Rape Rates Go Down as Countries Legalize Prostitution, Rise With Sex Work Prohibition

By Elizabeth Nolan Brown of Reason.

"Liberalizing prostitution laws "leads to a significant decrease in rape rates," according to a study published in The Journal of Law and Economics, "while prohibiting it leads to a significant increase."

For the study, researchers Huasheng Gao and Vanya Petrova of China's Fudan University looked at data from 31 European countries, spanning a period between 1990 and 2017. During this time period, eight countries (Spain, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, Germany, Slovenia, Latvia, and Romania) liberalized their prostitution laws while six countries (Sweden, Croatia, Norway, Iceland, France, and Ireland) cracked down on prostitution.

Overall, liberalizing prostitution laws was linked to a significant decrease in rape rates, while prohibition was linked to a significant increase—but the magnitude of these two shifts was far from equal. Rather, "the magnitude of prohibiting commercial sex is about four times as large as that of liberalizing it," write Gao and Petrova.

The average rape rate in the sample countries was nine rapes per 100,000 people. Countries that liberalized prostitution laws saw a decrease of approximately three rapes per 100,000 people, relative to countries that did not change their prostitution laws. Meanwhile, countries that banned or further criminalized prostitution saw an increase of around 11 rapes per 100,000 people, relative to the control countries.

Gao and Petrova classify each country as having one of four models of prostitution law. On the prohibition side are criminalization (in which both selling and paying for sex are illegal) and the Nordic model or "end demand" model (in which paying for sex is illegal but offering paid sex is not). On the liberalization side are legalization (in which selling and paying for sex are legal under certain circumstances—such as in state-sanctioned brothels or red light districts, or with a special sex worker permit—but highly regulated and still a crime outside of these circumstances) and decriminalization (in which neither selling nor paying for consensual sex is a criminal act, with no requirement that it take place in some special circumstances in order to be legal).

Decriminalization schemes are further characterized as either abolitionism (in which brothels are OK) or new abolitionism, in which brothels are explicitly banned. An example of a country with a new abolitionist decriminalization scheme is Denmark, where commercial sex per se carries no criminal penalties but keeping a brothel is a crime punishable by up to four years' imprisonment.

"Among the prostitution liberalization models, decriminalization (in particular abolitionism) has a stronger effect on reducing rape than legalization does," found the researchers. "Among the prostitution prohibition models, the Nordic model has a stronger effect on increasing rape than criminalization does."

That last bit is somewhat surprising—meaning full criminalization is linked to less of an increase in sexual assaults than criminalizing only prostitution customers—and perhaps important to keep in mind as advocates push for Nordic model prostitution laws in the United States.

Rape rates in all 31 countries studied increased between 1990 and 2017. "But the increase in prohibited countries is clearly greater than in" control countries or in countries that liberalized prostitution laws, say the researchers. "From 1990 to 2017, the average rape rate in prohibited countries increased from 7.70 to 36.81 (380 percent). In contrast, the rape rate increased from 6.49 to 9.71 (50 percent) in liberalized countries and from 4.67 to 8.48 in control countries (82 percent)."

Gao and Petrova note that "in recent years, the antiprostitution movement, fueled by ideological concerns about gender inequality and human trafficking, has gained momentum." But "our results suggest that policies aimed at prohibiting prostitution can have the severe unintended consequence of proliferating sexual violence," they write.

Countries with and without prostitution law changes had "parallel trends" in rape rates prior to any policy changes. Most of the divergences in rape rates started occurring after a country changed its prostitution laws—suggesting that these shifts may not be merely correlated but causal, say the researchers.

They find further support for the causal interpretation in the fact that shifts in rape rates seen in countries with prostitution policy changes did not correspond to shifts in the rates of serious nonsexual crimes such as homicide, burglary, or robbery.

Gao and Petrova do offer the caveat that "changes in prostitution laws might not be random. It is possible that a country changes the laws as part of a general program to improve women's social status and is thus instituting other policies that may affect rape rates," and although they attempted to control for this in various ways, these techniques "may not fully address the possible nonrandomness of prostitution laws."

But their findings are in line with a spate of previous research linking liberalized sex work laws to decreases in sexual violence. For instance, a 2018 study showed that rapes in Rhode Island decreased when the state temporarily decriminalized indoor prostitution. A 2017 study found fewer sexual assaults after legal street prostitution zones were opened in 25 Dutch cities. Another 2017 study linked the launch of Craigslist "erotic services" ads in various U.S. cities to decreases in female homicide rates.

