, the others being Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, [Indiana, Louisiana], Michigan, [South Carolina and Vermont].
I’m not sure what to make of this sloppy reporting; the article says seven states classify repeat prostitution convictions as a felony, then lists only six! The actual number is ten and I’ve added the missing ones in brackets.
Probation officers and court employees said drugs are the common denominator when they work with prostitutes. “The ladies are in prostitution to support their drug habit,” said Bernadine Gatling, with Harris County Community Supervision. But there’s now a new way to prosecute prostitutes; it’s called the STAR court (Success Through Addiction Recovery). The court was launched in 2003 to exclusively handle addicts, male and female, getting them into treatment — not jail – in the hope they wouldn’t come back. Of the women who began showing up in front of the STAR court judges, one thing stood out: the majority of them were, or had been, prostitutes. But now, instead of being sent back to jail, they’re getting drug treatment — closely supervised by a judge, to whom they have to report weekly.
My, what a mass of fallacies! Just because a statement is true does not mean its converse is as well; “all beagles are dogs” does not automatically imply “all dogs are beagles”, and “most arrested addicts in Houston are prostitutes” certainly doesn’t imply “most Houston prostitutes are addicts”. I don’t expect reporters who can’t count to seven to understand a principle of formal logic, but considering that Texas isn’t exactly shy with escort stings the cops certainly know that most escorts aren’t druggies even if most arrested Houston streetwalkers are. Perhaps, since most escorts can afford lawyers, the only hookers these “probation officers and court employees” ever deal with are destitute addicts and they judge all of us by that narrow slice of the whore spectrum. But then again, maybe not:
The court staff who runs the program said it doesn’t work for everyone, but it sure beats just sending them to jail over and over and at a fraction of the cost. Currently, the program can help only a fraction of the women prosecuted in Harris County for prostitution.
Why do you think that is? Hmm, maybe because the only whores eligible for the program are drug-addicted subsistence-level ones, who are only a fraction of all women prosecuted for prostitution. I’m not knocking the program; I’m in favor of anything which lessens the number of working girls locked up in jails. What offends me is the hypocrisy of trumpeting this small, specialized program as some sort of solution instead of simply changing the prostitution laws in Texas so they can no longer be used to persecute women for trying to earn a living, and then presenting the citizens of Texas with the bill for the cops’ and prosecutors’ sadistic sex games. Places like Texas and Pennsylvania waste tremendous amounts of money to victimize us, and places like Nevada and Surrey conspire to rob us, but in both cases we are the ones on the receiving end of the attack; no matter which direction the cash flows, whores are the ones who suffer.
I suck at math. Miss Emily can testify to that wholeheartedly. But even I know the basics of balancing a check book and the futility of throwing money at something that doesn’t work.
$22.6 million a year. Wow. How many beds for abused prostitutes, prostitutes escaping from pimps, prostitutes wanting to get off drugs, and prostitutes that just need a little help would that money be able to buy?
Do we realize how many acres upon acres of flat, unused land is in the state of Texas? Even just a portion of that money could buy land, build housing, hire counselors, teachers, medical personnel, etc.
I say we build a hooker friendly city out there in the middle of nowhere. If you want to work, work and we will set up health insurance and retirement plans. If you want to quit, quit and we will start scholarships and employment programs.
Good grief, how difficult can it really be compared to what we are doing now?
I live in Texas (God help me) and yes, we have miles and miles that is nothing more than miles and miles of miles and miles.
Sometimes, I can really see why much of the rest of the country is ready to help us pack.
I just read somewhere of a place (I think it’s like a homeless shelter or abuse center) whose operating budget (just to keep the doors open) is a little more than $400,000 per year. They offer 14,000 beds per night and serve more than 500 men/women per year. I can’t do the math else I would get a headache but I do know that 22.6 million could help build more than one or two of these places if ya know what I mean. And hell, if the ladies were allowed to work and wanted to use it as an incall the cost would certainly be less than that even. Offer rooms at a discount and give the ladies the option of buying into a health insurance program or IRA. I’d even let the church nuts and drug abuse counselors leave their cards in the lobby or give them a conference room to conduct Narcotics or Alcohol Anonymous meetings ON SITE. Maybe another room for study groups for those girls attending college. Start an internet store and call it Ho-Made for all the crafty gals who like to knit or bake or paint or whatever and have some of those proceeds towards the upkeep.
Oops sorry, ideas running amok!
