"The Adult Film Industry: Time to Regulate?"
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:20 PM

Yesterday Vice Squad linked to an article with the title of this post; the article appeared in PLoS Medicine in June 2007, and was written by Corita R. Grudzen and Peter R. Kerndt. The article has lots of interesting tidbits about the porn industry, so I thought I would list just a few of them today:

(1) Here's the opening paragraph, sans endnotes: "The United States adult film industry produces 4,000–11,000 films and earns an estimated $9–$13 billion in gross revenues annually. An estimated 200 production companies employ 1,200–1,500 performers. Performers typically earn $400–$1,000 per shoot and are not compensated based on distribution or sales." It kept me reading.

(2) Production of gay sex films is much more likely to involve condom usage than is production of heterosexual films. The authors argue that depictions of unsafe sex in movies could alter norms in society more generally, and make unprotected sex more common outside the industry. Brazil's adult industry is second in size to that of the US, but the majority of Brazilian films involve condom use. There are various filmic techniques that minimize the perceived presence of condoms.

(3) "Among 825 performers screened in 2000–2001, 7.7% of females and 5.5% of males had chlamydia, and 2% overall had gonorrhea [endnote omitted]."

(4) Among the potential policy changes that the authors list are mandatory condom use and a rating system that reflects the safety of the filming.

Labels: California, pornography

 
Even Berkeley Votes for "Morality"!
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:02 PM

On Tuesday, Berkeley voters were asked to judge all sorts of initiatives. One that Vice Squad has been tracking is Measure Q, which, if passed, would have made anti-prostitution enforcement the lowest priority for the Berkeley police, and directed the city council to push for statewide prostitution legalization. The Oakland Tribune provides the final tally:

After receiving national attention, Measure Q, which would have made enforcing prostitution laws the police department's lowest priority, lost by a 63.9 to 36.1 percent margin. It needed a simple majority to pass.

Measure Q was the brainchild of the Sex Workers Outreach Project; here's their post-mortem.

Labels: California, policing, prostitution

 
Coerced Treatment and Berkeley's Proposition Q
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:53 PM

The loyal Vice Squad reader will know that I believe that private, adult "vice" should, in general, not be criminalized. For that reason, I am not a big fan of coerced treatment programs, where an arrested individual, for instance, is given a choice between jail or treatment. The decision by an adult to seek treatment for any medical problem generally should not be coerced by the state, in my opinion. Nevertheless, given our current prohibition on some drugs and prostitution, the option to pursue treatment in lieu of prison is undoubtedly viewed as attractive by many arrestees, and I would probably not want to see that option curtailed, absent wider changes in vice policy.

Whew. All that by way of introduction to an editorial against Proposition Q, the Berkeley ballot initiative that would make prostitution enforcement a very low priority for the Berkeley police, among other things. Vice Squad noted before that the possibility of vice tourism (and the public nature of the solicitation that is a chief target of enforcement) might mean that even a supporter of prostitution legalization could oppose this measure. But the linked article does not take that approach. What is does offer, though, is an intelligent (if, to my mind, unconvincing) case against the Proposition, and one that relies to some extent on the "success" of coerced "treatment":

The best way to help street prostitutes is to help them get out of prostitution, and the best way to help them to get out of prostitution is law enforcement. Berkeley has a successful court diversion program, in which a judge offers street prostitutes who've been arrested for solicitation the options of going to jail or getting professional help through Options Recovery Services. This city-funded program helps women mend their lives, reunite with their families, and find meaningful work that will set them on the road to self-respect and independence. Options Recovery Services has had a 65 percent success rate in getting people off the street and off drugs.

Labels: arrests, California, prostitution, treatment

 
Close Your State's Budget Deficit
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:12 PM

By banning smoking in prisons, of course. That's the step that California has taken:

The bill's author, Republican Assemblyman Tim Leslie, predicted the legislation would "drastically reduce" prison health care costs.

"The governor has put us on the road to saving taxpayer dollars and prisoners' lives," he said.

Well, if your prisoners are fifty year olds who will be released in 5 years, the smoking ban might save on prisoner health care costs. (Maybe fire insurance costs will fall, too?) If they are lifers, their longer expected lifespan if they do indeed quit will tend to increase the prison costs covered by California taxpayers. And the state will also lose the excise tax collections from cigarette sales. All-in-all, this no-smoking policy for prisons is a hard sell as a taxpayer relief measure.

