RE: Prostitute Murders
well said crystaltherapy- bravo
for me, there are far worser things that people do ( ie paedophiles, rapists etc) in society and thats what puts it into perspective regarding myself. granted, prostitution is not the most ideal of jobs and i would not do it myself regardless of how desperate i was for money because of my own morals but each to their own i say.
warm wishes- calla lily x
RE: Prostitute Murders
Cala lily
granted, prostitution is not the most ideal of jobs and i would not do it myself regardless of how desperate i was for money because of my own morals but each to their own i say.
So...if prostitution became a job just like any other job should women be denied unemployment benefit for refusing to take a job as a prostitute?
Granted that this sounds like a silly question, perhaps even a bit miscevous. However in Germany this dilema was raised back in 2005 when a 25 year old woman refused a job in a brothel and was denied unemployment benefit. [link= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/30/wgerm30.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/01/30/ixworld.html ] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/30/wgerm30.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/01/30/ixworld.html [/link]
The dilema is that now that prostitution is legal in Germany it is no longer considered imorral. As it is no longer imorral then jobcentres in Germany are legally bound to advertise the jobs. If the jobcentres refuse to penalise people who turn down any job the perspective employer can sue the jobcentre.....get the picture?
This could never happen here could it? Couldn't it? We are in the same EEC as Germany and The Netherlands and most contributions on this forum have spoken in favour of decriminalisation.
Liberalism once again becomes the potential enemy of liberty. Someone with a good education and qualifications doesn't have to go anywhere near prostitution but someone from a sink estate that isn't well educated or qualified will find this situation makes it more difficult to escape prostitution than it is now.
Dunkirk.
RE: Prostitute Murders
Again, I think we need to be careful of losing the thread in a sweeping mass of generalisations.
Drugs dont care about class, look at some of the people murdered in Ipswich from what you would call respectable middle class families.
Education also has very little to do with whether someone will choose to take a drug in the first instance.
I live on a council estate, I have been to university 3 times, I am not richbut I dont do drugs, that has been my life choice.
Look at the number of very wealthy families who have lost people to drugs? Look at Kate Moss, she has millions in the bank and a good business brain, yet she chose to take cocaine and goodness knows what else.
Yet she has made a fortune since the drugs scandal. If she were your ordinary working class person living on an estate, I seriously believe that her child would have been removed from her.
We have very big double standards in the UK, certain people are revered and glamorised by the tabloids, others are seen as "junkie scum."
RE: Prostitute Murders
I think people forget that prostitutes are human beings as well and have feelings, I remember talking to a young girl who had become a prostitute through circumstance and not choice, she was too frightened at one point to come off the "game" because her pimp had threatened her, happily she found a safe house and managed to turn her life around. No one should be judge or jury on people's lifestyle choices, just be there when they need help and support
RE: Prostitute Murders
I agree totally and the thing is, what sort of person uses prostitutes and then kills them, five within the space of 11 days, knowing that with DNA etc that he/she is going to be caught.
What a terrible world we live in, as I said earlier, it could be anyone, our sister, our daughter, our mother.
And the person who did this has also not only ruined the lives of the girls families, he has ruined the lives of his own and for what?
RE: Prostitute Murders
ORIGINAL: CathMax
I think people forget that prostitutes are human beings as well and have feelings, I remember talking to a young girl who had become a prostitute through circumstance and not choice, she was too frightened at one point to come off the "game" because her pimp had threatened her, happily she found a safe house and managed to turn her life around. No one should be judge or jury on people's lifestyle choices, just be there when they need help and support
I haven't read, or indeed writtenanything on this thread that actually condemns Prostitutes. Most contributors have expressed sympathy for the murdered women in Ipswich( as I did in my first post )and the discussion has been about legalisation of prostitution.
My main point has been to reject the assertion that decriminalising some aspects of prostitution would lead to greater safety and better care for the women involved.
Were anyoneon this forumapproached to help someone get off the game or off of drugs I believe we would do all we could to help and support that person materially, spiritually or at least with advise on who or where to go to get help. I dont think that anyone would activly encourage someone to go on the game or take drugs, so that does imply making a judgement on some types of lifestyle.
I agree with the people who say that drugs and prostitution will not go away. I just think that by decriminalising it we will see an explosion of both. With it will come more misery and more wrecked lives.
Dunkirk
RE: Prostitute Murders
Well look at the way that the Netherlands deals with drugs. Soft drugs are decriminalised but controlled and controlled by the police. This means that police resources can be switched to dealing with harder drugs.
