A new paper in The Economic Journal, published by by Oxford University Press, indicates that the presence of adult entertainment establishments may decrease sex crimes, significantly.
The role of entertainment establishments (strip clubs, escort services, adult bookstores, and adult movie theaters) in communities is controversial. Citizens often view them as centers of vice. While some have suggested that these clubs and services may improve behavior if people use them instead of committing sex crimes, such establishments may reinforce the view of women as objects, leading to more violence against them.
This paper exploits a unique data set of high frequency precinct level crime information from New York City, due to its controversial stop-and-frisk policing policy. The researchers here constructed a new data set to combine the exact location of not-self-reported sex crimes with the day of opening and exact location of adult entertainment establishments in New York City. The crime data includes hourly information on crimes observed by the police, including sex crimes. The data set covered the period from January 1, 2004 to June 29, 2012.
The number of adult entertainment establishments increased significantly during this period, from 76 in 2004 to approximately 280 in 2012. The researchers show that opening these establishments decreases the number of sex crimes committed nearby. They find that the presence of an adult entertainment establishment in a given precinct leads to a 13% reduction in sex crime in the precinct one week after the opening.
The researchers also find that opening adult establishments does not affect other types of crimes, which suggests that the results on sex crimes are not driven by an increased police presence on the streets. This also rules out the hypothesis that these businesses may attract other types of criminals, such as drug dealers. The researchers find no negative effects on bordering precincts, indicating that sex crimes are not moving to other nearby areas.
"Sex crimes, including sexual violence, are a major public health concern," said the paper's authors, Maria Micaela Sviatschi and Riccardo Ciacci. "Apart from the large psychological and physical burden, these crimes also lead to public health issues including unintended pregnancies, induced abortions, and sexually transmitted infections. However, little is known about how to prevent sex crimes, including sexual abuse and rape. This paper studies how the presence of adult entertainment establishments affects the incidence of sex crimes. Surprisingly, we find that within the time studied, adult entertainment establishments decrease sex crime and have no effect on other types of crimes."
The paper "The Effect of Adult Entertainment Establishments on Sex Crime: Evidence from New York City" is available (at midnight on July 13th ) at: https:/ / doi. org/ 10. 1093/ ej/ ueab042 .
Assistant Professor in Economics and Public Affairs
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GMU525 on July 13rd, 2021 at 14:24 UTC »
Well the legalisation of sex work doesn’t remove the aspect of human trafficking. I’m from Germany and we legalised sex work but this still means that a large number of female sex workers aren’t working under their own free will. Most of them come from poorer countries like Romania or Bulgaria North Macedonia and they often have to pay of debts for their family or they still have a pimp that decideds everything. It’s just such a problematic topic since both the free legalisation of prostitution or the ban like the Nordic model still lead to human trafficking and exploration of sex workers.
bustedbuddha on July 13rd, 2021 at 12:41 UTC »
This seems like it's only looking at the transaction side and not the supply side. Even in places where Prostitution is legal it is a constant struggle to manage and keep out traffickers. (article about Amsterdam) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46919294
Now I want to be clear I don't think this means it should be illegal, as making it legal seems to be one of the best steps you can take to help protect the people who get trafficked, but I wonder how this conclusion is reached, especially in a place where sex work is not legal (my understanding is it's in a murky state of decriminalization in nyc) and workers do not have the law to turn to in cases of trafficking.
Zithero on July 13rd, 2021 at 11:21 UTC »
It's almost like... now here me out:
Consenting Adults who are, on one side paying for and on the other performing a service willingly... aren't doing anything wrong!