Decrim vs Legalisation
This is a personal view, but, TLDR, Decrim isn’t going to happen in the UK, and hasn’t happened anywhere, (has it?). Not even in New South Wales, Australia, which is usually held up as the poster child for decrim..
Asking lawmakers – largely politician lawyers – for decrim gets their backs up because they hear, “chaos”. Which scares them. They get visions of wild loud brothel orgies in residential homes. Women touting for business on the street outside churches and schools.
What SW asking for decrim are really asking for is SENSIBLE LEGALISATION. And asking lawmakers for SENSIBLE LEGALISATION is something they can hear. (If they want to.)
“What do we want? To be treated like any other business!
When do we want it? NOW!”
Many SW say “decrim not legalisation” because they equate legalisation with “laws that will in effect still make it hard to do business”. Which is certainly one possible outcome, (hello Nevada, hello Nordic Model. But really FUCK OFF, Nordic Model).
But also, it can be like New South Wales, which even SW organisations call decrim, but is actually legalisation. It’s just the sensible type of legalisation.
It says no under 18s.
It says you can’t be on the street anywhere people live. (Which explains the escort mobile home trope in Outback Aussie movies).
Brothels – very widely defined, but include single worker premises – are governed by planning laws. You can’t open a brothel just anywhere, any more than you can turn a house into a bar, shop, hotel or office, without complying with local planning laws, which may allow, or may not. And the rules for running a brothel are very tough. If you fuck up just once, you can be closed.
However it does seem (my reading, and IANAL) that the law has a light touch approach to single worker premises, esp if it’s their own home, so long as they don’t operate in a way that disturbs the neighbours with noise/traffic etc. The sort of things that would get ANY home operated business closed.
So, for most SW operating as independents, or as workers in brothels in effect, the Gvt is off their backs. But it’s via sensible legalisation, NOT decriminalization.
Key Links