Should Police Ignore High-End Prostitution?

As the D.C. Madam scandal continues to unfold, some are calling for an end to prosecutions of discreet, higher-end prostitution operations — the very kind alleged by federal prosecutors in the case of Deborah Jeane Palfrey. "We should have nonenforcement against ‘indoor’ prostitution," said Ron Weitzer, a professor of sociology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and an expert on criminology and the sex industry. Weitzer defined the term "indoor" prostitution as including escort services, "massage parlors" and independent operators, as long as the women involved are not victims of human trafficking. Palfrey maintains she did not run a prostitution ring but a legal "sexual fantasy service," in which she charged $300 for women to spend 90 minutes with male clients, to whom they provided "sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behavior" but which did not include oral sex or intercourse. In Weitzer’s view, such operators work in hotel rooms, private homes or on the premises of their own business and do not generate the community issues that arise from prostitutes who walk streets looking for business. And the women, he says, are much less likely to be victims of violence or exploitation. Weitzer acknowledges his is "not the most popular" view, although he believes it has been quietly embraced by law enforcement officials around the United States. According to Weitzer, some police departments currently prosecute prostitutes and johns involved in street prostitution but ignore discreet "indoor" services despite laws banning their operation.  But Weitzer said the departments will not publicize their policies, fearing it might attract more of such businesses as well as spark a public outcry. Click Here for Full Blotter Coverage. Other experts disagree with Weitzer. Melissa Farley of the anti-prostitution group Prostitution Research & Education believes that men caught soliciting prostitutes should be subject to harsher penalties, and that prostitution itself should be a felony offense.  "Prostitution is not a victimless crime," Farley told ABC News.  Even discreet "professional" outfits are dangerous and harmful to the women who they employ, according to her. "Escort prostitution is really cell phone prostitution…if prostitution takes place in an expensive hotel or an expensive home, people think it is vastly different from prostitution that takes place in the back seat of a car. In fact, for the person who’s in prostitution, it’s pretty much the same," she said. Farley said that regardless of venue, prostitutes are subject to psychological exploitation, sexual harassment, verbal abuse and the possibility of rape and extreme violence. Others say Weitzer’s proposal doesn’t go far enough. "The act of exchanging sex for money, that should not be illegal," said Stacey Swimme of the California-based Sex Workers’ Outreach Project, which advocates for the legalization of prostitution. Other laws, including those against pedophilia and human trafficking, can protect women, children and the public, Swimme argues, without making prostitution itself a crime. Once prostitution is legalized, her group reasons, sex workers can finally obtain the occupational health and safety rights that other employees have. Statistics show, that regardless of current laws and enforcement policies, buying sex is still popular: nearly 13 percent of American men say they have exchanged money for sex at some point in their adult lives, according to a 2004 survey.  By comparison, 1.2 percent of women answered yes to the question, according to the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, which conducted the study. Dana Hughes contributed to this report.