Decriminalizing Indoor Prostitution: Implications for Sexual Violence and Public Health

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Cunningham, Scott; Shah, Manisha
• 署名单位: Baylor University; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdx065
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 1683-1715
• 关键词: domestic violence; UNITED-STATES; street prostitutes; PREVALENCE; gonorrhea; transfers; crime; RISK; hiv; LAW

摘要

Most governments in the world, including the U.S., prohibit sex work. Given these types of laws rarely change and are fairly uniform across regions, our knowledge about the impact of decriminalizing sex work is largely conjectural. We exploit the fact that a Rhode Island District Court judge unexpectedly decriminalized indoor sex work to provide causal estimates of the impact of decriminalization on the composition of the sex market, reported rape offences, and sexually transmitted infections. While decriminalization increases the size of the indoor sex market, reported rape offences fall by 30% and female gonorrhoea incidence declines by over 40%.