Is Britain taking the right approach to Prostitution Essay

Is Britain taking the right approach to Prostitution - Essay Example Prostitution is one of the last bulwarks of this way of thinking. In the course of this essay, prostitution in the UK will be examined and it will be argued that it should be legalized. Prostitution in the UK is a dangerous business. Female prostitutes are more likely to be assaulted and murdered and to have shorter lives (Castillo, 126). Prostitutes are often the victims of serial killers as we can see from the Ipswich murders in recent years. We need to find a way to regulate in order to keep sex workers safe. The truth is that under the current law, sex workers are at risk. They must conduct their business under cover of night and have little time to communicate with potential johns due to law prohibiting communication. As such, they are placed at higher risk. Indeed, the very fact that prostitution is not in itself illegal, is an indication of how society thinks it should be dealt with by police. Instead, the various ancillary crimes such as living off the avails of prostitution and communicating for the purposes of prostitution are illegal. This is hypocritical and endangers the lives of sex workers. For this reason, these laws should be struck down. They threaten the human rights of UK sex workers. It is easy to imagine scenarios where the current laws have been responsible for higher crime rates (Phoenix, 52). Take for instance an example of a lonely man who yearns for sexual interaction or intercourse and cannot find a woman who is easily willing to fulfil his sexual needs. It is possible his behaviour may lead him to rape or other illegal behaviour. This need not be the case if prostitution is effectively legalized. Or suppose a married man has a high sex drive then his wife and sometimes his wife is not always available to meet his sexual desires, his behaviour may lead him to abuse her. This too can be avoided if there is a legal outlet. Once prostitution is regulated, sex workers will have more health checks and will be safer. We should follow the l ead of our European neighbours and regulate prostitution (and take the tax revenue from it) rather than continue to criminalize it and force it into the darkest corners of society, where sex workers are most at risk. The very idea that prostitution is effectively illegal stands in the face of political freedom. The truth, in my opinion, is that the freest society is the best one. The government creates lots of laws in order to prevent people from making the most of their lives. Of course, some laws are necessary, such as murder is wrong, but many other laws serve no purpose: in the end they just create a â€Å"nanny state.† Libertarianism stands against needless laws and in favour of freedom. The government should play only the smallest role in our lives and should not tell us who we can and cannot sleep with. Libertarianism is a political philosophy that idealizes personal freedom and non-judgement (Nozick 32). More than ever before, people in the UK living in a Nanny State. A Nanny State is one that uses excessive state controls, for example, lots of unnecessary laws, to restrict its citizens’ freedom. It believes that it knows best and that citizens should follow its morality. Of course, there is a general feeling that certain things are wrong and should be discouraged or criminalized, but for proponents of the Nanny State, the government should seize control of actions and issues where there is no consensus and unilaterally impose its view of morality on these issues. We