Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
The former detective and three parlor managers allegedly exploited their employees, [...]
This is the only sentence with any real meaning in the entire article.
Sex work is work, and if there is no victim then there is no crime.
But this single half-sentence claims that the employees were victims, without elaborating further.
So props if the cops actually helped someone, but if they're just arresting people for prostitution then there are better uses of tax dollars.
To your point the line between sex trafficking and prostitution needs to be more clear, but I think that's difficult when sex work is illegal.
The only reason I can think that politicians wouldn't want the taxes from sex workers is because they themselves would be the primary funders.
They don't want to make it legal because pearl-clutchers actually turn up to elections.
Legalize and regulate sex work the same as any other industry. Every state will have a designated area where it is found and people who don't want to be around it will avoid it. Free STDs testing, heavily taxed brothels, license to operate, fair wages, age verification, mandatory insurance for workers comp, active registry list of known violent offenders, mandatory reporting by managers of workers being assaulted.
I have never used the services of a sex worker and I have zero interest in ever doing so. That doesn't change how I think the policy should be drafted.
Selling's legal, fucking's legal. Why isn't selling fucking legal?
Jokes aside, a legal and regulated sex trade just makes far more sense than ceding the entire industry to the black market. The idea that we could ever stamp it out is so blindingly stupid that anyone with that thought in their head should be tested for mental impairment. So, instead of actually reducing harm, we have driven the sex trade underground. We've made it insanely profitable for criminal organizations to engage in human trafficking and sex slavery. Assholes like the one mentioned in the article abuse positions of power to force vulnerable women into sex slavery and keep them there, as they are afraid to seek out help from the authorities. Vice officers, like the asshole in the article end up focused on arresting and jailing the sex workers, ensuring that those sex workers will be afraid and unwilling to cooperate with the police when they either witness or are victims of crime.
It's long past time that we realize that we accept that Prohibition, in all it's forms, was a dumb idea. Legalize, regulate and focus on harm reduction, rather than letting a bunch of holier-than-thou assholes try to dictate how others live via the force of government.
My state setup an automatic license plate scanner in an area known for it. Started sending letters to people's homes with photographs of their car and a notice that they were driving in the area. Fucking creepy as all hell. People being made to feel afraid for the act of driving on a public road. Who knows how many people were just getting gas or going to work at a nightshift getting harassed by Big Brother.
Mass Age
I wonder if it was difficult going through life with the name “Peter Griffin.”
Mugshot of the perpetrator.
Fuck our puritanical laws. Sex work is work.
He ran those parlors for 9 years and only gets 3 yrs in jail?
Wtf?
I know, it's not like there's proof anybody was actually hurt