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This essay focuses mainly on the trade of street prostitution and on women (the people who practice it most often). Women prostitutes outnumber men in a ratio of four to one. Despite the fact that prostitution is not illegal in Canada, activities closely related to the profession are penalized (i. e. procuring, keeping a bawdyhouse, communicating). This results in the infamous "Catch 22 " situation, where prostitutes face a good news-bad news scenario: prostitution is legal, but it is illegal to practice.
The government's and the legal system's inability to clearly define where prostitution can take place facilitates the further victimization of women by forcing them to practice their chosen profession on the street under less than optimal conditions. Moreover, society as a whole is partly responsible for young women choosing prostitution as a career. Also, the incompetence of the law forces the police to be in a position where they have to make the laws. In the words of an authority on the subject, John Lowman, in Canada "the legality of prostitution is rhetorical at best. " Arriving at a workable definition on what prostitution is is very difficult, since not even the government can agree on what exactly constitutes the offence. Prostitution is the exchange of sexual favours for money or other material goods, devoid of any emotional involvement. Although prostitution has never been illegal in Canada, many of the peripheral activities intimately related with it are so penalized.
Communicating for the purposes of prostitution, soliciting, keeping a common bawdyhouse, procuring, and living off the avails of prostitution are some examples of the type of activities that are criminalized. The purpose of the "procuring" and "living on the avails" provisions in the Criminal Code is to hinder third parties from making a profit from the prostitution of others. This includes directing potential customers to the services of a prostitute, and living fully or partly off the earnings of a prostitute. In most large cities, people in the service industry such as taxi drivers, bellhops, bartenders, and hotel clerks tend to supplement their incomes by procuring. Pimps are people who actively seek out another person to prostitute for them. In exchange for this, pimps are supposed to perform certain activities for their prostitute: administer protection from the police, customers and other prostitutes; provide a residence; and recruit customers for "their women. " Although not a great number of women enter the profession as a result of manipulation by pimps, several alleged to have been "managed" by a pimp at one point in their careers.
According to John Lowman very few prostitutes who have been pimped have anything positive to say about the experience; other research, however, shows that some women develop meaningful relationships with these men, (procurers are almost always men, except in the case of madams; and hustlers or male prostitutes are rarely pimped). In some cases the person who acts as pimp is the prostitute's significant other (i. e. husband, boyfriend, etc. ). The moral support, comfort and assurance that is provided by the man often characterize this relationship. Laws regarding procurers are just as ambiguous as are laws regarding prostitution in general.
According to what the law states, any person "who lives wholly or partly on the avails of prostitution" is guilty of a summary conviction offence, which entails a maximum penalty of six months in jail and / or a fine not exceeding $ 1000. Problems arise as a result of the discrepancies between the way prostitutes and the law defines pimps. For a prostitute a pimp is someone who "turns out" another person to work for him. This is another area where prostitutes are in conflict with the law; these women are not allowed to have a significant other. A prostitute from Toronto voices her frustration; "according to this law I'm not allowed to have a boyfriend because any man who is habitually in my company is defined as a pimp. We want the procuring laws removed.
We (prostitutes) demand the right to have lovers" ("Good Girls Bad Girls" Toronto Star). Noteworthy is that not many people are prosecuted under this offence. The solicitation law was enacted in 1972, and it was designed to deal with all the aspects of prostitution that the Vagrancy C provision ignored. The solicitation law attempted to address the issue of public nuisance that prostitution causes. Preceding the solicitation law, the extent of what the police had to prove when prosecuting an individual, was that a prostitute had offered her sexual services in a public place. After the controversial 1978 Hutt decision, however, to make a conviction the police had to prove that the prostitute had been "pressing and persistent" when offering her services to a potential client.
The flagrant failure of this law was due predominantly to the encumbrance that it caused law-enforcing agents. For this reason, some will argue that prostitution spread unchecked across Canadian cities because if the prostitute circumvented the necessary "persistence", she could ply her trade uninterrupted. Positive aspects of the soliciting law are, a) it expanded police power by permitting the prosecution of male prostitutes and transvestites, b) police could no longer make the arrest of a recognized street prostitute merely because she did not appear to be busy. The Communicating law was established in December 1985. Its principle purpose was to reduce the visibility of prostitution, thus reducing the nuisance aspect of the trade. An important aspect of the communicating law is that for the first time in the history of prostitution laws in Canada, the Criminal Code included customers "under the purview of the law." Thus rendering johns vulnerable to prosecution.