The Netherlands, they are in touch with over 95 per cent of the addict population, addicts are not viewed as "junkies", services go to where people are, for example methadone buses and also safe sex services, needle exchanges, condoms etc.
We risk driving people underground if we dont even consider decriminalisation of certain services and imo prostitution is a service.
It will never happen in this country, whatever Govt comes into power, they wont wear it, if they wont even consider tolerance zones, decriminalisaton wont happen in my lifetime.
To me, there are loads of things about this country that are wrong. Look at the misery smoking and excess alcohol consumption causes, yet it brings in revenue for the Govt and thats ok.
Yet people are dying on the streets to fuel drug habits. If lets say in an ideal world, customs and exise were doing their jobs efficiently, there would be no drugs getting in to this country in the first place.
Police would not turn a blind eye to people dealing, both small and big time. Lets not kid ourselves on, many so called "respectable" men in respectable professions such as lawyers, top police officers use these women, indeed a very high ranking police officer from a neighbouring force was questioned as part of the Ipswich murder hunt.
Britain will never be drug free as there is too much invested for it not to be and personally, I think that it suits the powers that be to have a section of the country marginalised, no matter how many rehabs are funded and believe me, the funding that is invested, is a drop in the ocean compared to the people who could fill them.
And that funding normally comes from charities, not Government.
RE: Prostitute Murders
Hi Crystaltherapy,
I live in a town that has a fairly high rate of drug abuse. I also have a teenage Son ( 19 nearly 20 ). As parents we have always brought him up to regard drug taking as wrong. Not just wrong but immoral and anti-social.
We have also stressed that those who take drugs do sofrom choice and therefore any misfortune that they suffer from drug abuse is self inflicted. That's not to say that drug adicts don't deserve sympathy, of course they do but the answer to their problems ultimately is in their own hands.
This may sound a bit harsh and I am sure that I will be criticized for it but my teenage Son is drug free and so are his friends. He also has the social skills to be able to resist the peer presure that leads so many young people into drug abuse. He is no angel and he does go out and have a few drinks, sometimes a few too many but not often and, if I'm honest not as many as I did when I was his age.
That drugs are illegal substances is a factor that I believe assists parents like myself to ensure that our offspring don't get involved with drugs. People like Kate Moss and Peter Doherty can handle their addiction but people at the lower end of society tend to get their lives ruined.
This is why I oppose decriminalisation of drugs. People like me who don't work in the caring professions are seldom listened to. It is felt that we don't know what we are talking about because we haven't been on the courses and because our ideas are considered contrary to the accepted orthodoxy of 'harm reduction', in other wordsa bit conservative.
I am sceptical about the claims made for how the Netherlands have approached the drugs problem. In my opinion many of the harm reduction school of ideas facilitate the drugs industry. I am sure that the money pumped in from George Soros has been a big help in propagating these ideas as well.
Dunkirk
RE: Prostitute Murders
Well for my part, my views about the Netherlands and other countries ways of dealing with drugs, came from researching material for a paper as part of a post grad in alcohol and drug studies, that does not make me an expert, not at all but it is interesting to see how other countries deal with these issues. Just say no would be fine, I also dont take drugs and never have but I dont think that just say no works, if it did, we would have no people who use drugs ever.
We cant turn a blind eye to things and hope they go away, I do think that this is a very British attitude, lock them up, throw away the key. In my day, I am in my 30s, cannabis was seen as shocking, no more, to most young people having a joint is the same as having a cigarette. Drug making is also more sophisticated, people are mass producing drugs that mimic effects of well known drugs.
Young people experiment, that is human nature. Its when people cross that line of recreation and dependency. I personally dont think that Kate Moss nor Pete Docherty controlled their addiction well, him in particular. I also think it was very interesting that shegot portrayed as poor Kate while I read in one newspaper the comment that he would die with a needle hanging out of his arm and he would deserve it.
We are all fallable. As I said earlier, there are people walking about in the towns and the neighbouring towns that I live in, who are basically untouchable, they have flash cars, they have large houses, they have made all their money from criminal activities, drugs mainly and I am very sure that the police know who they are.
I work with people who use drugs and alcohol and this is just my observation but young people who are dependent on alcohol generally find it much harder to stop drinking than those who are using illicit substances, alcohol is everywhere and I have seen the misery it causes, I am talking about working with young people who are 16 uipwards and perhaps dont drink every day but when they do, there are young people I work with that wouldnt say boo to a goose sober but drunk, they offend.
