
LA Is Trying to Fix Its Prostitution Problem by Banning Right Turns at Night - gotocake
http://www.thedrive.com/news/24324/la-is-trying-to-fix-its-prostitution-problem-by-banning-right-turns-at-night-and-it-might-be-working
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sathackr
So the signs are there so that the police have probable cause to stop someone
that they otherwise wouldn't have probable cause to stop.

Does anyone else see a problem with making otherwise perfectly legal and safe
behavior(turning on to a side street) illegal just to legalize an otherwise
unconstitutional traffic stop?

Seems like another slippery slope we ought not to be sliding down.

~~~
krishicks
Think of it another way: the locals overwhelmingly agreed to change the rules
because they probably understood that while they could adapt to the rule,
outsiders probably would not be as well-informed.

Someone making a right turn after hours paints themselves as a potential
outsider who doesn’t know the rules and, given the location’s history, is
probably there to solicit sex.

I like that the community was empowered to make this change.

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lawlessquestion
The city is empowered to make the change. The court are empowered to overturn
it as an unconditional restrictions on our liberty. Specificially the fourth
amendment The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by
oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and
the persons or things .

~~~
EGreg
That just shows how smart the idea is of having a constitution and separating
government powers.

And by the way, I guess UPS trucks can’t deliver at night now. Stuck between a
rock and a hard place mwahaha

[https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/02/16/world/ups-trucks-no-
left-...](https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/02/16/world/ups-trucks-no-left-
turns/index.html)

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gav
I live about three miles west of Western between Hollywood and Sunset, a
couple of blocks from where Hugh Grant was arrested in 1995. We still have
these signs up here, I can’t turn onto my street after 11pm.

What I find interesting is that these signs are still up even though the
problem they were trying to solve went away many years ago. It seems that
there’s nobody that looks to undo changes like this—government rarely gives
back the freedom it takes away—even if that’s simply the freedom to make a
turn at night.

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tardo99
So ... what do you do if you get home after 11pm?

~~~
nraynaud
I suspect you can use the grid to enter the street straight or by a left turn.
I know in Argentina I have seen weird interdictions like that where we had to
loop around the block.

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mindcrime
There is no "prostitution problem", other than meddling moralizers who want to
tell people what they can do with their own bodies. Legalize prostitution, get
the government out of the business of trying to control people's bodies, and
the "problem" goes away.

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zunzun
On the addiction relief program "Intervention" they showed a woman who said
that she had to inject heroin immediately before this type of work to make it
tolerable, and she also said that she found most disgusting to her was that
she had to pretend to enjoy what the clients did to her.

~~~
DoreenMichele
If you are really concerned about the horrors of prostitution, I recommend you
work on the Glass Ceiling issue in non sex worker industries so women have
more real options for well paid work.

~~~
googlryas
At what rate do you think women are driven into prostitution because they hit
a glass ceiling in their previous line of work?

Versus, you know, never getting off the ground floor?

~~~
DoreenMichele
I have six years of college, including a Certificate in GIS. I worked at a
Fortune 500 company for over 5 years. The only person at the company who knew
what GIS was without me having to explain it was a senior programmer who asked
me for a date, thereby making it vastly less likely that I could ever
successfully get a job in his department.

I've been a member of HN for over 9 years. I spent nearly 6 of it homeless. I
have been quite open about hoping to make professional connections here and
thereby improve my finances. I've made damn little progress on that goal. HN
has not proven to be a good means for me to network.

While homeless, there were a number of men who offered me money to sleep with
them or asked if I needed a place to stay (the implication being I could stay
with them in exchange for sex).

I've talked about this many times on HN. If I didn't have a serious medical
condition making sex work a non starter for me, I likely would have long ago
given up on finding another solution because I'm still dirt poor.

I was one of the top three students of my graduating class in high school and
I won a National Merit Scholarship. I don't lack talent. But most men don't
really want to talk to me in earnest unless they are looking for a sexual
relationship. It has proven to be a tremendous barrier to resolving my
financial problems and rejoining the middle class.

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skookumchuck
I've known many more or less unemployable people who started contributing to
significant open source projects, and based on that got hired to well paid
positions.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Thank you. That's both encouraging and a useful tidbit to help me find a path
forward.

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coldtea
First, they should ask:

Is there a prostitution problem? And what is the prostitution problem?

Is it the problem that prostitution is sinful? Then they could perhaps finally
come to the 21st century, and the problem is solved by itself.

Is the problem that prostitution is illegal? That's a self imposed problem,
they can just change the law (like other countries and some states/counties
have).

Is the problem that society has decided it shouldn't have prostitution? That's
valid, I guess, but they should ask to verify whether this is true, before
considering it a problem (and before making laws unilaterally. E.g. society
apparently didn't consider marijuana to be as much of a problem as lawmakers
made it).

