Excluding parts of Nevada including Las Vegas, there are laws in place everywhere in the United States that criminalize anyone that purchases or sells sex. A study was done in the United States from 2001 to 2010 and found the national average for prostitution related arrests a year to be 77,485 incidents (US and State Prostitution Arrests, 2001-2010  --  Legal Prostitution  --  ProCon.org). These are only a portion of the total number of women and men in the illegal prostitution industry. There are still all of the people that have not been arrested for these types of charges. When taking a look at the global numbers, we can see that the total number is much larger. The estimated amount of prostitutes in the world is 13,828,700 and the money spent on this is around 186 billion dollars. In the United States alone, 14.6 billion dollars is spent in the illegal prostitution industry (Melissa Farley). This industry is a vast and prosperous one to people involved. However, it is not prosperous to the prostitutes that work on the streets but to the people orchestrating the operations and prostitutes in brothels, the money is a good source of income.

The prostitutes, unlike the people receiving a majority of the money, have to endure and live with many hardships. Abuse towards the workers is an issue that both damages the person's body, and their mentality as well. The spread of sexually transmitted disease is also rampant through the illegal prostitution and trafficking world. These pains that the workers have to endure are extreme and uncommon for people not working in the paid sex industry. People can agree that all of these aspects of prostitution are terrible things and need to be changed somehow. I believe that the stance we have on prostitution is outdated. Where we once thought of prostitution as some demeaning job or activity to participate in, we create a legal industry of sex workers. I think that with the help of the government to legalize or decriminalize prostitution in the United States and to create a legal prostitution industry, the number of abuse related incidents and spread of sexually transmitted diseases will drop as well as remove the negative stigma of the activity. This will then create another source of income for the United States. By looking at countries with types of legalized prostitution and how they are faring and looking at exactly just how bad abusive effects the workers, government funded prostitution will seem to be a possible and realistic solution to the problem.

Most people will argue that there is no way that a taboo act such as prostitution would be able to become legalized. They say it is degrading and demeaning to the women working in the sex industry. However, the sex industry does not strictly encompass prostitution. Included with this are both pornography and workers of strip clubs. Not just the women and men who are performing, but the people managing, filming, or owners of a strip club are included in this category. This industry of sex workers is growing too. From 1995 to 2005, the amount of X-rated films released doubled, almost tripled, from 5,700 to 13,588. These figures are now miniscule with the boom of the internet introducing online pornography. A survey in 2008 was conducted and one quarter of Americans, thirty-four percent of men and sixteen percent of women, had admitted to seeing an adult film in just the past year. Over two decades, the number of strip clubs has also doubled to what is now 3,700. In 2006, 13.3 billion dollars was spent on the "sex for sale" industry including both videos and strip clubs but also phone sex lines and X-rated magazines (Ronald Weitzer). With this boom in these parts of the industry, we know that the prostitution industry has also increased. With such a huge audience of the United States population participating in just these parts of the industry and investing that much money into "sex for sale," it would give the legal prostitution of a large amount of customers from the get-go. In the legal Nevada brothels, the annual income is thirty-five million dollars while the Nevada government spends seven million on fighting it in the illegal parts.

Even with prostitution being illegal in most parts of the United States, fifteen to eighteen percent of men in the United States had admitted to purchasing sex at least once when polled. This percentage is similar to both Australia's and Europe's percentages (fifteen and sixteen percent respectively) (Ronald Weitzer). However, there is still the negative stigma attributed to prostitution so we can assume that not all men polled gave truthful responses. This means that the true percentage is higher. How much higher, we do not know. The true number of people to have participated in buying a prostitute when adding in the percent of women will bring it closer to the true number. This is far more uncommon to hear about, women buying male prostitutes, but there is still a percentage of women out there. We do know that there is a market out there. In 2013, the percentage of tobacco smokers in the United States had dropped to its lowest percentage of seventeen percent. Even with the lowest percentage the industry has ever seen, the projected profits are thirty-five billion dollars (Bahar Gholipour). A growing industry that has the same percentage as one profiting billions of dollars would be good for the government to take advantage of.

With this large percentage of men participating in purchasing sex from prostitutes, it is helping with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. "The main goal of a prostitute is to have sex with as many men as possible. This increases the money she earns but also increases the chance of her contracting a sexually transmitted disease and in turn, passing it on to her next customers" (Tesla Carrasquillo). These customers may not know they have contracted a disease and will then pass it onto their next partners and so on and so on. With government regulation, medical appointments would be made to make sure that the workers have a clean bill of health. In Amsterdam, the city informs its red light district workers of opportunities to have free or low cost clinics to find and treat sexually transmitted diseases. With such negative stigma that the United States has towards prostitution, workers are less likely to go to the clinics repeatedly in fear of being labeled dirty or disease-ridden. A change in policy of the government and a change of laws would also help to cause the workers to be more likely to go frequently to these clinics for check-ups.

