The Thinker wrote:
A few years ago, researchers at UCLA and Baylor University made a stunning find: When the Rhode Island legislature inadvertently decriminalized indoor prostitution for a number of years, that state saw a 31 percent decline in reported rapes and a similar decline in cases of gonorrhea.
Now comes a new Dutch study that finds much the same causal relationship between decriminalizing prostitution and reducing crime. Researchers at a public research institute in the Netherlands discovered that when major cities in that country opened tippelzones, or areas where street prostitutes could work legally, reports of rape and sexual abuse declined by as much as 30 to 40 percent in the first two years after the zones were opened. In cities that licensed the prostitutes permitted to work in these tippelzones, rapes and sexual abuse dropped by as much as 40 percent, while the reductions in sexual violence were slightly lower in zones that did not enforce the licensing of sex workers."
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/legal-prostitution-zones-reduce-incidents-of-rape-and_b_58c83be1e4b01d0d473bce8a
So this is my last nerve on this matter. I tried to politely dialogue with you over private messages about this topic, but you decided to respond to my initial presentation (which was not, if you read clearly, my final say on the matter) with rudeness and ego. You accused me of being an academic in the most derogatory sense, when it is you who sounds like every close-minded lazy academic I've ever met. And as a former college professor, I've met a lot.
So here is my final retort on this matter, Thinker.
Your HuffPost article is poorly researched and completely unfounded. It cites a couple research projects that have, as any proper researcher can tell, spurious conclusions at best. They make no effort to explore the broader definition of sexual assault, instead focusing on reports of sexual assault as they pertain to sex workers. These data do not include ANY of the more prominent but less reported forms of incest, date rape, etc. Not to mention, these studies cited by HuffPost do not even bother to explore what changes were made to the legal definitions of sexual assault as they pertain to sex workers post-legalization. In other words, police don't have to consider an act sexual assault if the john paid the sex worker (who was always primarily considered the criminal in these situations). Now, it is just business malpractice at worst. See the following article for this point and more:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/prostitution-decriminalisation-sexual-violence-stis-reduction-sex-work-exploitation-a8120631.html
Meanwhile, you are neglecting the larger negative impacts of legalizing prostitution, such as noted increases in human trafficking.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=205055
Again, I can keep going. But I won't because you probably just ignored every damn thing I said.
I told you in our private chat that this topic was far more complicated and nuanced than your theory allowed. You didn't want to listen. That seems to be your thing.
Mic dropped.
I'm done.
Feel free to sit on it and rotate.
I suggest the rest of you folks do what I should have done in the first place and stop feeding this troll. My bad. Lesson learned.