Thanks to a friend of Vice Squad for the pointer. Hey, isn't California the same state where the Capitol sustained water damage because of the governor's smoking tent?

Labels: California, smoking ban

 
Sex, crime, and government student loans
- posted by Michael @ 10:29 PM

Here is quite a story published in Oakland Tribune (linked to at Volokh Conspiracy earlier tonight) about a Stanford Law School grad who allegedly became a (very)high-priced call girl in order to pay off her Law School student loans. The government now wants to keep $61,000 seized from her. Somehow I doubt that this amount would go towards her loan repayment.

Labels: asset forfeiture, California, prostitution

 
Berkeley Prostitution Ordinance
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:09 PM

The initiative on the November ballot in Berkeley to "decriminalize" prostitution is the subject of an article in today's New York Times. (Thanks to friend of Vice Squad Bridget Butkevich for the pointer.) The drive for the initiative is being headed by Robin Few, a former prostitute:

Anger at the way prostitutes are treated moved Ms. Few, 45, to found an advocacy group, the Sex Workers Outreach Project. Joined by former and working prostitutes, Ms. Few hit the streets, this time to pass out leaflets, attend rallies and lobby legislators to support rights for prostitutes.

Passage of the ordinance wouldn't actually decriminalize prostitution in Berkeley, as Vice Squad noted earlier (in March, and earlier this month), but it is envisioned as being part of a process that would lead to decriminalization at the statewide level.

Labels: California, prostitution

 
Is California the New Nevada?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:36 PM

In gambling terms, that is. According to this article (originally from the L.A. Times), some observers expect California's gambling revenue to grow markedly, possibly even exceeding Nevada's gambling take by the end of the decade. Right now, there are 60,000 slot machines in California, and 220,000 in Nevada, and Nevada also provides more gambling options: "Unlike Nevada, California does not allow sports books, craps or roulette, although tribes have devised card games that mimic the classic casino games."

The article also claims that the growth in gambling in California is in part a response to the adoption of property-tax limiting Proposition 13.

Labels: California, gambling, Nevada, slot machine

 
The Berkeley Vote to "Decriminalize" Prostitution
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:21 PM

Measure Q is on the ballot in Berkeley:

If the initiative is approved by a simple majority Nov. 2, it would direct the City Council to lobby in favor of repealing state law that makes prostitution a crime. The Berkeley City Council in July went on record against the measure.

If passed, the measure would redirect city tax dollars to social services to help prostitutes, and direct police to make arrests of prostitutes and their customers the "lowest priority."

The quote comes from this article in the Tri-Valley Herald. Yesterday there was a conference of speakers opposed to the measure, with supporters demonstrating outside. Neither the supporters nor the opponents think that prostitutes should be arrested, however. Sort of makes you wonder who does support arresting prostitutes. Surely someone does, given the frequency with which arrests occur.

Berkeley faces a real problem here, in that a de facto decriminalization in one city, a city surrounded by areas of criminalized prostitution, very likely will lead to prostitution tourism. And as that tourism in turn will likely have public nuisances attached to it, Berkeley residents who favor prostitution legality or broader decriminalization might nevertheless find themselves opposing Measure Q. Isolated neighborhoods or communities surrounded by a sea of prohibition might do better with regulated, legal brothel prostitution or a more structured (and zoned) decriminalization a' la the Netherlands. These alternatives can reduce the public nuisance while still eliminating the risk of jail for at least some prostitutes.

Labels: arrests, California, Prohibition, prostitution

 
Another Newish Way to Consume Alcohol
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:22 PM

Maybe not all that newish. In case you already find the alcohol inhaler to be passe', you could try the commercial version of that old homemade standby, jello shots. Wet Willy's Edible Cocktails have been available for a year now in California through Impact Distribution of San Francisco. The Edible Cocktails are wine-based gelatin snacks, containing 12 percent alcohol. Impact previously distributed Zipper shots, which are a similar product based on hard liquor (and presumably containing higher alcohol levels). Anti-alcohol-abuse groups are concerned that the snacks might appeal to children, while the wine-based snacks are available in more venues then were those based on hard liquors. The Ventura County Star (registration required) has the story.

