[InOne]

Originally Posted by Zee

Yeah, but if you legalise prostitution, it cuts out a huge part of the problem. If prostitutes and police co-operate, it eradicates a lot of the problems that come with prostitution. If a prostitute is beaten to within an inch of her life, she's not going to go and report it to the police because she was committing a crime when she became the victim of a crime, in the same way that a burglar wouldn't report being beaten up by a home owner while he was in the middle of a burglary, because he would be at fault. But if you make prostitution legal, prostitutes can talk to the police more freely.

As I side in a previous post, having something as simple as a log book or database of prostitutes with pictures, known aliases and personal information goes a long way in helping to monitor things. Prostitutes wouldn't go missing if someone knew where they were meant to be, their home addresses, their family situations, their usual haunts - if said database had photos of the prostitutes, it would help police to spot unfamiliar faces. Police laziness is another matter entirely, I still think legalising it and regulating it makes far more sense than ignoring a problem that is not going away and is only getting worse by ignoring it.

They do report it in some cases. The law on prostitution is weird here. It's something like that it's legal for a man and woman to exchange sex for money but the curb crawling and hanging around on corners is against the law. I'm not totally familiar with it as I read up on it a while ago now. But it's more the curb crawlers who are getting arrested rather than prostitutes. The police do try to protect them but often they're unwilling, scared or too far gone on the drugs for help.

I do agree about that thing in Estonia though, it seems a good idea. But no doubt you'd still get the women who don't register. I guess the cold fact is you can help some but not them all.