I have digressed slightly but will go back to the topic that says, alcohol makes loads of money for the Treasury yet thats ok and well, as I said, I am sure we will never be drug free, not in my lifetime.
Lots of things are anti social, its just when that line is crossed between recreational use and dependency, its very hard to cross back the way.
I am also very sure that people who have ended up in the grip of a drug addiction, didnt think that they were going to be like that when they took their first hit.
The media has a tendency to label people as junkies, I can assure you that I have worked with young people who have been good parents and been drug users and people substance free whose skills and caring skills have been sorely lacking.
There are lots of people who make money from peoples drug misery, pimps, drug dealers, small time and big time, partners. I am just glad that I dont use and that no one I love does but life isnt all black and white, if it were there would be easy solutions.
I have also known young people go into certain supported accommodation clean and come out a drug user, dittofor prisons.
Incidentally, there is nothing to suggest that use of soft drugs leads to harder drug use, in fact, when most young people take cannabis for the first time, its alcohol that is generally the gateway drug.
RE: Prostitute Murders
ORIGINAL: Conspiritualist
ORIGINAL: jonnyhotpants
With regard to the legalisation I find it hard to understand how selling something you own to someone it isn't necessarily going to harm is wrong/illegal apart from our allowing ourselves to begoverned bylaws based on ancient superstition.Govern the supply of Heroin and you get rid of the Dealers.
A daily fixthen costs 7p the girls won't need to lie down to get enough to pay for it and the pimps grip over them is loosened.
You can now control qualityincreasing the health of a massive group in society at a stroke.Surely it's a win win win situation.
People will always want to take drugswhy not keep them out of crime.Yet again I find myself on the same page as you Jono, agree with the whole post mate.
Whoa!
Roger, we agree on most things, but not on the Gunners ;)(joke) and not on this.
This thread has gone all over the place anyway (I find upon my first reading), so to address drugs here,only as they are strongly related to prostitution it seems.
Sorry to sound older than I am, but waaaaay back I was advised to visit a bookshop which offered alternative political ideas. Imagine my surprise, in signing a visitor book, that my fairly-rare surname was shared by the youthful owner, the first person I ever met with that name apart from my father- and this owner went on over the years to become an alternative politician. He was a real nice chap and a total libertarian, but in talking this all over with him in our early 20s, it turned out that his philosophy was "Virtually no law. Let everyone do almost as they like, and human nature will win out". He meant just for example for all drugs to be legal. (And all firearms, etc., etc. - this is the meaning of full libertarianism.)
A year later I found myself in Edinburgh for two years, where the sudden onset of heroin, then, had upped the crime rate 4-fold, and a taxi would hardly stop for you, as they were likely to get knifed - a situation they'd never dreamed of, and for the first time the driver had to be partitioned off. IMO there's a role to play in keeping something which is highly addictive, destroys and kills lives, and sends the crime rate off the chart (including prostitutes) under as much control as possible.
Now, total libertarianism doesn't work and is utterly heartless. It's the economic philosophy Maggie Thatcher partly took under her wings from - Milton Friedman as I recall? - but she never went a 20th as far as him. Total libertarianism (and you know I don't want a police state here either!) says that if millions are starving to death in Bangladesh or Somalia, just let them starve. Because it's "their choice" to live there. Ha-ha. The idea is that if you send in aid, you give rise to another generation and the whole thing repeats in 10-15 years or less. So just let 'em starve you know. Who needs them?
That whole philosophy is utterly flawed, since in such nations the people are not starving due to climate or socail conditions, but because of corrupt leaders.
Where am I going with this, in relation to the thread? Because in my original hometown you can see from the state of them as you pass that prostitutes are either slaves or addicts or both. Libertarianism would say, "Leave it alone". And they apply that to all drugs too. "Free all drug use from the Law" - oh, yeah, sure! Live as in Afghanistan? - except there they moregrow it rather than consume it, but they'd be here in a shot to increase useage. Roger, I think you miss the point of what addiction means. Many people are caught and made captive, totally, by it; and there really is a place in society to help prevent that.
So it's a question of how and when others intervene - as in the starving nations - and not just to say, "Make drugs legal, let's be cool, man, and get rid of Law. If we're to be complet
RE: Prostitute Murders
I dont think I was advocating for the free supply of drugs, there is a difference between de facto decriminalisation as exists in the Netherlands and total free trade on the matter.