The laws regarding common bawdyhouses are aimed at those people who own or manage such places. Since keeping a common bawdyhouse is an indictable offence, the maximum penalty for persons convicted on this count is two years in jail. Penalties for other people involved, (i. e. customers and prostitutes) are not as severe; the other participants would be guilty of summary offences. Since World War II, the places which have been involved in common bawdy-house offences are the residences of the prostitutes, "trick pads" (a location used exclusively for the servicing of a customer), and, most frequently, hotel rooms.
The police are not required to prove that the place is used frequently, the simple "general reputation" is enough to demonstrate that acts of prostitution occur regularly. Places such as massage parlours escape being prosecuted under the bawdyhouse laws because the customer pays for a massage; anything that happens after that is agreed upon two consenting adults. Any payment that the masseuse receives is, theoretically, without the knowledge of the proprietor and / or manager. When it comes to street prostitution the law is not only ambiguous, but it is also overtly unfair. In Canada it is legal for a woman to sell her body, but it is not legal for her to attempt to find any customers. Also, prostitution is the only criminal offence involving two consenting adults, where in most cases, only the female is arrested.
The definition of "place" in the bawdyhouse laws, for instance, is so broad that it is almost impossible to conceive a location where a prostitute could ply her trade on a regular basis, without violating the law. If the government wishes to rid society of the nuisance created by prostitution, it will have to either define a place where prostitutes and their clients can meet and carry out their agreement, or make prostitution illegal. Most street prostitutes have common backgrounds, they are women or men who come from the lower socio-economic strata, and who are immensely dissatisfied with some aspects of their home life. Research on prostitution shows some basic patterns in the family backgrounds of people who have entered the trade. The "typical" prostitute leaves home at a very early age.
All the factors influencing this decision involve great dissatisfaction derived from the character of interaction with members of the family, whether it is guardians or parents. Relationships between guardians and would-be prostitutes are often characterized by physical violence, emotional and sexual abuse. For male prostitutes all the above mentioned reasons apply, and in many cases there is the additional conflict that arises as a result of the boys's equal preferences. On some occasions, prior to their departure, the youth has been living in a foster or group home. Usually, when a young girl leaves home, her intentions are not to become a prostitute.
Prostitution usually occurs with these young women due to a lack of a suitable trade or working skills. The young girls see no other way to support themselves that they do not require credentials for and thus become prostitutes. The theory that the majority of people involved in prostitution begin due to dire economic need has been discredited. A study conducted shows that few women entered the profession because of their own economic situation; for the most part it was a desire for luxuries and wealth that lured them in. Early experiences with sexuality teach young girls that their bodies are objects with inherent value, which they can use to attain money, success or power. Contributing to the attraction that the life poses on women is that most types of prostitutes are remunerated more than any other conventional employment.
In addition to this, women with limited education and skills cannot expect to have well-paying jobs. Although coercion is not a very common method of recruitment, it is often used by pimps or madams as a way to keep the prostitutes working on the streets. A few women enter the profession because they are emotionally attached to someone, a lover or a friend, who coerces them to take up the trade. After a woman has spent several months as a prostitute, leaving the life behind will not be easy. Finding a job after several months of being a prostitute is no easy task for several reasons: while on the streets women do not gain any marketable skills, the education they had prior to working on the streets is usually by this time insufficient (no more than eighth grade in some instances), and explaining several months of unemployment without any references could be awkward. This lack of job training and of opportunities for alternate employment is what keeps women who would like to retire, on the streets.
It is very interesting that in all the attempts that have been made to evaluate and analyze prostitution, not once has the government taken into account the point of view of sex trade workers. For instance, neither the Fraser nor the Bradley committee included among their panel a single sex trade representative. If the government desires to put an end to the nuisance aspect of prostitution as opposed to merely trying to control it, it should consider addressing some of the fundamental problems concerning the people who practice the profession. For all involved, it would be far more advantageous if the government stopped trying to legislate morality and listened to the issues of the people who practice the trade as well as the concerns of the citizens, and try to find a mid point between their differences. Prostitution is one of the oldest professions in history; it is also unlikely that it will be disappearing any time soon. The major cause for the existence of the trade is that men have been socialized to view sex as a commodity that they can buy, and women as objects whose sole purpose is to provide their sexual gratification.
So long as there are men who are willing to pay for sex, there will be women willing to provide it.
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Research essay sample on Consenting Adults Maximum Penalty