Meanwhile, rape rates in Sweden went up when the city implemented the Nordic model, according to research from Riccardo Ciacci, an economics professor at Madrid's Comillas Pontifical University. And the 2015 criminalization of sex work in Northern Ireland was associated with "increased sexual violence committed against women," according to the 2021 paper "The Effect of the Sex Buyer Law on the Market for Sex, Sexual Health and Sexual Violence."

Prostitution Reduces Rape

From Alex Tabarrok.

"A new paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy by Bisschop, Kastoryano, and van der Klaauw looks at the opening and closing of prostitution zones (tippelzones) in 25 Dutch cities.

Our empirical results show that opening a tippelzone reduces sexual abuse and rape. These results are mainly driven by a 30–40 percent reduction in the first two years after opening the tippelzone. For tippelzones with a licensing system, we additionally find long-term decreases in sexual assaults and a 25 percent decrease in drug-related crime, which persists in the medium to long run.

Cunningham and Shah studied decriminalization of indoor prostitution in Rhode Island and found very similar results.

We exploit the fact that a Rhode Island District Court judge unexpectedly decriminalized indoor prostitution in 2003 to provide the first causal estimates of the impact of decriminalization on the composition of the sex market, rape offenses, and sexually transmitted infection outcomes. Not surprisingly, we find that decriminalization increased the size of the indoor market. However, we also find that decriminalization caused both forcible rape offenses and gonorrhea incidence to decline for the overall population. Our synthetic control model finds 824 fewer reported rape offenses (31 percent decrease) and 1,035 fewer cases of female gonorrhea (39 percent decrease) from 2004 to 2009.

In addition a working paper by Riccardo Ciacci and María Micaela Sviatschi studies prostitution in New York and also finds that prostitution significantly reduces sex crimes such as rape:

We use a unique data set to study the effect of indoor prostitution establishments on sex crimes. We built a daily panel from January 1, 2004 to June 30, 2012 with the exact location of police stops for sex crimes and the day of opening and location of indoor prostitution establishments. We find that indoor prostitution decreases sex crime with no effect on other types of crime. We argue that the reduction is mostly driven by potential sex offenders that become customers of indoor prostitution establishments. We also rule out other mechanisms such as an increase in the number of police officers and a reduction of potential victims in areas where these businesses opened. In addition, results are robust to different data sources and measures of sex crimes apart from police stops.

It’s become common to think that rape is about power and not about sex. No doubt. But some of it is about sex. Quoting Ciacci and Sviatschi again:

We find evidence consistent with the fact that potential perpetrators substitute towards indoor prostitution establishments instead of engaging in sex crimes….This mechanism is in line with a survey of men who had purchased sex from women in London. About 54% of these men stated that if prostitution did not exist then they would be more likely to rape women who were not prostitutes. This belief was clearly held by one man who even stated: “Sometimes you might rape someone: you can go to a prostitute instead” (Farley et al., 2009).

In short, a wide variety of evidence from different authors, times and places, and experiments shows clearly and credibly that prostitution reduces rape. This finding is of great importance in considering how prostitution should be rationally regulated."

Female homicide rate dropped after Craigslist launched its erotic services platform

Sex workers have long argued that online erotic services platforms make their jobs safer. A new study proves it.

By Noah Berlatsky. Excerpts:

"The September 2017 study, authored by West Virginia University and Baylor University economics and information systems experts, analyzes rates of female homicides in various cities before and after Craigslist opened an erotic services section on its website. The authors found a shocking 17 percent decrease in homicides with female victims after Craigslist erotic services were introduced.

The data does not provide a single clear explanation as to why female homicide rates drop so steeply, Scott Cunningham, one of the paper’s authors, told ThinkProgress. It’s possible, for example, that when Craigslist opens erotic services ads, some women in abusive domestic situations decide to become sex workers, move out, and so escape violent homicide at the hands of their spouses or boyfriends.

The most likely explanation, though, Cunningham says, is that sex workers simply make up a huge percentage of female homicide victims. When sex workers are safer, female homicide rates drop significantly.

Cunningham and the paper’s other authors, Gregory DeAngelo and John Tripp, analyzed online escort review sites in order to try document the movement of sex workers to indoor locations. They found that after Craigslist introduced erotic services pages, client reviewers mentioned lower prices and lower satisfaction — a sign that lower-priced street workers were moving indoors and receiving reviews for the first time.