The point is, these 5 girls were selling sex to fund a drug habit so at what price do we say, leave things alone, the UK's stance on drugs and prostitution seems to be working, as from where I'm sitting it doesnt seem to be.
This country isnt in control of drug supply and people dying unnecessarily from drug related overdoses is rising year on year.
So, what IS the answer?
RE: Prostitute Murders
Hi crystaltherapy,
No, no easy answers, for sure. In the 1920s the USA tried Prohibition, and it led to gang warfare and the whiskey dens. I very recently read that cannabis is by far outgrown in the USA nowby the traditional cash crops in every state - so that it's grown more, or increasing more (I think it was grown more!) in California than fruit, and more in Georgia than peanuts. And so on through each state. :eek:!!
But that doesn't mean it's doing the people of the USA any good ...
The 5 girls were indeed selling sex to fund a drug habit. (In the press photos, presumably before they got addicted, they look so healthy and happy.) Is anyone saying here that they weren't on the streets because of addiction?
So the question would be what decriminalisation - hey, let's call it legalisation, possibly? - would do to reduce the number of girls on the streets who really do not want to be there?
I wonder if there is a really hard line onthe hard drugs, to an extent not yet tried, that would work? Methinks there could be. Hasn't been tried.
RE: Prostitute Murders
The thing is though, there is supposed to be a hard line on drug use and supply already and in real terms that doesnt exist, Im afraid that I believe that the criminal justice system in this country makes examples of some people and not others. And really, taking some people out of the drugs supplying equation, theres always someone else ready and willing to take over.
People risk the chance of going to jail because they can make vast sums of tax free money, they may or may not get caught. The job I do is obviously going to shape the views that I have. In the scheme where I live I know of one neighbour who deals drugs openly, yet when I put this to the housing and the anti social task force they said that I could me making it up, which I'm not.
Another neighbour of mine with a very young baby sent a picture of their close complete with needles etc to the local press, the police responded by saying that there had been one drug related incident in the last 12 months in the area.
I doubt that very much. Fear leads to people keeping quiet, I dont want to end up floating face down in concrete boots in my local river, does that mean I think what my neighbour is doing is acceptable, no.
I could tell stories of vulnerable people being forced on the game by their families to feed their (very respectable) parents drug habits.
Reasons for drug use are often complex and reasons that people go into and stay in prostitution, I read a booklet called Where will she sleep tonight which was published by Glasgow City Council and another centre and the stories in it were heartbreaking.
For me, I am just trying to do what I can in my professional life to try and help people who have had issues recover from alcohol and drug problems.
Its a drop in the ocean.
RE: Prostitute Murders
I'm sure it's treasured and more than a drop in the ocean to some whom you help. 🙂
My initial point, at some length above, is on decriminalisation or, what is not so different, total libertarianism. There has to be a line where it's stopped, and there can be. In total libertarianism, for example, we'd possibly be walking around with gun holsters as in the Wild West. So if there is Law, where do we attempt to place it, and where could it work? I was replying to a libertarianism couple of posts. (Or so I take them. :eek:) 🙂
RE: Prostitute Murders
Well as I said, my feelings on de facto crimininalisation came from a lot of reading that I did for a paper during my degree studies, its just interesting to see how other countries and not just the Netherlands but also Switzerland, Germany, attempted to deal with drug issues over the last 3 decades.
The thing about addiction, is that when you get one theory, along comes another to challenge it. But that doesnt help people in the depths of despair. A couple of the best workers I have ever had the pleasure of working beside were recovering users themselves, that wasnt in the addiction line of work but just with young people. A friend of mine used drugs, not heroin but almost everything else for 15 years, went through the criminal justice system on several occasions, went into rehab, got clean and stayed clean and is now working with young people. It is possible to come out the other end but you need good support systems and the want to do it for you, not your friends, partner and assorted other people in your lives.
America has a very very hard line on drugs and drug use and its not stopped their either. Just say no just doesnt work, harm reduction isnt working, Im not sure that DTTO's are working either.
Its sad to say that these 5 girls will not be the last to die on the streets. Basically we are governed by the party that is voted into power and a lot of political manifestos are vote driven.
I am not a fan of the Labour Party even though I come from a long line of Labour voters, I think that Blair and his party have made decisions that the Conservatives wouldnt have made 15 years ago and to be honest with you, I think we have a PM who is driven by his own ego and really couldnt give a monkeys about the marginalised in this society.