Labels: alcohol, California, inhaler, teens

 
Vicewire, 8/22/2004
- posted by Ryan @ 8:49 PM

1) A man is being charged with murder after a fire that started with wires and lamps used to grow his marijuana plants killed two firefighters.

2) Governor Schwarzenegger has given his okay for thousands more slot machines to open across the state of California. 25% of the profits will go to the state government, an estimated $200 million a year.

3) And the indictment for the University of Colorado has been handed down for those accused of using prostitutes to lure potential football players.

Labels: California, marijuana, prostitution, slot machine, Vicewire

 
On Knowing Your Blood Alcohol Content
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 12:10 PM

Generous Vice Squad reader Larry from California sends along this comment (and an apology to Larry for somehow getting his name wrong earlier -- now I am worried about the California part, too):

"It's illegal to drive with a blood alcohol concentration above a certain
level, but bars and restaurants have no obligation to provide tools for
their customers to evaluate their level of intoxication before driving.

Bars could have breath testing units at tables or in restrooms, or just
copies of the BAC chart that California's DMV sends me with my car
registration every year. Testing devices could have a maximum BAC
reading to prevent customers from competing to register high readings.

Obviously this idea has potential problems, such as

* Testing devices could be hard to maintain and guard against theft or
vandalism.

* Bar drinks can contain more than one standard drink, making a chart
hard to interpret and potentially misleading.

* Alcohol takes time to be absorbed so test results in the bar might not
reflect a drinker's blood alcohol later while on the road.

* Liability issues, although legislatures could certainly deal with this.

* A blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08% is definitely illegal in
most states but the opposite is not true. A driver can be considered
intoxicated even with a BAC below .08%.

More generally, government does not seem to want citizens to know how
much alcohol they're drinking. Proposals to label alcohol containers
with the number of standard drinks they contain have gone nowhere, even
though alcohol consumers might find that information helpful."

Until the mid-1990s, a federal law prohibited the disclosure of alcohol content on beer advertising or labels in the US, but this law was overturned by a Supreme Court decision. Presumably there is concern that advertising alcohol content will cause an "arms race" for higher and higher alcohol levels. (My year in Britain convinced me, perhaps wrongly, that the Brits must have a law requiring alcohol content disclosure on beers -- and it did seem that the higher alcohol content beer became more popular as closing time approached.) I believe that alcohol content disclosure is handled differently by different states in the US.

A bar/restaurant in North Carolina that I used to frequent briefly had a breathalyzer available to its customers. Its main use, as far as I could tell, was to encourage contests to record the highest BAC -- so Larry's suggestion of a maximum reading sounds good to me. (Maybe even just an above/below the legal limit indicator.) My recollection is that someone who is drinking steadily will see his BAC maximize about one-half hour after he stops consuming alcohol. (Please do not rely upon this information/misinformation; for that matter, do not rely upon anything posted on Vice Squad.)

In general, I just don't have much information on the rules/effects surrounding alcohol content disclosure, or on the provision of BAC measuring devices. Happy to hear from knowledgeable parties.

Here's a webpage that discloses the alcohol, calorie, and carb content of lots of beers.

Labels: alcohol, breathalyzer, California, driving, Supreme Court

 
Eureka's Forfeiture Law
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:10 PM

Vice Squad mentioned a couple days ago the possibility that the city of Eureka, California, would adopt an automobile forfeiture law aimed at those accused of loitering for the purpose of soliciting prostitution of for some drug-something-or-other. The City Council was supposed to decide on Tuesday. What happened? Well, the measure has been put on hold for the time being. It seems that the Eureka ordinance was modeled after one in Oakland. But the Oakland law is being challenged in the courts, so the City Attorney, according to this article from the Eureka Reporter, "said he thought it prudent that the City Council not adopt the amended ordinance until after the Oakland lawsuit is resolved."