Once sex workers move indoors, they are much safer for a number of reasons, Cunningham said. When you’re indoors, “you can screen your clients more efficiently. When you’re soliciting a client on the street, there is no real screening opportunity. The sex worker just has to make the split second decision. She relies on very limited and complete information about the client’s identity and purposes. Whereas when a sex worker solicits indoors through digital means, she has Google, she has a lot of correspondence, she can ask a lot of questions. It’s not perfect screening, but it’s better.” 

There’s some evidence that other crimes are decreased by online advertising as well. Kristen DiAngelo, executive director of the peer sex worker advocacy organization Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP) Sacramento, pointed to a study conducted by the organization in 2015. Researchers interviewed 44 sex workers on the street and, of those workers, 18 percent said they had moved outdoors following the closing of SFRedbook. 

“Of that 18 percent, almost every one of them had been raped since they’d been out there,” DiAngelo told ThinkProgress. “We had been asking them ‘have you been raped?’ but there was a point where I wanted to say, ‘Have you been raped yet?’ because it was just that prevalent.”

DiAngelo also believes that easy access to online ads makes trafficking less likely, rather than more likely. On the street, women are visible; it’s easy for pimps and traffickers to find them. Online, DiAngelo says, “women can run their own business and predators don’t have immediate access to them.” 

Maxine Doogan, founder of the California-based Erotic Service Providers Union, added that online ad providers like Craigslist and Backpage also improve safety because they provide access to steadier work and more affluent clients. Shutting down the sites “makes people desperate for money,” she told ThinkProgress."

In theory, closing down advertising is supposed to reduce exploitation of women. In practice, when resources are taken away from people living on the edge of poverty, they have fewer options and are less able to protect themselves.

For all these reasons access to the Internet can transform the experience of sex work. Young women who have been able to screen clients using sites like Craigslist, “almost feel like this is a safe job because they have these tools,” DiAngelo said.

Sex workers report that free online advertising makes them safer. There is now data showing that erotic services ads significantly decrease female homicide rates. So, will law enforcement back down and allow these sites to operate again?"

Supply and Desire: Sexuality and the Sex Industry in the 21st Century

Summary of a book by Dr Catherine Hakim.

Decriminalising Britain’s £4bn sex industry would increase protection of women

"Summary:

New evidence from international sex surveys show large and continuing differences between male and female perspectives on sexuality in all cultures. Male sexual desire is manifested at least twice as often as female desire, and men would like to have sex twice as often as women. This gap in sexual desire between men and women is growing over time and cannot be dismissed as an out-dated patriarchal myth as argued by some feminists.

The sexual deficit among (heterosexual) men helps to explain many puzzles, including why men are the principal customers for commercial sexual entertainments of all kinds. It is no surprise that sex workers (male and female) cater to men almost exclusively. Male demand for sex invariably outstrips female demand.

Demand for commercial sex is therefore inevitable and the sex industry is likely to continue to flourish in the 21st century. Not only does male demand for sexual activity greatly outstrip non-commercial female supply, but economic growth, globalisation and the Internet facilitate access to the world’s oldest profession.

Several factors suggest that the male sex deficit will not disappear, and might even grow in the 21st century. Women’s increasing economic independence allows them to withdraw from sexual markets and relationships that they perceive to offer unfair bargains, especially if they already have enough children or do not want any. Changes in national sex ratios towards a numerical surplus of men helps women to reset the rules in their own favour in developed societies.

A key objection to the sex industry is that it damages women and that the presence of porn, lap-dancing and prostitution in a country promotes rape and other violence against women. However, although there are too few rigorous studies to draw definitive conclusions, all the available evidence points in the direction of prostitution and erotic entertainments having no noxious psychological or social effects, and they may even help to reduce sexual crime rates.

In many countries, including Britain, it is perfectly legal to sell sexual services; however any third-party involvement is illegal. The aim is to prevent exploitation by pimps or madams. The effect is to criminalise the industry and brothels, to prevent girls working together in a flat for their mutual protection, to prevent anyone from lawfully supplying services to a sex worker or even rent a flat to them.

The commercial sex industry is impervious to prohibitions and cannot be eliminated. Countries that criminalise buyers (such as Sweden) simply push demand abroad to countries with a more sex-positive culture. Policies that criminalise sellers directly, or criminalise third parties who supply them with services, simply push the sex industry underground, increasing risks for sex workers. The sex industry is estimated to be worth over four billion pounds to the British economy. It should be completely decriminalised."