PROSTITUTION has effectively been decriminalised by default in South
Australia, police disbanding the vice squad in the face of archaic laws and
parliament's unwillingness or inability to sort out the legal mess.
A police source told The Australian that police officers in the squad would
be transferred to the fight against organised crime, particularly that of
bikie gangs.
While a focus would remain on organised crime's involvement in brothels and
money laundering, the prostitute and his or her clients would now
effectively be free to go about their business, he said.
Police in the child exploitation unit would continue to be responsible for
combating child prostitution. Prostitution itself was seen by police as a
"health problem", not a police problem, the police source said.
The move comes after years of frustration in dealing with archaic laws that
did not even recognise the use of credit card or eftpos for the crime of
receiving money in a brothel.
Policing prostitution was "futile", the police source said, and good
relations with brothel owners served a more useful purpose in pursing
organised crime.
"There is very little negative interaction between police and brothel
owners - they know we're impotent," he said.
Police commissioner Mal Hyde has pushed for law reform, saying that in the
past 12 months police had arrested 52 people for prostitution-related
offences, 90 per cent of them streetwalkers, while no prostitute working in
a brothel had been prosecuted in the past two years.
Liberal MP Mark Brindal, who has introduced several bills to decriminalise
prostitution, said that if the parliament was incapable of drawing up
legislation recognising prostitution, it might as well repeal existing laws.
"Prostitution can't be reformed in the way it needs to be," Mr Brindal
said. "We need a bill to repeal the law so there is no law about
prostitution apart from laws about age of consent."
While the decriminalisation of prostitution in the state seems unlikely,
Attorney-General Michael Atkinson has rejected suggestions from the police
commissioner to amend existing legislation to allow law enforcers greater
powers to police prostitution.
Any attempt to update laws covering prostitution was futile because it
would not be passed in parliament, he has said.
Sex Industry Network manager Jenny Gamble said there had been a couple of
arrests recently of brothel owners for underage workers.
"But we know they haven't arrested anyone for several years for
prostitution," Ms Gamble said.
"To hear about the police disbanding vice shows they're allocating their
resources to areas that are more needy."
The move to disband the vice squad comes as a parliamentary committee
considers police resources.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6214469%255E421,00
.html