Labels: asset forfeiture, California, drugs, prostitution

 
Eureka! Forfeiture or Worse to Combat Vice.
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:15 PM

Vice Squad mentioned in passing some time ago that the town of Eureka, California was thinking of seizing the cars of motorists arrested on prostitution or drug-related charges. Actually, it looks as if the arrests would be for loitering with the intent to engage in some prostitution or drug-related offense. Why stop there? Why not arrest people for thinking about loitering with the intent to engage in one of those verboten activities, or for filling up their gas tanks with similar intent?

The Eureka city council was scheduled to decide the issue today.

A civil liberties group came out against the forfeitures, of course, on various trumped-up grounds, including some involving that old chestnut of "due process." And sure, the car might belong in whole or part to some innocent person, but the US Supreme Court has already decided that their interest can be sacrificed to the greater good of deterring vice.

Oh, I just thought of a better idea. You see, not all the drug and strumpet mongering or purchasing that goes on out there is done by motorists -- some people walk or take the bus to areas in which they loiter with the intent to engage in wickedness. So the car seizures can't deter them, and might even cause car owners to switch to non-vehicular methods of arranging loitering. So why not destroy the home of anyone arrested for loitering with illicit intent? That should deter everyone except the homeless -- and you can provide housing for them out of the proceeds from sales of the scrap left over after the homes are destroyed! Yes, it's all coming together now.

Vice Squad has long been a fan of asset forfeiture provisions to combat vice.

Labels: asset forfeiture, California, drugs, prostitution, Supreme Court

 
Prostitution Policy Updates, Berkeley and Scotland
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:44 AM

Ongoing efforts in Berkeley to decriminalize prostitution look like they have come to naught, at least for the time being. According to this article in the Contra Costa Times (registration required), speaker after speaker showed up at a Council meeting last week to argue for decriminalization. But the speakers turned out not to have much pull with the Council: "That's when the truth of the maxim 'All politics is local' became evident. Councilmembers noted that all the supporting speakers were from Oakland. The only Berkeley speaker was Ted Kubik, who complained bitterly about what he called 'a plague of (prostitutes), pimps and johns' on San Pablo Avenue." The decriminalization proposals were effectively tabled. (Vice Squad's most recent post on Berkeley prostitution was on March 12.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, the informal tolerance zones for soliciting that previously have been employed in Edinburgh and other Scottish cities may be on their way back, decked this time in legal formalities. Representatives of Scottish city councils are preparing to support a measure in the Scottish Parliament that would provide the legal framework for prostitution tolerance zones. The rationale is harm reduction, of course. In Edinburgh, "Figures released earlier this year show the annual rate of attacks on prostitutes has soared from 11 to 111 since the old non-harassment zone was scrapped." (The longstanding informal prostitution tolerance zone in Edinburgh apparently collapsed when the area near the zone became more upscale.) The bill in the Scottish Parliament "would allow councils to establish designated red-light tolerance zones where it would no longer be illegal to solicit and where health checks and other support could be offered to the women." Vice Squad's most recent post on the Scottish tolerance zones was on March 4.

Labels: Britain, California, harm reduction, prostitution

 
Creativity Required When Reporting Drug Arrests
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:40 PM

An investigation is underway of a now-resigned officer from the Pittsburg, California police department. The officer is accused of falsifying reports of drug arrests. In the wake of the scandal, 10 to 15 misdemeanor cases and one or two felony drug cases have been dropped by the District Attorney. The falsification was uncovered because the reports tended to reproduce near identical purported dialogue, along the lines of "I used heroin earlier," and, to the query of where it was injected, "I'd rather not say." The police claim that the arrests themselves were not tainted -- i.e., that those arrested really were under the influence of drugs at the time of arrest.

Maybe if drug users nationally coordinate on precise language to tell the police....

Labels: California, drugs, policing

 
The Subcontracting Informant
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 2:38 PM

One of the underappreciated effects of criminalizing consensual adult activity is that you have to rely on innovative police methods to enforce your prohibition. Sure, you can try stings and reverse stings and dog sniffs and pretext stops, but there's always room, even a place of honor, for informants. Reward them generously enough -- perhaps through reduced jail time, or perhaps through direct monetary payments or a share of the forfeited assets -- and you can have as healthy a supply of informants as you could possibly want.

