The Berlau/Reason/prostitution story is patently a false one.

Berlau wanted to do an exposé on the Washington sex trade. He tried to infiltrate several local “sex communities” operating on web sites such as [link removed by Antonia] but was not successful. Then, as now, he tried his usual “if you do not work with me I will give you negative publicity” stunt but apparently the members of these communities did not take him seriously.

Since then, Berlau has developed an obsession with prostitutes. On occasion, he has participated in “sting” operations with local police forces. He will work with them to entrap prostitutes, and then try to get information out of them. A typical arrangement is that if they will help him with this exposé he still dreams of writing, he will “fix” things with the police. Another typical arrangement is that if they will “take care of him” he will “take care of them”!

Not long ago Berlau, in conjunction with Reason magazine, one of the usual outlets for his writing, was going to announce this as a show of how influential the libertarians, or more properly, neocons, are. This was leaked and local prostitutes booed Reason’s Jacob Sullum off the stage in Las Vegas.

As part of the preparation for this story, Reason contacted web developers who had made sites for escorts and tried to extract information from them. In most cases, the Berlau “talk or be smeared” tactic was used. Senior people at Reason, including Jacob Sullum, Charles Paul Freund and Nick Gillespie supported these activities.

Berlau is at it again. This time, he has targeted Korean-operated massage establishments. Just recently, he assisted in entrapping a “masseuse” at Kim’s in Annandale. It is not known what “compensation” Berlau received along the way.

This is the worst kind of journalism. If Berlau can’t get his facts honestly, he should try something else. What he is doing is extortion, and he is doing it in the context of a potentially unhealthy obsession.

I’m not a lawyer, but I work in a Crown Court where ASBOs imposed by magistrates are not infrequently overturned on appeal on the grounds that they were imposed ’simply for the purpose of increasing the available sentence beyond the maximum which would otherwise be laid down by statute for the conduct which is prohibited’ (R v Morrison, EWCA Crim 2237 (26 July 2005)).

In the same ruling, the Court of Appeal held that ‘An Anti-Social Behaviour Order, though it may prohibit conduct which is also a distinct offence, must be justified by reference to the statutory requirements of section 1C(2)(a) and (b). Caution should be exercised in the making of an Anti-Social behaviour order if the behaviour in question would in any event be a criminal offence.’ (i.e. does the criminal behaviour actually cause harrassment, alarm and distress? That stems from a previous case when it was held that the harrassment, alarm and distress caused to a large supermarket by a shoplifter wasn’t enough to trigger an ASBO).

The court also said that ‘If a breach of an ASBO consists of no more than the commission of an offence for which a maximum penalty is prescribed by statute, it is wrong in principle to pass a sentence for that breach calculated by reference to the five year maximum for breach of an ASBO. Rather the tariff is determined by the statutory maximum for the offence in question.’

But if you manage to scare away all the punters, they will have to just stop, because there won’t be any more customers. We can agree that the kerb crawler has more moral culpability than the homeless teenager trying to earn the price of a hot dinner and somewhere warm to sleep, but I think you’re kidding yourself if you think that cracking down on kerb-crawlers but leaving the women alone is really any kinder to the women. As you crack down on kerb-crawlers, you will reduce their number, and so further depress the price of sex. The vulnerable women will be driven to do even more for even less money, because they’ll all be even more desperate as you’ve just dramatically reduced their income.

I will agree that going after the kerb crawlers is a far more effective way of stopping street prostitution than arresting the women, but I am unconvinced that it is in any way easier on the women.

Sorry, I disagree with you that prostitutes and kerb crawlers are equally perpetrators. Most street prostitutes are very vulnerable women, and exposing them to public shame would only increase their vulnerability without enabling them to do anything about it. There is often not an option for them to just stop - particularly if they are controlled by a pimp, are homeless or drug dependent. Whereas it is clear that kerb crawlers have far more choice in their actions.

I agree, nearly. Actually, I do think prostitution is immoral (equally so whether you are a buyer or a seller) but I don’t think immorality is in itself grounds for illegality. We can agree that forcing someone to do anything they don’t want with threats of violence is illegal - it seems a more odious thing to force someone to prostitute themselves than to force someone to clean windows, although that should probably only affect the level of punishment rather than the illegality of the act itself.

Coercion is the point where we step onto rather thin ice, though. There’s nothing actually illegal about “If you really loved me, you’d do X”. It may be the act of an immoral fetid piece of pond scum, but unless act ‘X’ is illegal in and of itself, whining, begging or cajoling someone to perform it can’t be illegal. So, if we remove kidnapping, threats of violence and the like from the equation, merely persuading a woman over the age of consent to sell her body can’t be illegal unless the actual act of prostitution itself is illegal.

So we’re back to considering whether an adult should have the right to chose to sell sex. Absent force or coercion, we’re mostly in middle-class suburban bedroom territory here, and I think you would agree that a woman who makes a genuinely free choice to have sex in exchange for money should be able to do so.

That, unfortunately, puts you with me in point 1. If you think that it should be legal for someone to make a genuinely free, un-coerced and unpressured choice into prostituting themselves, the act of prostitution can’t be illegal. That, in turn, means that the punters aren’t breaking the law, and so there’s little you can do to shame them and stop them. Your one remaining opening would be to decide that prostitutes picking up men on street corners were guilty of unlicenced street trading, which would give you a route into ASBO-ing the kerb crawlers.

As for grooming, I think it’s more about self esteem and having effective early warning signals rather than self-reliance: I’ve read evalautions of some interesting early intervention projects with young women who are at risk of coercion into prostitution. The risk signals are similar to many of those for other undesirable outcomes, which points to a need for better family support and suport for disadvataged kids in general, to raise their expectations and self esteem.

I would say that self esteem is the natural consequence of self-reliance. The very act of taking responsibility for your actions is a statement that what you do matters. Being willing and able to try and better yourself is a strident claim that you have value and worth.

Self-esteem without self-reliance, by contrast, is a house of cards. If every time you are faced with a setback, your response is that somebody else ought to help you, somebody else ought to do something, you are making the statement that you aren’t worth exerting yourself over - that nothing you can do could possibly make a difference, because you’re so worthless. If you can maintain your self-esteem whilst thinking those thoughts, you’re not being entirely rational.

The starting point as regards street prostitution is that the perpetrators are prostitutes and kerb crawlers and the victims are the people who live in, work in the affected areas. Both groups of perpetrators should be made to take responsibility for their actions.

It may be the case that it is easier to get kerb crawlers to modify their behaviour and that tactically it makes sense to focus on them. However fairness dictates that the pictures of street walkers and kerb crawlers should appear side by side for public disapproval.

I completely understood your point, thanks, but I don’t think you grasped mine.