Hee hee, “Ho-Made”. 🙂
I can tell you the objection right now: “That would legitimize prostitution.” 🙁
Depends on how you market it 🙂
“Buying these handmade soaps from TxBrandy means one less blowjob she has to sell” (you know, for those out there that want to ‘save’ us).
or for the freaks out there
“Buy this handmade sweater for your wife, made by your ATF!”
LOL
The whole thing makes me sick!!!
It really pisses me off when these people in postions of authority say “Women are in Prositution to support their drug habit”. Damn it, (I) have never used illegal drugs and never will.
Yes I did calls with drug clients, even did weekend buyouts, as the snorted ALL weekend, but never did partake. I always worked around it. They would have been doing it with or without me there.
I always told the clients that I never allowed drugs or weapons in my locations including pin knives. I searched each of them if they were new. I ran a scanner over them to detect metal and taping devices. caught a few with knives and drugs, but they took it back to their car. f I was at THEIR location, and they drugged, it was ok, as I was safe…security, and I could not help what THEY did.
Girls just some advice. I always said, No wrist watches, cameras, cell phones, pagers, keys, key chains or taping devices in the SESSION AREA. All this was left in the other room IF the had it on them. It was put in a drawer IN THE OTHER ROOM if I was at their location. I became very good at finding these things…LOL! It worked well for me anyway.
I know no one asked me, but I like to help if I can.
Joyce
Great article Maggie!
Another one of those things kind of like the other day when we talked about the overgeneralization of women that had some horrible “initiation” into the industry. That is not always true, nor is it always true that prostitutes are addicts supporting their drug habbit.
I want to see reports of mothers supporting their diaper habit, because that seems a lot more common.
The curious things with fallacies like the ones you explore here, Maggie, is that, given their scale, they presuppose an environment that nurtures them and allows them to flourish (i.e. an environment unfriendly to real knowledge on these topics). It’s almost as if the fallacies themselves weren’t the problem: they’re the natural consequence of an environment that simply doesn’t want to take prostitutions seriously, which has decided a priori that prostitutes (or pimps and ‘prostituters’; pick your worldview) are personae non gratae and will not be tolerated. Like heretics and witches in ages past, one has the impression that this climate makes people believe just about anything bad that is claimed about prostitution. If someone were to say that prostitutes kill little children to bathe in their blood (or, conversely, that the bad traffickers do this with the little bastard children that they force prostitutes to give birth to), I’ll bet many people would believe it.
How do you change that? That’s what Laura Agustín was asking the other day — what can a sex-positive person do in a mostly sex-negative world to actually achieve some change?…
I’m hoping blogs like yours will have a positive effect in the end, Maggie. Go viral, person-to-person. (Of course, the anti-sex gang is doing the same thing with their own well-written blogs… Sigh!…)
I don’t think we have to change people’s feelings toward prostitution at all; what has to change is the notion that the government has a right to suppress unpopular individual actions. I don’t like recreational drugs; I think getting drunk is stupid and snorting coke even stupider. But were I the dictatrix I would make both activities as legal as watching television or sending text messages. Those examples were chosen on purpose: All of them are things that are appropriate to do at home, but not while behind the wheel of a car. Doing whatever one chooses to do to oneself, up to and including suicide, is his own individual right, but endangering others through foolishness is not.
Once government has no power to suppress prostitution, acceptance will come. This was exactly the way it happened with witchcraft and homosexuality; once the power to persecute witches and homosexuals was taken away, members of those groups no longer had to hide and people learned to accept them.
But the point is, if people don’t change their opinions about prostitution at least to the extent of not seeing it as a big deal, a big crime, then they will never support their government if it decriminalizes it; hell, they could even flock to the streets to protest against said decriminalization and revert it.
Because government has to have the power of enforcing some laws (we don’t want murder to be decriminalized, et pour cause), and these laws are defended with rationales (‘murder is bad, here’s why, so we can’t tolerate it’), it is difficult to see how one could avoid extending this to other things one finds equally harmful (‘abortion is just like murder, we should prosecute it likewise’). In short, people will simply disagree on what is sufficiently harmful or ‘bad’ to deserve being prohibited by law — as long as there are laws, and a government that enforces them.
So if we don’t change the anti-prostitute climate (ultimately, what people believe about prostitutes and prostitution)… then there won’t be support for tolation and changes towards it. The power to persecute (and prosecute) witches and homosexuals was taken away because sufficiently many people believed that it should, and influenced others around them. If these people had remained simply enlightened individuals, we’d probably still be burning witches and killing gays.
Lots of people opposed desegregation; it came anyway.