Is the problem that prostitution is a dangerous and coercive environment? This
stems from it being illegal, and thus unregulated.

~~~
Claudus
It seems to me, that legalizing prostitution would be at the top of the issues
list for feminism.

Most of the arguments made in support of legal abortion could also be made for
legal prostitution.

Furthermore, there is a fair amount of research indicating that legal
prostitution reduces occurances of rape.

Although I suppose it would increase “liquidity” in the market, and reduce the
value of sex to a certain degree.

~~~
tomjen3
There is a "real-politic" feminism/feministic view where the goal is to
increase the value of women in the sexual market.

The value of goods sold will always be at a higher value when you have a
monopoly. Legal prostitution would get men sex for certain at a known cost,
whereas taking somebody out on a date is not certain to lead to sex. Keeping
prostitution illegal means the monopoly is strengthened.

BTW, here in Denmark, having sex for money is legal, but only the prostitute
can make money of of it (directly, anyway), which means that prostitutes can
outsource their protection to the police. In Sweden it is legal sell sex, but
not to buy it, which means they technically could call the police anyway, but
it will destroy their business -- and that the customers they do get are less
likely to obey they law and so are more likely to be violent.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
> having sex for money is legal, but only the prostitute can make money of of
> it (directly, anyway)

So how do brothels/"massage parlors" make money? Charge prostitutes? Sell
overpriced condoms?

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partiallypro
Won't this just become learned behavior? A lot of people that use prostitutes
are repeat customers, they're just going to learn to not turn right. Seems to
me that the turning right only serves to help police ticket or pull over
individuals that could even be lost. It's basically like a speed trap that
some neighborhoods enact to fund their towns and local police. Eventually it
will move from punishing their actual target, to punishing everyone for ticket
revenues.

Good luck getting it reversed. If there's one thing government is really good
at, it's not reversing bad laws once their purpose has been served, especially
if money becomes involved.

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dsfyu404ed
>the law gave police probable cause for a traffic stop, since plenty of people
at first ignored the signs. He added that such violations are especially
useful for regular patrol officers, who might not have the training or
experience to spot the signs of a potential sex-work transaction.

>"We used to stop cars all the time with the signs in Hollywood. The majority
of the time it was residents, but now and again we’d hit someone who picked up
a prostitute and catch them in the act

So basically now that LAPD goes fishing more often LAPD catches more fish.

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bvxvbxbxb
America is doing everything it can to run a Prohibition War on Prostitution by
driving it further underground and over-criminalizing poor and vulnerable
people (with the other 8 million in prison, more per capita than any other
country, save Seychelles, and possibly China with the Uygur concentration
camps). The moral panic "war" is lost: regulate and let people live. It works
in the UK and Europe. Oh yeah, American porn is somehow legal prostitution
with a video camera because it's "art" and "professional." Consistency fail
too. Maybe start making lots more "porn" that satisfies legal requirements and
then the oldest profession becomes legal.

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analogmemory
I lived in that area of LA for 5 years and wouldn't say it had a prostitution
problem. Sure there were some sex workers out, but it wasn't really causing
issues. Then again this was before they banned backpage/craiglist

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code_duck
I read the entire article trying to find the rationale on why this cuts down
on prostitution.

~~~
brokenmachine
They're bringing in a weird traffic rule so the police can selectively pull
over whoever they want who happens to make the mistake of falling in their
cunning illegal left-turn trap, thus giving the illusion of probable cause for
a traffic stop.

~~~
code_duck
I see. I was theorizing it cut down on certain circular cruising behavior,
perhaps, or the ability to pull off the road to drop off or pick someone up.

~~~
brokenmachine
Yes, it's a bit of a clickbaity title.

Another title could be, "LAPD is trying to misuse obscure traffic laws in
order to search people without probable cause".

But I guess that's clickbaity too.

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randyrand
It's odd that johns are described as "predation" when prostitutes are the ones
who benefit financially and the ones who least want prostitution punished.

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forkLding
What is the legal basis for outlawing prostitution? Seems like I've read so
many articles about "stopping" prostitution which have merely moved to another
form and continued on like this article stated.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I’d argue there isn’t any legal basis for any law, as claiming so is circular
reasoning.

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jamisteven
This reminds me of when San Fran proposed putting a net on the golden gate
bridge in effort to thwart suicide jumpers.

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rv-de
I'm from Germany. Maybe that is why I don't get it.

Does "banning right turns at night" mean that it is banned to take a right
turn at night? As in not being allowed to enter a crossing street in the right
direction?

ELI5, please. Thank you.

~~~
kgwgk
What is it that you don't get?

From the article: "The idea was to discourage people from picking up a
prostitute and pulling into a residential neighborhood to transact business."

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lapnitnelav
Looking forward to the army of automated drones patrolling around, checking
thermal imaging to catch people in the act.

Cue hundreds of horny teenagers in dismay. /cynicism

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emilfihlman
The GDPR screen is broken, any mirror?

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prolikewh0a
Late Stage Capitalism.