Mr. Guillermo Francisco Jordan-Pollito has earned some $350,000 in the last ten years by informing for the DEA (and another $50,000 for informing for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies). He's been involved in some 80 cases! That is quite a bit for one person, but you see, Mr. Jordan-Pollito actually heads an organization of informers. He hires others to arrange his drug buys for him.

This is all well and good, of course, an efficient procedure for uncovering drug offenders. The fly in this otherwise pleasant ointment, alas, is that the use of the subcontractors hasn't always been mentioned in the subsequent legal proceedings. What difference does it make, the Vice Squad reader might ask, given that the illegal drug transactions took place in any case? Well, one technicality, alas, is that the law still provides for entrapment defenses -- what if the subcontractors worked really, really hard, to try to set up the sale? Mightn't that be a case of entrapment?

Read all about it in this story (registration required) from the Los Angeles Times. (Thanks to MAP for the pointer.) Here's a somewhat lengthy excerpt:

Ronald O. Kaye, a former federal public defender now in private practice, uncovered Jordan-Pollito's use of "sub-informants" last year after combing through telephone records turned over to him by federal prosecutors in a methamphetamine-trafficking case.

The prosecution contended that the sub-informant in Kaye's case had done nothing more than introduce Jordan-Pollito to the three defendants. But Kaye was able to show that the sub-informant, Jose Agapito Gomez, made 29 telephone calls to the defendants during a one-week period leading up to their arrests. The defense attorney also documented 68 calls between Jordan-Pollito and Gomez during the same period.

After hearing arguments from both sides, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper ordered the government to disclose the names and file numbers of all cases in which Jordan-Pollito or Gomez had been employed and how much they had been paid.

When the prosecution refused to do so, Cooper tossed out the indictment and ordered the defendants freed.

"The government's representations regarding the use of confidential informants in this case have repeatedly proven to be unreliable," the judge stated in a strongly worded opinion. Cooper said that either the government did not know about the sub-informant's existence, which she called "highly unlikely," or the government deliberately lied to the defense.

If the government did not know, she went on, then its ability to monitor the activities of its undercover informants has been seriously compromised. And if the government did know and withheld the information from the defense, "that is an even greater evil," the judge wrote.

Cooper said it appeared at first that an entrapment defense was not feasible, because there were so few contacts between Jordan-Pollito and the defendants, and those tape-recorded encounters showed no pressure being applied by the DEA informant.

But the series of phone calls by the sub-informant to the defendants, which were not tape-recorded, supports "an inference that pressure was being brought to bear by the sub-informant, which could have been used to support an entrapment defense."

"A law enforcement agency must not be allowed to shield itself from accountability by hiring someone outside of law enforcement who is free to violate citizens' rights," she said.

Labels: California, drugs, informants, policing

 
Prostitution in Berkeley
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 2:57 PM

At the end of January, Vice Squad member Bernard noted efforts in Berkeley, California, to "decriminalize" prostitution. In reality, Berkeley cannot fully decriminalize, as prostitution violates state law, but a successful "decriminalization" would likely lead to diminished enforcement of anti-prostitution laws. The Oakland Tribune updated the story one week ago: the effort now is for the decriminalization question to appear on the ballot in November.

Prostitution enforcement brings on many of the usual ills of illicit markets, of course. Further, lots of otherwise law-abiding people find themselves publicly embarrassed and in legal trouble when arrested for prostitution-related crimes. The recent haul along these lines includes a New Jersey police chief, a Pennsylvania police officer (who allegedly was far from "otherwise law-abiding," actually), and a 76-year old California judge whose wife passed away in 1999. Some or all of the serious crimes alleged against the Pennsylvania police officer, involving agreements to drop prostitution charges in exchange for sex, also seem to stem from the criminalization of prostitution.

Labels: California, policing, prostitution

 
Decriminalize Prostitution
- posted by Bernard Bradshaw @ 3:21 PM

John Geluardi of the Contra Costa Times reports that a sex workers' rights group (Sex Workers Outreach Project) is mobilizing to put a ballot measure before Berkeley, California voters to decriminalize prostitution. If adopted the measure wouldn't change state prostitution laws, but local enforcement would become a low priority. In addition the city would be required to encourage the state legislature to repeal existing prostitution laws.

Labels: California, Prohibition, prostitution