Along with the improved health, the opportunity to report incidents of abuse to police would then be a viable option. "Prostitutes face a 'risk of premature death that is forty times the national average.'127 Studies of San Francisco street prostitutes showed that seventy percent of the prostitutes in the study were raped an average of thirty-one times by their customers and sixty-five percent of the women stated they were beaten by customers an average of 4.3 times" (Tesla Carrasquillo). These women were never able to report these incidents to police because they would in turn be questioned how something happened and would find themselves in trouble. The only people they are able to turn to are the "pimps" that are managing them. These people do not want to see harm to their "staff" because then they are not making as much money. If a girl is unable to work, they are sure to put a stop to it as soon as possible. However, prostitutes can't always turn to the people managing them. Seventy-eight percent of the prostitutes were raped, forty-eight percent by pimps an average of sixteen times per year. This type of abuse not only effects the worker physically but also mentally. Not being able to go to the police makes it easier for the "pimp" to control the worker and harder for the prostitute to leave.

In 1999, Australia enacted what is known as the Prostitution Act. This act greatly helps to incorporate regulations and a system into the prostitution world. 

Those who want to own or manage a brothel are required to apply to the PLA (Prostitution Licensing Authority) and complete and extensive police investigation of their background, associates, and financial situation. If this is successful, a significant annual licensing fees is payable (currently more than $10,000 per annum for owners). Also, the brothel premises are required to conform to local council planning laws. Whilelocal councils are not allowed to ban brothel business outright (except in small towns), brothels usually have to be located in industrial or commercial zones (Barbara Sullivan).

The fact that this is just a regulation for how a person is able to purchase a brothel and where exactly it is allowed to be located is a great sign. It shows how safe the prostitution industry can become with the correct regulations. An extensive background check for the person owning the brothel would not allow the characters of the people who manage the illegal prostitutes. This creates a safer environment and helps the workers themselves. It also helps to reduce the negative stigma of prostituting. With regulations to this extent, it is equal to owning any other business. This would help to remove the thought that prostitutes are lesser than other people.

With the help of the regulations, private workers are also able to be safer in practice. Private workers are sex workers that work from their own homes and don't have to be licensed.

However, it is illegal for a private worker to work with another sex worker or to employ a receptionist; they may employ a licensed security guard and (since 2009) can maximize their safety by making phone contact with another person before and after the job. Advertising by private workers is restricted and subject to approval by the PLA. As with all sex workers in Queensland, it is also an offense for a private worker to provide or receive sexual services without a prophylactic (or to make an offer in this regard) (Barbara Sullivan).

These laws allow a private worker to feel as safe as they want. Being able to have a security guard and notify someone before and after the job is performed are great ways to keep from being abused, forced to do something unwanted, or even worse, killed. Also, it is forcing the use of a prophylactic or at least the discussion to be brought up. This is great for reducing the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases among workers and customers. If the United States were to need help creating its laws, Australia having safety and security in mind would be a great template for the government to borrow. 

Something that all these regulations would help to reduce are cases of human trafficking in the United States. "In 2010, it was the second largest criminal industry in the world" (Jared Rayborn). This transportation of people for sex workers happens all over the world. Not only are the workers forced into sex work against their will, but they are separated from friends and family and transported to places they sometimes don't even speak the language of. They are out of place socially and have no one to turn to. "There are tens of thousands of individuals trafficked for sex and labor within the U.S. every year, and the majority of the victims are U.S. citizens" (Jared Rayborn). Oregon's government has proposed that a regulated prostitution would help to get rid of some of the cases of human trafficking. In taking the Nevada and Netherlands model and improving on it, they have proposed 

Each prostitute would be considered a state or county employee who receives all the benefits that come along with such a status. Furthermore, rather than simply authorizing brothels, the state should exclusively run them as state agencies in order to dedicate any and all net profit to a fund that is used solely to support trafficking enforcement infrastructure in Oregon (Jared Rayborn).

With this idea, they are implementing parts of the Australia regulations into theirs. With the authorization of brothels, they are taking it a step further. This regulated prostitution would be able to provide money for the government to get rid of more of the human trafficking and to create ways to make the public aware of what trafficking is. The state could also open up to private workers like Australia has done. They can allow these private workers to still have their freedom, create a union for individual prostitutes, and then the government can impose a small tax upon them to create more revenue to fight the human trafficking in Oregon. This would not allow all prostitution to be legalized, but only government funded and regulated types to not be penalized by the law. This would also make it easier for police to find traffickers by having a database to check of government approved prostitutes.

Government funded prostitution reduces the amount of abusive incidents as well as the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. This new industry will also provide a source of income for the government instead of going to an illegal market. For this type of idea to come into effect, the government would of course need to do some tests and find out if this is actually realistic in practice or to study the policy of countries that have already implemented a type of legal prostitution. I propose that the government decides to use Nevada as a test state for legalized and government regulated prostitution. This idea will be run and conducted in the same fashion that Colorado used when it became the first state with legalized and regulated recreational marijuana. We will take the laws implemented into the Australian government and change them to fit the needs of the United States and its people. If, after a testing period of a year, the results are good and done what was intended, the same laws be introduced into other states. When talking about good results, what is meant is a reduction in sexually transmitted disease as well as abusive instances. If these are accomplished, it shows that the plan is working and that the change in policy was for the better. A change is definitely needed to deal with this problem and I believe that this is the best answer to that.

