police chief wants DNA database of men who use prostitutes

[ISNT]

Great idea [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bradford-west-yorkshire-12201907 here]

In theory this seems like a good idea, I'm not sure how it would work in practice though. Prostitutes are at huge risk of all sorts of violent assault and murder, and I'll bet that the men who abuse prostitutes abuse other people in their lives too. This would make finding them and linking cases a lot quicker.

dittany, as far as I'm concerned, it's nothing to do with 'poor old punters being made to feel like rapists'!

The point is, if we imply (as this law would) that men who visit prostitutes are potential rapists, then that erodes any remaining 'taboo' against rape.

If you think how easily people still jump on the defense 'oh, she was wearing a short skirt, she was asking for it', it's not hard to be a cynic and imagine what a law getting men who visited prostitutes to register as rapists, might do.

Now, I think registering men who visit prostitutes would be a good idea, but I'm still not keen on the DNA being taken, just in case.

And I'm honestly not standing up for them - I just can't see how a law will stop men behaving like pricks...and I can see the routine taking of DNA being the thin end of the wedge for a nationwide DNA database.

Dittany, thanks for posting that article. Just read it all the way through - felt like crying...again!

should there be a dna database of pakistani men,after all given recent events of pakistani sex gangs grooming of underage girls and jack straws comments this sounds a good idea or would it be considered racist

What a bizarre post, punterpride!

dittany, surely one could find statistics in the UK to tell us to which race most rapists belong?

I think most of us would recoil at the idea of that kind of profiling (?), so why not at this current idea? Why not make an honest campaign, and either say that paying for sex should be something people can't get away with, or seek a better and more accurate way of catching rapists?

interesting article from an anti- prostitute activist

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2538090.ece

should all muslims be put on a database as after all all terrorists are muslim or would that be considered racist?

The police already take the DNA of loads of people - too late on Sunday so can't remember details. But given that happens, I don't see why they can't take the DNA of anyone kerb crawling, for instance.

(Not terribly keen on DNA databases generally but since they do exist, might as well apply them somewhere where they might do some good.)

Taking DNA from people doing an illegal activity (such as kerb crawling) is fine. I can't however agree with taking DNA from people who are doing a legal activity. It will also only be practical if DNA is taken from people invovled with the illegal aspects which surrounds prostitution anyway as they can be arrested.

Thanks dittany for posting that article.

I'm not too sure how I feel about this one. Let's face it, most men who use prostitutes are engaging in an illegal activity - rape. The majority of prostituted women are coerced or trafficked. The article that dittany posted examines this.

I'm just not sure that this is the correct order/way to go about things.

If it were up to me we would do the same as Sweden and come down like a ton of bricks on all punters and pimps. Buying sex would be illegal with offenders being sanctioned, put on a DNA database and on the sex offenders register.

Without the punters demand and their fucking creepy sense of entitlement there would be no prostitution.

I don't understand the race tangent at all.

Certain behaviours carry increased risk of other behaviours.

Thinking of how a man who exposes himself will often escalate to much worse sex crimes.

I think the question is, is there a correlation between using prostitutes (a behaviour) and other behaviours which are illegal.

If it turns out that the behaviour of using prostitutes means that you much more likely to be abusive to women, then there is a case, I think.

It would be interesting to see some stats. The men who are in prison for rape and murder - do they know if those men are much more likely than the rest of the population to have used prostitutes? If so, then that's a pretty big deal.

And then of course there is the fact that women in this job are at much higher risk than other women in the population, and that risk comes from the men who use them. So again, what are the figures.

LRD I see your point but I don't think it would make any difference.

At the moment men are pretty much certain to get away with rape, especially if the person they rape is a prostitute. I also don't think that men with no inclination to rape will do it if they feel they have been given a green light.

Like the prohibition of "recreational" drugs. In practice you are unlikely to be caught. People who want to do it, do it. Those who don't, don't. What the law says doesn't make any difference to those who want to. I think it is the same with this.

Very interesting article here from scotland where they interviewed a load of punters.

The bizarre message from it seems to be, that the men know what they are doing is wrong, and they are almost waiting for someone to tell them to stop it and then they'll stop

If you arrested they take your DNA anyway, so what is the issue?

I can understand people being against a DNA database from an intellectual standpoint, but, if you were the parent or child of a murdered prostitute, wouldn't you want there to be one? one woman killed is bad enough but when it is several by the same man, they would instead be caught after the first murder/attack and that has to be a good thing.

Personal freedom is all very well, but there is a greater good, I bet the parents of Jo Yeats are wishing there was a national database so her killer could be caught, instead of enduring the hell that is their life at the moment.

It all hinges on whether men who use prostitutes are significantly higher risk of committing this type of crime than the general population, I think.

ISNT I think this is the report your articles is about. www.prostitutionresearch.com/ChallengingDemandScotland.pdf

It makes for pretty sobering reading, particularly the punter's comments.

Lots of them seem to hold very contradictory views about prostitution. Some of the punter's comments clearly show that they detect the damage prostitution does but they delude themselves in order to be able to continue buying sex.

In countries where using prostitutes is legalized, the activity increases (both the legal and the illegal sides) - clearly the law does act as a green light.

If in the UK men caught buying sex were put on the sex offenders register and fined/imprisoned, we would soon see a drop in their sexual predation.