Lots of people still oppose gay rights; they’re coming anyway.
No, it isn’t necessary that a majority approve of granting rights to a minority; all that is required is a group of good lawyers who are willing to invest the time and money fighting against laws that are already unconstitutional anyway.
Both desegregation and gay rights also came with a large number of supporters, and both did their utmost to have good PR. The whole civil rights movement was necessary (I don’t think desegregation would have come just because of a couple of ‘activist judges’ up north) and a reasonable number of people had to be converted before it was a good idea. (If a “couple of good lawyers who wanted to invest the time and the money in it” had tried to enforce desegregation before time was ripe, it wouldn’t have worked. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was followed by Jim Crow laws, and most people in the North didn’t give a damn. When a significant number of people started giving a damn, with the Civil Rights movement, things changed.)
The problem is not that lots of people are against it. The point is that there have to be lots of people in favor of it, too. Or else it won’t happen.
I disagree about gay rights coming with a large number of supporters; 5% of the population with direct interest and perhaps another 10-15% with a secondary interest is NOT large, and absolutely nobody outside of a few cranks had any interest in “gay marriage” 20 years ago. There are easily as many people with direct or indirect interest in prostitution (20% of men use us occasionally) as there ever were for gay rights.
I think a comparison needs to be done (if no one does it I will) drawing the parallel between the public opinion against witchcraft back in the day, black people 60 years ago, homosexuality 20 years ago, and the perception of prostitutes today.
Absolutely. Prejudice never entirely goes away; a thousand years from now there may still be some people who fear witches. But the vast majority of normal modern people accept witches, aren’t racist and have a “live and let live” policy toward homosexuals. The same is true with whores in the Netherlands after years of decriminalization; most people view it as a job like any other, even if they themselves would never do it.
The vast majority of people who accept witches, aren’t racist and have “live and let live” policy towards homosexuals go a long way towards explaining why there aren’t specific laws against these people (though still see how ‘the evil homosexual’ seems to reappear in public discourse as soon as same-sex marriage enters the picture). I’m hoping people sufficiently many people will start seeing prostitutes as normal people rather than mostly poor trafficked slaves or horrible succubi; then there might be changes.
The Netherlands are really a neat country in that respect. Not that there isn’t a “bible belt” here (complete with women who can’t wear pants and have to submit to their husbands, and where people of both sexes can’t marry outside of their religion); it’s just that they aren’t very influential (like the Amish in America). I remember experiencing a quite good feeling when a Dutch friend of mine said something like “you should be polite to prostitutes, not disrespect or attack them; they could call the police on you.” (It’s also a country where one of the most extreme right-wing populists — the late Pim Fortuyn — was openly gay.)
I’m just glad you found a way to sneak in a cute dog picture. Beagles are awesome.
I try to sneak in cute and/or funny pictures whenever possible; I really just do it for fun, but you’d be surprised how much traffic it brings in via Google image searches.
Laws, laws and more laws.. Soon, I will be moving to Austin. I agree that the laws need to be changed. In fact, I think jails are a barbaric thing of the past. They are causing trouble than not. I feel that they are only meant for a few. There needs to be a more progressive, current approach to dealing with problematic people. But, also, I am a huge believer in not waiting for others to do something. While those processes are battled out, others could come together to put together a great alternate solution for these prostitutes; someone to provide some land, someone to provide some funding, someone to provide guidance and leadership, etc. I am a general contractor with a steel building distributorship. I can tell you, I can provide a 100′ x 300′ facility for way less money than what you would think. That is a large facility. I can testify that steel buildings offer lots of square footage for not a lot of money.
Also.. This makes me think about all of the money that was put towards national healthcare. No doubt, healthcare is a major issue. However, I feel that the first line of attack should be aimed at making college education more attainable and affordable for everyone. Yes…It would be nice if, instead of sending these women to jail, they are sent to school for a high school diploma, certificate program, or even college. Then, they are prepared to become a functional part of society.
John, I’m with you up until the last sentence there; prostitutes are a functional part of society, even low-end prostitutes. The way to eradicate streetwalking isn’t to force women into some kind of “rehabilitation”; that approach has wrought havoc in Southeast Asia. The way is to decriminalize prostitution so that women can choose whatever course works best for them rather than being denied jobs, education, housing or even brothel employment excluded on the basis of a “criminal record”.
[…] According to Maggie McNeill, retired call girl and the writer of The Honest Courtesan, Texas is spending millions of dollars to arrest and prosecute sex workers. They are one of only ten states that actually sends people […]